Call for Papers “Considering the Western Sahara : Multi-Discipinary Approaches to Post-Colonialism”

Special Issue on the Western Sahara for the journal Transmodernity Co-edited by Adolfo Campoy-Cubillo and Jill Robbins

This special issue aims to provide an interdisciplinary assessment of the representations of the unresolved colonial conflict in Western Sahara. We invite articles that examine the issue from a variety of angles. Some articles might assess ways in which cultural production on the region addresses the impact of the conflict on the West, including the implications of the apparent failure of the post-national project of a united Europe, the opposed interests of Spain and France in the region, the increasing diplomatic prominence of China in the Maghreb, and the changing position of the U.S. Other articles might adopt the perspective of the Arab and African worlds. How does the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic understand its position in the world ? What is the role of Saharawi cultural production in promoting that vision ? Still others might focus on neoliberalism, globalization and universal human rights. How are political and economic strategic positions packaged and distributed by the cultural industries ? How do contemporary representations of the conflict reconcile the apparently irreconcilable notions of national identity in a transnational economic and political order ? How are economic and cultural notions of human rights used to argue for and against the independence of Western Sahara ? What are the main strategies deployed by both sides of the conflict to advance their position in the arena of public opinion ? How do novels, poems, films and documentaries on Western Sahara coincide or differ from other postcolonial cultural production ?

Please send a 250 word abstract by February 28, 2015 to Jill Robbins (jillrobbins@austin.utexas.edu) or Adolfo Campoy-Cubillo (campoycu@oakland.edu).

Adolfo Campoy-Cubillo is an assistant professor of Spanish at Oakland University. His research interest include the Hispanophone literature of the Maghreb and the connections between Colonial Morocco and the so called Edad de Plata of Spanish literature. He is the author of Memories of the Maghreb : Transnational Identities in Spanish Cultural Production (Palgrave, 2012), "La literatura postcolonial española del Magreb" published in Contornos de la narrativa española actual.(2000-2010). Un diálogo entre creadores y críticos (Iberoamericana, 2010), “Representation and its Discontents : Maghrebian Voices and Iberian Diversity.” Transmodernity Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World (Fall 2013), “An Interview with Esther Bendahan” European Judaism 2 (2014), as well as an annotated edition of Ramón J. Sender’s novel Imán co-edited with Borja Rodríguez Gutierrez (Stockcero, 2014). He is currently working on the interconnections between the Spanish colonization of Morocco and the rearticulation of the Spanish political field during the 1920s.

Jill Robbins is Professor and Chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Texas at Austin, and Past President of the AILCFH (International Association of Hispanic Women’s Literature and Culture). She is the author of two monographic books, Crossing Through Chueca : Lesbian Literary Culture in Queer Madrid (2011) and Frames of Referents : The Postmodern Poetry of Guillermo Carnero (1997) ; editor of the book, P/Herversions : Critical Studies of Ana Rossetti (2004) ; and co-editor with Roberta Johnson of Rethinking Spain from Across the Seas, a special issue of the journal Studies in XX/XXI Century Literature (2006). She has published numerous articles and book chapters about poetry, film, narrative, and the book industry, including an article about the Western Sahara, “Celebrity, Diplomacy, Documentary : Javier Bardem and Sons of the Clouds : The Last Colony,” forthcoming in African Immigrants and Contemporary Spanish Texts : Crossing the Straits (Ed. Debra Faszer-McMahon and Victoria Ketz, Ashgate Press). She is currently working on a book about poetry, violence, and trauma in relation to the March 11, 2004 train bombings in Madrid.



Autres breves publiees dans cette rubrique