51茶馆

We invite you to wade into the sea of time鈥攍iterary, historical, cultural, personal, political鈥攖o bring forth the textual residues which intrude: the recurring narratives and voices of the past that refuse to be silenced. Jacques Derrida鈥檚 theory of hauntology examines how the past intrudes upon the present. Derrida鈥檚 theory provides one possible framework for engagement; we welcome any close-readings and interdisciplinary analysis that account for recurrence within a text and/or explore the liminal spaces between reality and what could have been.听

As such, what specters recur throughout your text? Why do particular ideas continue to haunt authors throughout history? What can be achieved with or found in recurrence, historicity, lost futures, oscillations between text and author, and the tractability of identity? How do historical narratives inform fictional voices? How can lost futures which 鈥榯alk back鈥� in social and cultural memory guide us in decolonial imaginings and radical textual action? How do past events鈥攍ike colonialism and subjugation鈥攊nform present literary works or a character鈥檚 interiority? And most importantly, what do we do in the present, now, with these recurrences?

Submissions for paper presentations (approximately 15 minutes in length) should be submitted in the form of an abstract by January 15, 2024 to englcolloquium-ggroup@bc.edu as a PDF/Word Document that interrogates any aspect of our theme. Subjects may include, but are not limited to: