AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER - UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
 

Call for Papers: 'Beyond Deconstruction - Engaging Colonial Knowledge', 09/06



BEYOND DECONSTRUCTION - ENGAGING COLONIAL KNOWLEDGE

AN INTERDISCIPLINARY WORKSHOP AT KING'S COLLEGE,

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE,
15-16 SEPTEMBER 2006.

CALL FOR PAPERS DEADLINE: 15 MAY 2006.

Participants and Discussants:

Prof. Nicholas Thomas (Goldsmiths College, University of London) Prof. C.A. Bayly (St. Catharine's College, Cambridge) Prof. Megan Vaughan (King' College, Cambridge) Dr. Richard Drayton (Corpus Christi, Cambridge) Dr. James Leach (King' College, Cambridge)

Please submit a 500 words abstract and a brief exposition of current research and interests, by email to:

Dr. Kim A. Wagner: kaw32@cam.ac.uk

Mr. Ricardo Roque: rnar2@cam.ac.uk


ENGAGING COLONIAL KNOWLEDGE

In the long history of overseas expansion, an immense and diverse collection of Western texts, images, drawings and maps relating to various parts of the world, has been produced - part of which survives today in
archives and libraries. Colonial representations of foreign peoples, their cultures and practices, make a claim to knowledge, the claim that a reality was being apprehended and described, either scientifically or simply as
the outcome of lived experience. These representations have for long been taken at face value as veracious and balanced accounts of distant and exotic places. Within the last three decades of the 20th century, however, this colonial knowledge has increasingly been criticised as expressive of a biased Eurocentric understanding of what the Asian, African, or American indigenous worlds were about. This line of approach, inaugurated by Edward Said's seminal book Orientalism, has stressed the necessity of dealing with those texts more critically with regards to the context in which they emerged. Colonial knowledge was inextricably embedded in the projects of colonial power, or simply trapped within Western constructs, which recast these phenomena as outlandish. More recently, and due in part to the growing influence of literary theory to historical investigation, critics have claimed colonial knowledge presents no more than an inverse mirror-image of Western cultural values. These critics reduce the issue of colonial knowledge to a matter of textual constructions and misrepresentations, where historical events and notions of 'proof' and 'evidence' tend to be dismissed as hopelessly positivist. This workshop is an attempt to reach an alternative to these methodological problems. How can we engage with colonial knowledge? In many cases accounts expressive of the values and sentiments of colonial knowledge are the only tools available with which to approach the history of other cultures. Do colonial accounts of noble and ignoble savages, assassins, cannibals, thugs, head-hunters, pirates, scheming eunuchs and debauched sultans have no further interest beyond confirming our preconceived notions of the biased nature of Western constructs? What use, then, can we make of this repertoire that is not limited to a rejection of its value as evidence beyond the text itself? This workshop invites contributions from all fields that address these theoretical and methodological issues by engaging with empirical material. It invites scholars to go beyond the dichotomy of colonial and post-colonial approaches; while, the critique or 'deconstruction' of colonial knowledge can constitute a point of departure, it is not an end in itself.

STRUCTURE OF THE WORKSHOP

The workshop is designed as an intensive exchange of ideas and group discussion; accordingly a limited number of participants will be selected.
We expect graduate and post-graduate scholars from the fields of the humanities and social sciences to participate. Participants are expected to submit a substantial piece of written work, which will be pre-circulated among all participants. So as to stimulate discussion we will invite senior scholars to comment on individual essays. General discussion will follow
the discussants' commentaries. A talk on the exhibition of colonial history and cultural exchange will be given by Prof. Thomas on the first day of
the workshop. Publication of the papers as a special issue of a journal, or as a book, is planned as an eventual outcome of the workshop. The working procedures will be as follows:

1. Selection of participants: The participants will be chosen on the basis of a 500 word abstract of the paper, and a brief summary of current research and interests. 2. Pre-circulation of papers: participants are required to submit, by 15 July 2006, a 6000-8000 words paper that should be both theoretical and empirical. Papers will be circulated to the discussants and to the other participants. 3. Discussants: Discussants will respond to specific papers, and are expected to contribute to the general debate. The discussants are: Prof. C.A. Bayly (St. Catharine' College, Cambridge), Prof. Megan Vaughan (King' College, Cambridge), Dr. Richard Drayton (Corpus Christi, Cambridge), and Dr. James Leach (King' College, Cambridge). 4. Presentation and discussion of the individual papers: The presentations will be divided into 4 sessions, 2 morning and 2 afternoon sessions (about 6 papers per day). Speakers will be allowed about 1 hour for presentation and debate. Participants have 5 minutes to give a brief introduction or context to the paper. Comments by the discussant will follow (15/20 minutes), and then the participants' response (5/10 minutes).
The remaining 25/30 minutes will be used for discussion open to all participants (these times are merely indicatory). 5. Keynote address: 'Exhibiting colonial history and cultural exchange' by Prof. Nicholas Thomas (Goldsmiths College, University of London). This talk outlines 'Oceania', a major exhibition project in progress, which explores colonial histories and cross-cultural exchanges through art and material culture.

VENUE

The workshop will take place at King's College, Cambridge, on 15-16 September 2006. The number of active participants will not exceed 12, plus invited discussants; in total no more than 20, allowing for guest participants. A workshop dinner will be held on the evening of the first day of discussion and accommodation will be available for a limited number of participants.

Organisers:

Dr. Kim A. Wagner
Research Fellow
King's College, Cambridge
Email: kaw32@cam.ac.uk

Mr. Ricardo Roque
Ph.D. candidate
Darwin College, Cambridge
Lecturer
University of Azores, Portugal
Email: rnar2@cam.ac.uk



Page Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Ph.D.

Previous Menu Home Page What's New Search Country Specific