Remembering Otherwise: Counter-Memory and Community Empowerment
N/A
Organization: NeMLA
Official histories and colonial archives have determined whose voices are silenced or heard, and what becomes recognized as historical truth. In this process, the memories of marginalized communities, whether colonized or indigenous, have frequently been sidelined or erased. In keeping with NeMLA 2027 theme of “Empowering Communities”, this panel invites papers that examine how literature functions as a site of counter-memory, enabling communities to reclaim suppressed histories and transform memory into a mode of resistance.
Drawing upon theories of collective memory, trauma, and archive, the session is particularly interested in exploring how acts of remembering serve a dual purpose: challenge dominant structures of knowledge and restore agency to communities that have been denied the power of self-representation. Through oral narratives and testimony, literary texts create alternative archives that preserve histories excluded from official records. By engaging with trauma and postcolonial studies, this panel aims to investigate how depictions of historical violence, arising from colonialism, slavery, genocide, displacement, or communal strife, can be reimagined as foundations for cultural resilience.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
- Indigenous narratives and resistance to colonial epistemologies
- Displacement, migration, and the making of diasporic communities
- Partition memories and the recovery of suppressed histories in South Asian literature
- Caste, exclusion, and the reclamation of marginalized histories
- Gendered memories of war, partition, and communal violence
- Women’s testimony and the recovery of erased histories
- Language, translation, and the preservation of endangered cultural memories
We particularly welcome proposals on women’s trauma narratives, African literature, and South Asian writing.
Description: This panel invites papers that examine how literature functions as a site of counter-memory, enabling communities to reclaim suppressed histories and transform memory into a mode of resistance. By engaging with trauma and postcolonial studies, this panel aims to investigate how depictions of historical violence, arising from colonialism, slavery, genocide, displacement, or communal strife, can be reimagined as foundations for cultural resilience.
Modality of the session: Virtual only
https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/22660
Samreedhi Shree