Alfred Lopez, author of Posts and Pasts: A Study of Postcolonialism
(SUNY), is seeking two or three strong essays to round out a collection
to be entitled Postcolonial Whiteness: A Critical Reader. The volume
will examine the interrelations between whiteness and the history of
European colonialism, as well as the status of whiteness in the
contemporary postcolonial world. The volume in its final form will
constitute a major contribution to both postcolonial studies and
whiteness studies. A major scholarly press is awaiting submission of
the full MS for review.
In its final form, Postcolonial Whiteness: A Critical Reader will
present a range of critical and theoretical responses to two fundamental
questions. First: What happens to whiteness after empire? What
transformations, for example, does the nation’s self-image undergo when
former colonial subjects return to London or Paris as citizens of the
erstwhile Mother Country? How do those cultural processes resemble—and
how do they diverge from—those experienced by whites of the former
oppressing class in South Africa who remain behind in the post-apartheid
state, to live and work alongside the newly empowered black majority?
What happens to whiteness, in other words, after it loses its colonial
privileges?
The volume’s second central question is perhaps more poignant and
difficult: To what extent do white cultural norms or imperatives remain
imbedded in the postcolonial or post-independence state a
part—acknowledged or not—of the colonial legacy? Here we may think of
any number of colonial-era discourses and practices, from the adoption
of the erstwhile mother tongue (whether English, Spanish, or French) as
the new national language, to the persistence of color-based
socioeconomic caste structures in former colonies such as Jamaica and
the Dominican Republic. These examples and many others point to the
stubborn persistence of whiteness as a cultural norm in many of the
postcolonial world’s official and unofficial cultural practices. Each
of the volume’s contributors will approach and examine some aspect of
these two central questions: of, on the one hand, whiteness’s radically
altered status in the postcolonial world, and on the other its lingering
(if not always acknowledged) influence.
Send 1-2 pp. proposals by October 31 to: Alfred Lopez, Department of
English, Florida International University, University Park, DM 453,
Miami FL 33015; or email proposals to<lopezal@fiu.edu>.
-- Al Lopez (lopezal@fiu.edu) English Department Florida International University=============================================== From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List CFP@english.upenn.edu Full Information at http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP/ or write Erika Lin: elin@english.upenn.edu ===============================================
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