CFP: New Readings in the Literature of British India (10/1/06; collection)

Call for contributions: New Readings in the Literature of British India,
c.1780-1947 ‎contracted edited collection (abstracts 1 October 2006, completed
essays 1 February 2007)‎

Does a queer theory reading of Ackerley’s Hindoo Holiday liberate or
reinscribe this ‎thinly-fictionalised memoir from its colonial context(s)? Does a
perception of the ‎unintended, unwelcome, even insurgent Indian reader haunt
the early short fiction of ‎Rudyard Kipling? Does a reading of the debate
raging over the 1857 Matrimonial ‎Causes Act reshape our understanding of Flora
Annie Steel’s ‘Mutiny’ novel, On the ‎Face of the Waters? Is the imaginative
and ideological ‘location’ of Mulk Raj Anand’s ‎Untouchable Bloomsbury
rather than Punjab? How does a reading of the reception and ‎publication history
of Fanny Parkes’ Wanderings of a Pilgrim reflect the British debate ‎between
Anglicist and Orientalist thinking? And who were Eliza Fay’s intended ‎
readers?‎

New Readings provocatively invites its contributors to newly interrogate and
contest ‎established readings of canonical texts, as well as offer new
readings of critically ‎neglected works. Contributors are encouraged to interpret
the term ‘literature’ as ‎broadly as they wish, including within its
permeable boundaries both fiction and non-‎fiction, verse and prose, essay and
memoir, drama and travel writing. As such, each ‎essay in the collection should
offer a close and stimulating new reading of a specific ‎literary work.
Contributors are free to adopt whatever literary critical perspective they ‎feel
will be most productive in offering a new reading of their chosen work, but they
‎must offer a sustained close reading of their chosen text. This volume will
aim to ‎demonstrate the rich, conflicting and often coextensive diversity of
interpretation ‎opened up by the concept of ‘new readings’ of, and in, the
literature of British India ‎from a variety of critical and heuristic
positions. ‎

Please register your interest in this project by sending an abstract of
c.500 words and a ‎brief CV by the deadline of 1 October 2006 to the editor, Dr
Shafquat Towheed at ‎SSTowheed_at_aol.com with the heading ‘Literature of
British India’. Accepted ‎contributors will have until 1 February 2007 to submit
their essays, which should ‎ordinarily be between 10,000 and 12,000 words in
length and should conform to MLA ‎guidelines (citations in parentheses and a
list of works cited). This book has been ‎contracted by Ibidem Press to appear
in its ‘Studies in English Literatures’ series and it ‎is anticipated that
publication will be in the summer or autumn of 2007 (in time for the ‎‎2008
Research Assessment Exercise). Contributors will retain the copyright to
their ‎essays and will be entitled to publish them elsewhere. As a paperback
publication, it ‎will be available for adoption on undergraduate and graduate
courses.‎

Dr Shafquat Towheed
Institute of English Studies, University of London and The Open University
SSTowheed_at_aol.com ‎
Tel: (+44) 02084496539‎

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Received on Fri Aug 04 2006 - 09:25:59 EDT