THEME: HISTORY, MEMORY, IDENTITY AND CREATIVE IMAGINATION IN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
Venue: University of Yaounde I
Date: 3 - 4 June 2010
Organized by the Department of African Literature and Civilizations, the University of Yaounde I, in collaboration with the Department of English of the University of Yaounde 1 and the Department of English of the University of Buea
Under the distinguished patronage of the Minister of Higher Education of Cameroon
The "Tala Symposium", scheduled to take place at the University of Yaounde 1 on the 3rd and 4th of June 2010, is aimed at celebrating Professor Tala’s professional achievements in the academic world and beyond, given that he has worked in various capacities: as educationist, administrator, and politician. It will provide the opportunity for his colleagues, friends and students to deliver papers and reflect on some of the research and teaching disciplines that he has been involved in in the last thirty-two years.
The symposium, then, is interdisciplinary and cross-cultural in nature. It will offer researchers, teachers and students, the opportunity to disseminate knowledge and discuss their understanding of the dynamics of history, memory, identity and creative imagination in language and literature. The overarching goal of this project is to examine the interrelationship of history, memory, identity and creative imagination and their relevance in the contemporary world. The symposium investigates the ways in which ideas and politics of community are being reformulated in the aftermath of independence, which legislated separateness and reinforced boundaries of in/exclusion. Thus the symposium equally explores the ways in which history is invoked and historical atrocities are addressed in language and literature. The following questions are of particular interest to the convenors:
• How are possible futures mapped out in relation to these histories?
• To what extent and to what ends are landscapes and bodies staged as sites of violence, or borders staged as sites of interchange in postcolonial literatures?
• How and for what purpose do we use memory?
• How do we account for the resurgence and persistence of African indigenous knowledge in the continent and the African Diaspora?
Sub-Themes
Language
• Imagination , Language Acquisition and Language Learning
• Defining, Developing, Refining, Maintaining the Mother Tongue
• The Interface between Language and Literature
• Language Policy
• Language Varieties/ Multilingualism
• Language Contact and Bilingualism
• Ecolinguistics
Literature
Sites of Memory
• Memory and communication models of African culture
• Memory and African indigenous knowledge
• Memory and the muse of History
Migration, Diaspora, Hybridity, Identity and Borders
• Intercultural/Cross-cultural issues in literature and performance
• Rereading identities: towards a politics of dislocation and relocation of cultures
• The myth that write us: towards an invigoration of identities , communications and imagination
• Betwixt and between tradition and politics: towards an invigoration of identities , communications and imagination
• Literary globalization and postcolonial literature
Theory and Criticism
• Bioethics, Ecology, Ecocriticism
• Approaches to the study of literature
• Feminism and Dynamics
• Rethinking Culture: History and Theory
Gender, Culture and Society
• Culture, tradition and the nation in postcolonial literature
• Women, gender, and power
• The place of gender in African literature
• Literature and Culture
• Stereotypes and roles
• Gender and culture
• Women’s bodies as sites for colonial ideas of imprisonment and opposition ideas of freedom
• Reading as a woman, Writing as a Woman
Orality and Performance
• The dynamics of oral literature
• Myth , literature and identity,
• Heroic Traditions
• Literature as a transformation of inherited traditions
• Critiquing society through storytelling, poetry , popular culture and song
• Cultural assertion and identity negotiation
• Theatre for Development (TfD)
Abstracts are to be directed to: talakashimconfab@yahoo.com on or before the 15th of April 2010.
Conference Convenor:
Nol Alembong
Chair, Department of African Literature and Civilizations,
University of Yaounde I
P.O. Box 8493 Yaounde, Cameroon
Telephone: (237) 22 00 97 94
(237) 22 00 99 23
Fax : (237) 22 31 66 21
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