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Call for Papers Theme: Rethinking Humanities and its Entanglements Type: International Web-Conference Institution: Amity Institute of English Studies and Research, Amity University Kolkata Location: Online Date: 5.–7.8.2020 Deadline: 19.7.2020 __________________________________________________ The thinking of humanities has always been haunted by questions concerning its efficacy and specificity. The ambiguous constitution of science, as a discipline absolutely separate from the thinking of humanities, has already been challenged since many generations. The central focus, in such questioning, has been the common tendency to problematize and expose the epistemological politics at work, in the shaping of truth, through disciplinary preferences. With the passage of time, the ‘bio’ and ‘techno’-political concerns shaping the question of intelligibility, has drawn more critical attention, forcing one to rethink the anthropocentric understanding of epistemological efficacies. Thus, nonhuman spaces, machinic becomings, cyborgs, and questions of species-memory started reminding not only the limits of thinking epistemological specificities but also the urgency for newer conceptual interventions. The recent turns like posthumanism and new-materialisms (among others), though have attempted to critique the universalism of the ‘global’ humanist/humanities subject, yet such search of alterity too had been characterized by many internal contradictions. Thus, though Colebroke’s assertion on the necessity of turning towards a ‘posthuman humanities’ remain operative as such continuous necessity of searching for alterity, yet as an act any attempt at turning for ‘alterity’ remain always contingent. New-materialisms, for example, has therefore emphasized much on the concepts of ‘entanglement’ and refractive reading to emphasize on the irreducible interstices shaping our epistemological understandings always in partial perspectives. As such, while one may look for an exploration of an assimilatory (and not exclusionary) disciplinary approach gesturing towards what Spivak calls the condition of ‘planetarity’, the question that continues to haunt us is how to do that? The recent pandemic has reminded again of such limits and the unavoidable condition of mutual dependence as part of species chain, instead of holding on to the privileged onto-theological status of ‘mankind’. The urgency of understanding the ‘self’ from an-other’s perspective (to use Spivak’s phrase from The Death of a Discipline) has acquired more immediate and ambiguous non/positionalities, since the marginal nonhuman other has now emerged in the form an invisible microbiological species threatening the very existence of the most powerful and most visible species. At this juncture, can one continue to hold on to the anthropocentric ideas of humanities or can the disciplinary boundaries be maintained exactly without any threat of disruption? Questions of bio/techno-politics, identity construction and intelligibility had always been inextricably linked with the question of thinking humanities, the urgency now is to rethink those entanglements again, as we continue to witness the slow movements of (trans)disciplinary paradigm shifts. To explore such concerns and rethink the very ‘idea’ of what the doing of humanities stands for in such shifting times, some of the areas the conference proposes to engage with (however not limited to) are as follows: - Rethinking humanities, science and interdisciplinarity - Postcoloniality and the question of decolonial - Aesthetic Education, Globalization and the Question of Ethics - Subjectivity, Performance and Identity - Labour, Capital and Value - Gender, Desire, and Liminality - Anthropocene and posthuman philosophy - Environmental humanities and sustainable development - Digital humanities and technopolitics - Micropolitics of the Social If someone’s interest lies in literary studies, humanities, social sciences or if someone belongs to any discipline but interested in exploring the disciplinary entanglements, this conference aims at providing a platform to explore the thinking of disciplines in newer and more critical ways. The conference thus promises to provide everyone with not simply a platform where one can share their ideas with the academic experts but also one where one can engage with, inter-act and learn from some of the most celebrated academic names who had been contributing world-wide with their works for many years. Interested scholars are therefore requested to submit their proposals/abstracts (maximum 500 words) with name, institutional affiliation and contact address at aukengl...@gmail.com by July 19, 2020. Registration link: https://forms.gle/yxTjkVUCdVZEm8an9 Proceedings: Selected papers of outstanding quality will go through blind peer-review process and will be considered for publication in internationally reputed indexed journals. Registration Fees: Not Applicable Keynote speakers - Nigel Wood, Professor of Literature and Head, School of Humanities, Loughborough University - Ankhi Mukherjee, Professor of English and World Literatures, Wadham College, University of Oxford - Anirban Das, Associate Professor of Cultural Studies, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta - Cecile Malaspina, Directeur de Programme, College International de Philosophie, Paris and Visiting Fellow, Kings College London Contact: Amity Institute of English Studies and Research Amity University Kolkata Email: aukengl...@gmail.com __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: https://interphil.polylog.org InterPhil List Archive: https://www.mail-archive.com/interphil@list.polylog.org/ __________________________________________________
