New Directions in Francophone Postcolonial Studies:

The Challenge of a Materialist Critique

A Workshop to be held on 10th June 2010 at The University of Liverpool

In collaboration with The School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies

CALL FOR PAPERS

There has been relatively little engagement in Francophone Postcolonial Studies with the recent materialist critiques of postcolonialism in the work of key scholars such as Neil Lazarus and Benita Parry. The need to introduce a materialist critique into consideration of the French‑language dimensions of postcolonial studies stems in part from recent considerations of the history of French colonialism and its cultural representations. These suggest that anti‑colonial dialogues with the French Republic were based on inequality at the material level, and that colonial expansion was dependent on the systematic use of actual rather than ‘epistemic’ violence. Anti-colonial activity depended on a range of tactics, such as militant action, legal and illegal participation in politics, performance and literary intervention.

Using materialist critiques of and from within postcolonial studies as a point of departure, this one-day workshop invites papers on the following themes:

· The role of violence in colonial expansion and anti-colonial resistance

· The ‘political turn’ in Francophone Postcolonial Studies

· Materialistic histories of colonialism

· Radical materialistic interventions within French Philosophy/Thought

· Négritude writers, Diasporas, Alternative Communities and their material circumstances

· Literary Studies and its relation to a materialist critique

· The place of materialist critique within Francophone postcolonial studies, considering periods in literature and history from before the 20th-21st centuries

There will be no registration fee for the workshop. The day will also include training sessions aimed at postgraduates on academic publishing and employability, which will be useful for postgraduates and young researchers at any stage of their academic careers.

250 word abstracts for 20-minute papers addressing themes and keywords in relation to materialist critiques within Francophone Postcolonial Studies should be sent by e-mail to Bart Miller (f.b.miller@liverpool.ac.uk) no later than 31st March, 2010.