Anglophone Histories: a Departmental Colloquium

April 18, 2014

Friday, April 18, 2014 - 11:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m

This is a cross-period colloquium in which the English department as a whole aims to initiate an informal but vigorous conversation about our collective stake in the cultural history of the English language. There will be 3 panel sessions beginning mid-morning and extending throughout the day:

 

11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Panel 1 “What is Anglophone?” will discuss the way ‘English’ works as a code, a cultural and geographic modifier, and as a way of defining objects of study;

 

Chair: Inderpal Grewal

Ardis Butterfield Anglo-French Jargon”

Shital Pravinchandra “What is Anglophone in South Asia?”

John Williams “Translation, Dissolution, and Linguistic Colonization in Hollywood Film”

 

Lunch Break: 12:30 – 2:00

 

2:00 – 3:00 p.m.

Panel 2 “What is vernacular?” will localise and domesticate the discussion, looking at ways within ‘English’ of communicating, expressing and analyzing register, class, race, gender

 

Chair: Birgit Rasmussen

Caleb Smith “The Incendiary Text and the Curse of Slavery” 

Katie Trumpener “On Irish Bulls and Canadian Intonation: Usage in Cultural (and Colonial) Context”

Ian Cornelius “Choosing the vernacular in medieval England”

 

Tea Break: 3:30 – 4:00

 

4:00 – 5:30 p.m.

Panel 3 “Then what is literature?” will take the further direction of thinking about value, the literary, poetry, genre, community, and nation, drawing on the discussion generated by the questions posed in Panels 1 and 2.

 

Chair: Emily Greenwood

Cathy Nicholson“Vernacular English Literature: Oxymoron, Catachresis, Tautology”

Stefanie Markovits “Peas and Poetry, or, The Limits of Literary Language”

Anthony Reed “Poetry as Unsaying” 

 

Colleagues from other language and literature departments, including American Studies, Comparative Literature, Classics, French, Asian, African and Caribbean Literature  (several of whom have kindly agreed to chair the sessions) are warmly welcome to attend, along with any interested graduate students.

News Type: