RAFIL 3 will examine the relevance and role of four South and Southeast Asian “great writers” from the perspective of postcolonial literary theory. The Conference will focus on Rabindranath Tagore, Jose Rizal, Shahnon Ahmad and Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and their relationships with both vernacular and cosmopolitan South and Southeast Asian Literatures. These great authors will be discussed in papers presented by invited speakers.

We invite papers specifically discussing vernacular literatures in South and Southeast Asian nations in connection to these authors and the impact of their writings. The conference purports to be a simple but radical questioning of the usual perspective on postcolonialism that privileges the impact of the colonial experience and its aftermath on metropolitan languages and literatures.

The deadline to submit your paper is August 15, 2011