CFP: "Mobilizing Asian Literature and Film..." ACLA Annual Meeting (15 Nov; 24-27 Apr; Long Beach, Calif))

Traveling People, Traveling Texts: Mobilizing Asian Literature and Film in a
Comparative and Global Context

Call for Papers

American Comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting
April 24-27, 2008
Long Beach, CA


Recent debates on redefining Area studies within the scope of globalization have spawned the reevaluation of the representation of Asian nations, and its conceptual validity in multiple disciplinary areas. As a result of global and transnational activities, movement of people and texts between Asia and "the west" has propelled a non-homogenous traffic between different geopolitical environments, bringing diversity to the practice of translation. Translation of cultures, in this sense, is more than a simple act of exchange; it also involves the circulation of meanings and the negotiation of difference through the reproductivity of culture. This dynamic energy of cultural reproductivity encourages the creativity of individuals and texts as active participants within global and transnational structures. Yet, to a large extent, these moving individuals and texts are still often reproduced as cultural symbols of national representations. This seminar proposes the investigation of Asian literature and film through various transnational, global, and interdisciplinary trajectories. Focusing on the concept of movement, in conjunction with this year's theme, "Arrivals and Departures," the seminar invites the participation of scholars whose research involve both the literary and filmic representations of Asian diasporic experience, internal and external immigration, (un)translatable national traditions, cultural (re)negotiations, etc, and the translational/transnational politics of text circulation.

Please submit paper proposals at the ACLA website:
http://www.acla.org/acla2008/?page_id=5

Seminar Organizer: E.K. TAN (entan@notes.cc.sunysb.edu)

E.K. TAN, Assistant Professor
Department of Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies
Stony Brook University