Past events

Creative Cultures of Anglophone Southeast and East Asia (CCASEA): Mapping Literary Networks

Workshop 1. Tuesday 5th December 2017
University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur.
Workshop 2. Tuesday 12th December 2017
City University, Hong Kong.  

These workshops explore the history and multiple legacies of the creative literary cultures of Anglophone Southeast and East Asia. Organised around three nodal cities (Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong), rather than by nation or region, the workshops map lines of literary influence, educational and publishing networks, and focus on key authors and local canon-formation. Convened as initial scoping events for a collaborative research project in partnership with the University of Malaya and City University, Hong Kong, the CCASEA workshops investigate the connected histories and current contexts of Anglophone literature in the region.

Writing Malysia & Singapore: Shared Pasts Global Futures 

One-Day Symposium. Friday 20^th October 2017
The Open University, Camden, London. 

In the last decade an emerging generation of writers from Malaysia and Singapore has achieved international recognition, pioneering new global English fiction and embarking on more confident imaginative journeys across Southeast Asia. This one-day symposium, a collaboration between the Open University and the University of Exeter, seeks to remap global English fiction (dominated by neighbouring South Asia) and draw fresh attention to the dynamic colonial literary cultures and postcolonial, globalising futures of Malaysian and Singaporean Anglophone writing.

Keynote Speakers: Philip Holden, National University of Singapore; Mui Cheng Angelia Poon, National Institute of Education, Singapore.

Book Launch: South Asian Fiction in English Contemporary Tranformations 

Book Launch: Wednesday 6th July 2016 

Institute of English Studies, Senate House 

Questions of Empire and Theory

Saturday 4 June 2016
Grimond Building, University of Kent, Canterbury 

The Postcolonial Literatures Research Group, with University of Kent colleagues, is hosting a one-day postgraduate Chase-sponsored workshop on the theme of empire and theory. Students will give short presentations in response to the theme, and there will be opportunity for discussion and networking. Taking place on the 4th June 2016, University of Kent, all are welcome. Please take a look at this poster for further information. 

The Promised Land: Utopia and Dystopia in Contemporary British-Jewish Culture

23 July 2015 at The Open University in London

Contemporary cultural perspectives on Britain and Jews often overlap in discourses about utopia and dystopia. The Postcolonial Literatures Research group in collaboration with the University of Bangor and the University of Winchester hosted a one-day conference. Find out more about this conference.

Planned Violence: Post/colonial Urban Infrastructures and Literature
Workshop 1:‘Empire and Post-Empire in the Global City’

Thursday 30th and Friday 31st January 2014, The River Room, Strand Campus, King’s College London. More information about this event.

Citizenship, Narrative and Neo/colonial Histories 

A One-Day Symposium, Saturday 23rd November 2013, Open University Regional Centre, Camden, London. Further details.

AFROEUROPE@NS IV: BLACK CULTURES AND IDENTITIES IN EUROPE
Continental Shifts, Shifts in Perception

WITH keynote speakers: Susheila Nasta, Caryl Phillips, Anna Rastas, Ribka Sibhatu, Dominic Thomas and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

1-4 October 2013 at Senate House, Malet House, London WC1E 7HU, UK

 Find out more ...

Resources in Anti-Colonial Thought (Part 2), Spring 2013

The second of a two-part series of seminars on anti-colonial thinkers whose work has to date been relatively neglected in Postcolonial Literary Studies. Further details and the programme are available online. This seminar organised in collaboration with the Institute of English Studies at the University of London. Venue: Senate House.

Resources in Anti-Colonial Thought (Part 1), Autumn 2012

Research seminar organised in collaboration with the Institute of English Studies at the University of London. The first of a two-part series of seminars on anti-colonial thinkers whose work has to date been relatively neglected in Postcolonial Literary Studies. Further details and the programme are available online. Venue: Senate House.

South-Asian Fiction: Contemporary Transformations (One-Day Symposium)

Saturday 3rd November 2012
The Institute of English Studies, London.

A one-day symposium organised by the Open University's Postcolonial Literatures Research Group and the Institute for English Studies, University of London, Senate House.

This symposium examined the rise of South-Asian Fiction as a global literature and explored changes in its audiences; its political ambitions and its formal techniques in the past two decades. The event sought to read contemporary South-Asian writing against the momentous changes which have shaped the subcontinent in recent years and asked whether the conventional approaches of postcolonial commentators to these works are adequate to the task of critical reading. The event allowed critics and scholars of contemporary South-Asian fiction to exchange ideas, challenge current paradigms in postcolonial studies and map new areas of importance. 

Speakers included Priyamvada Gopal, Elleke Boehmer, Susheila Nasta and Suman Gupta.

The Final programme is available online. [PDF, 98 KB]

Venue: Deanery Suite, 2nd Floor Stewart House, University of London, 32 Russell Square, adjacent to Senate House

Programme: Follow this link for programme details.

Download the flyer for this event [113 KB, PDF]

Convenors:
Dr Alex Tickell a.tickell@open.ac.uk or Pooja Sinha p.sinha@open.ac.uk

'The Book in Africa' One-Day Symposium

Saturday 20th October 2012
The Institute of English Studies, Senate House, London.

Download the programme [PDF, 862 KB]

This one-day symposium provided a forum for the discussion of new research and critical debates about print culture in Africa, with contributions from scholars of book history and postcolonial studies, together with African authors and publishers. The event was a collaborative venture between the Open University’s English Department and the Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies (OICPS) at Oxford Brookes University. Find out more ...

Book Launch: Sajjad Zaheer's A Night in London. New York University in London, 6 Bedford Square, 6th October, 6.00-8.00pm

Further details are available online.

Launch event: The Centre for the Study of Pakistan. 17 September 2011. SOAS, University of London

The launch of the SOAS Centre for the Study of Pakistan will be marked by a public lecture followed by a reception. The lecture, Revolution's Late Style: Dialectics of Multitude in Faiz Ahmed Faiz by Aamir R. Mufti  (UCLA), will be at 4.15 in the Khalili Lecture Theatre, followed by a reception in the Brunei Gallery Suite. Further information is available from the Centre for the Study of Pakistan's website.