Thinking On and With: Perspectives on Édouard Glissant (NeMLA 2021)

The formal range and multiple zones of Glissant’s work call for a diversity of perspectives and interpretive approaches. Without bringing-to-a-halt the becoming of thought and the dynamics of its histories, this seminar calls for papers engaged with the various dimensions and forms of Glissant’s thinking in ways that open new horizons and relations. Some guiding questions for this seminar:

• Why and how does Glissant speak to your own literatures and work today?
• How does comparative and interdisciplinary study particularly address and engage Glissant’s work?
• How might a practice of Glissant’s theories disrupt academia’s departmental silos and institutional strictures [decolonize the university]?

We aim for collaboration and dialogue by uniting a range of perspectives on Glissant’s work across disciplines and languages.

Abstracts that address/identify problematics, underdeveloped areas, and/or paradox in Glissant’s thinking are encouraged. This seminar invites archipelagic thought and wide-ranging ways of reading with and through Glissant’s writing and ideas.

Please submit abstracts of up to 300 words by 30 September, 2020 via the NeMLA website. Questions should be directed to the co-organizers, Olga Blomgren (oblomgr1@binghamton.edu) and David Spitzer (dmspitze@hacc.edu).