- 2019 Conference: Postcolonial Punctuation/s: Demarcations, Interventions, Transgression
From October 3-5 2019, the Forum was hosted at WWU Münster, and it was chaired by Julian Wacker and Felipe Espinoza Garrido.
The conference interrogated the practice of punctuation in anglophone postcolonial texts. Drawing on Jennifer DeVere Brody’s notion of punctuation as performative acts, it explored how punctuation may emphas!ze, que?tion, con-join, se/parate, destabilize*, “borrow”, ‘ironize’, tra_verse & punc.tuate in and across various postcolonial textualities – whether in oral, print, or online cultures. The forum asked how postcolonial textualities engage and engender punctuation, and how punctuation can challenge and subvert dominant hegemonic epistemologies, as the multiple punctuated differentiations in the field of gender studies have done. What is more, the forum also worked to extend the idea of punctuating along the following questions: How do postcolonial texts punctuate and perforate dominant epistemological regimes? How is formal punctuation implicated in these processes? How does punctuation affect and create meaning?
Read the CfP and final conference program here.
- 2018 Conference: Moving Centers & Traveling Cultures
The 2018 Postcolonial Narrations Forum took place from October 10-12 at Goethe University Frankfurt, and was chaired by Hanna Teichler, Magdalena Pfalzgraf, and Silvia Anastasijevic
The 2018 edition of “Postcolonial Narrations” interrogated how contemporary forms of movement and their representations in the domains of art, literature, and media transform received notions of nation and culture. Following the idea that forced and/or economic migration, displacement, and other forms of movement fundamentally affect collectives, established power hierarchies, and discourses of national and cultural identity, the conference brought together a variety of papers that you can find in the program here.
Read the 2018 CfP.
- 2017 Conference: Memory and Media: The Making of Postcolonial Histories
The 2017 Postcolonial Narrations Forum took place from October 5-7 at the University of Erfurt.
Hosted by Antonia Purk and Kerstin Howaldt, the fifth edition of the interdisciplinary graduate forum “Postcolonial Narrations” explored the relationship of postcolonial memorial practices and media. It invited young scholars to approach the conference topic through various lenses, including the relationship between memory(making) and media (e.g., literature, photography, film, mass media, social media, architecture, fashion, music, etc.), entanglements of past and present in postcolonial cultural production, and (re)mediations of traumatic histories.
Read the 2017 CfP. You can also access the conference program.
- 2016 Conference: Expressing the Postcolonial – Approaches to Verbalize the Unspeakable
The 2016 Postcolonial Narrations Conference took place October 9 – 11 at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich.
The conference focused on the diverse strategies, means and forms of “Expressing the Postcolonial”. The conference invited junior researchers to investigate the range of potential expressions for different conceptualisations of postcolonial identity and experience, deliberately broadening the scope to include literary, linguistic and cultural interpretations of the term.
Read the 2016 Call for Papers.
- 2015 Conference: Empire & Neurosis
The third Postgraduate Forum “Postcolonial Narrations” took place at University of Duisburg-Essen (Campus Essen), October 8-10, 2015.
The conference focused on the interconnections between imperial practices and neurosis. The forum theme proposed to investigate the range of ‘neuroses’ that are generated by or connected to colonial or imperial experiences, but transcended any strictly clinical meaning of ‘neurosis’ and expanded into philosophical, literary, and metaphorical implications of the term.
Read the 2015 call for papers and the 2015 program and abstracts.
- 2014 Conference: Reading Across Cultures: New Comparative Approaches in a Globalized World
The second Postgraduate Forum “Postcolonial Narrations” took place at Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main, September 21-23, 2014.
The conference focused on comparative approaches to postcolonial anglophone literatures and cultures in an era of globalization. PhD students and Postdocs who work in the fields of anglophone literatures and cultures, postcolonial studies and cultural studies were invited to present research that employs, discusses or problematizes transcultural, transnational or transregional frameworks.
Read the 2014 call for papers and the 2014 program and abstracts.
- 2013 Conference: Challenging Boundaries: Postcolonial Narratives and Notions of the Global
The first Postcolonial Narrations conference took place in Göttingen in 2013. The conference theme was “Challenging Boundaries: Postcolonial Narratives and Notions of the Global”. Here you can find the 2013_Conference Report and here the 2013_Poster.
