By: Chelsea Wall
JOURNALS:
The Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=PLI
This journal seeks to provide a “forum for publishing research covering the full spectrum of postcolonial critical readings and approaches, whether these center on established or lesser known postcolonial writers or draw upon fields such as Modernism, Medievalism, Shakespeare, and Victorian Studies that have hitherto not been considered central to postcolonial literary studies, yet have generated some of the best insights on postcolonialism.”
Race and Class: a Journal on Racism, Empire, and Globalisation. http://rac.sagepub.com
“Race & Class is a refereed, ISI-ranked publication, the foremost English language journal on racism and imperialism in the world today. For three decades it has established a reputation for the breadth of its analysis, its global outlook and its multidisciplinary approach.” Topics covered include but are not limited to: globalisation, popular culture, postcolonialism, legacies of empire, culture and identity, militarism and empire, religion and race, and xeno-racism.
The Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies. http://jcpcsonline.com
“The Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies publishes interdisciplinary and cross-cultural articles, interviews, and creative writings on the literatures, the histories, the politics, and the arts whose focus, locales, or subjects involve Britain and other European countries and their former colonies, the now decolonized, independent nations in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, and also Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand.”
Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies. http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/riij20/current
This journal actually has it’s editorial office in the department of English at NYU and it’s website is pretty amazing to navigate via iPad. Subjects of interest include: the histories of imperialism and colonialism, the role of culture (academic, literary, and popular) in the operation of imperialism and the formation of resistance movements, liberation struggles, past and ongoing, the role of religion and culture in new nationalisms, the contemporary politics of identity, races and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, the economies of neocolonialism, diaspora and migrancy, etc.
BOOKS:
Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing by Ngugi wa Thiong’o (2012). “wa Thiong’o confronts the politics of language in African writing; the problem of linguistic imperialism and literature’s ability to resist it; the difficult balance between orality, or ‘orature,’ and writing, or ‘literature’; the tension between national and world literature; and the role of the literary curriculum in both reaffirming and undermining the dominance of the Western canon.”
The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South by Vijay Prashad (2014). “Prashad analyzes the failures of neoliberalism, as well as the rise of the BRICS countries, the World Social Forum, issue-based movements like Via Campesina, the Latin American revolutionary revival—in short, efforts to create alternatives to the neoliberal project advanced militarily by the US and its allies and economically by the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, and other instruments of the powerful. Just as The Darker Nations asserted that the Third World was a project, not a place, The Poorer Nations sees the Global South as a term that properly refers not to geographical space but to a concatenation of protests against neoliberalism.”
Postcolonialism and the Specter of Capital by Vivek Chibber (2013). “Postcolonial theory has become enormously influential as a framework for understanding the Global South. It is also a school of thought popular because of its rejection of the supposedly universalizing categories of the Enlightenment. In this devastating critique, mounted on behalf of the radical Enlightenment tradition, Vivek Chibber offers the most comprehensive response yet to postcolonial theory. Focusing on the hugely popular Subaltern Studies project, Chibber shows that its foundational arguments are based on a series of analytical and historical misapprehensions. He demonstrates that it is possible to affirm a universalizing theory without succumbing to Eurocentrism or reductionism.”
CONFERENCES:
The British Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies Conference. bcpcsconference.com “The British Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies Conference, inaugurated in 1992, is the oldest and longest-running annual meeting of its kind in the United States. It encompasses colonial and postcolonial histories, literatures, creative and performing arts, politics, economics, and all other aspects of the countries formerly colonized by Britain and other European powers. There is no restriction to any particular political/cultural ideology or to specific critical practices. The Colonial, Postcolonial, and Decolonized eras all are of interest. We welcome and seek to encourage a variety of approaches and viewpoints, and the generation of wide-ranging, productive debates. Interdisciplinary and cross-cultural, the conference offers scholars and researchers, teachers and students, the opportunity to disseminate and discuss their knowledge and understanding of the dynamic, important field of postcolonial studies.”
Postcolonial Studies Association Conference. http://www.postcolonialstudiesassociation.co.uk “We aim to help foster relevant work on, across and between such areas as anthropology, area studies, cultural studies, developmental studies, economics, gender studies, geography, history, international relations, linguistics, literary studies, political studies, sociology, and others. Though based in the UK, the PSA’s scope and membership are international, and the Association actively welcomes scholars dealing with non-Anglophone areas and subjects – particularly those that are not represented by existing research centres and groups.”
Cultural Studies Association Annual Conference. http://www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/conference While this conference is not geared toward postcolonialism explicitly, their website notes that they “welcome proposals from a range of disciplinary and topical positions, including literature, history, sociology, geography, politics, anthropology, communication(s), popular culture, cultural theory, queer studies, critical race studies, feminist studies, post-colonial studies, legal studies, science studies, media and film studies, material cultural studies, platform studies, visual art and performance studies.” Furthermore, this year’s theme is “Another University is Possible: Praxis, Activism, and the Promise of Critical Pedagogy.” They go on to note that “it expresses a commitment to the intellectual and political project of a radically different university. Moving beyond policy and pundit-driven discussions of the state and the future of higher education, we seek proposals that highlight socially-engaged scholarship and activism, and projects that explore the transformative possibilities embedded in the present. What forms and formations of research, pedagogy, praxis, and activism have emerged from the struggles being waged in, around, through, and in spite of institutions of higher education? What roles can culture, theory, imagination, and technology play in these struggles? Taking up cultural studies’ historical commitment to the interrogation of the relations among knowledge, power, and social transformation, the 2015 Cultural Studies Association conference seeks to provide an insurgent intellectual space for imagining, enacting, and mapping new forms of knowledge production and scholarly communication and community,” all of which I thought was particularly relevant to our last discussion in class.
UNIVERSITY PRESS SERIES:
Postcolonial Literary Studies Series by Edinburgh University Press “examines how Postcolonial Studies reconfigures the major existing periods and areas of literature. The books relate key literary and cultural texts both to their historical and geographical contexts, and to contemporary issues of neo-colonialism and global inequality. Each volume not only provides a comprehensive survey of the existing field of scholarship and debate, but is also an original critical intervention in its own right.” Titles include Modernist Literature and Postcolonial Studies, Romantic Literatures and Postcolonial Studies, Postwar British Literatures and Postcolonial Studies, etc.
Postcolonialism Across the Disciplines Series by Liverpool University Press “showcases alternative directions for postcolonial studies by opening up new dialogues between disciplines and by widening its traditional subject matter. It attempts to counteract the dominance in colonial and postcolonial studies of one particular discipline, literary studies, making the case for a combination of disciplinary knowledges as the basis for contemporary postcolonial critique.” Some titles I was particularly drawn to in this series include: Rhetorics of Belonging, Sacred Modernity, and Involuntary Associations
Oxford Studies in Postcolonial Literature by Oxford University Press.
SPEAKER SERIES:
The Graduate Center actually just had a speaker series in collaboration with the World of Matter project last month. The events were titled “Radical Materialism: Making the World Matter” and “A Critical Discussion of World of Matter.” There are several more events (“Rare Earth,” “The Infiltrators,” and “Malign Velocities”) in the upcoming weeks.
There is a seminar series held at Emory University that is titled “Interdisciplinary Workshop in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies” but I am unsure if this is still active.
The Postcolonial Studies Project at NYU hosts a variety of events, speakers, and colloquia throughout the year.
(I am unsure whether these are close to what you’re looking for, but I was having some trouble dredging these up.)
BLOGS:
Lal Salaam: A Blog by Vinay Lal. Reflections on the culture of politics and the politics of culture. https://vinaylal.wordpress.com
Amardeep Singh’s blog: www.electrostani.com
Roopika Risam’s blog: http://roopikarisam.com/blog/
INSTITUTIONS ON TWITTER:
@ThePostcolonial is a publication for academics, journalists, artists, and activists focused on the Global South.
@JCLJournal is the twitter page for The Journal of Commonwealth Literature.
@WorldOfMatter is the twitter page for the World of Matter (obviously) which is an international project focusing on patterns of resource exploitation.
@RSCPostcolonial is the twitter page for the Stockton Postcolonial Studies Project.
SCHOLARS ON TWITTER:
@electrostani – Amardeep Singh, literature professor at Lehigh
@zeithistoriker – Quinn Slobodiam, a Postcolonial historian of Germany/professor of history at Wellesley
@ProfJohnMcLeod – John McLeod, professor at University of Leeds
@adelinekoh – directer of the Digital Humanities Center and literature professor at Stockton
