There are no submission or publication charges
Concept Note
The late twentieth-century interest in trauma and memory rightfully extends their implications beyond the Shoa (Holocaust) and promotes various structural investigations into their presence in diverse courses of human life. This thriving academic attentiveness has altered our understanding of the intricacies of “remembering” and “forgetting” when trauma functions as the catalyst. This model of trauma, as proposed by Cathy Caruth, can unabatedly distort, and revise human memory. The intensity of emotional arousal caused by a traumatic event can disrupt the consolidation of memories which in turn remain incomplete or fragmented. The complementary correspondence of trauma and memory takes different
routes with the changing traits of the traumatic events and the modes of remembering. For instance, the ambiguity in interpreting the friction between indirect trauma and postmemory is open to epistemological debate as it allows contesting testimonial authority and its transference. We are
interested in the deconstruction of this liminality to explore the multitudinous engagement of trauma and memory that generates diverse experiences and meanings.
Interpretation of traumatic memories being not underworked in literary research, we seek to analyse how trauma and memory can each offer insights that are generally ignored or assuaged by the other. The aim is to present theoretically sound arguments that provide different perspectives into literature by construing the conflict of dialogue between trauma and memory. This volume invites theoretical/ conceptual essays in the following areas. (The list is by no means exhaustive and different topics related to the thrust area would be welcomed.
- Dissociations, Alterations, and Gaps
- Transhistorical Studies
- Memory and PTSD
- Place Attachment/Detachment
- Religion, Trauma, and Memory
- Queer Studies
- Refugees/Asylum Seekers
The editors have published a book Conflicted Territories: Representations of Ethnic and Political Disputes in World Literature in May 2022.
Submission Requirements
Please submit abstracts of no more than 500 words (not including the list of works cited in the abstract), together with a short biographic statement for each author in a word document (not more than 150 words) to nsoman252@gmail.com. Authors are expected to follow Chicago style citation. Only previously unpublished works will be considered. There are no submission or publication charges.
Tentative Timeline
- Abstract and bio-note submission: 30 July 2023
- Selection of abstracts & notification to successful contributors: 15 August 2023
- Full chapter submission: 30 September 2023
Editors
Dr. Neha Soman is Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences at NIT Rourkela. She has completed her Post Graduate Degree in English, M.Phil. in Jewish Fiction, and Ph.D. in Modern Israeli Literature from Bharathiar University. She was the recipient of ICSSR Centrally Administered Doctoral Fellowship in 2019. Dr. Soman has served as an ad-hoc faculty of English at NIT Calicut and NIT Warangal prior to her current appointment. She has notable publications in national and international journals and is also a reviewer of AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, published by Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, New Zealand’s Māori Centre of Research Excellence. Her research focuses mainly on Israeli Literature, Literary Historiography, and Memory Studies.
Dr. B. Padmanabhan is Assistant Professor in the Department of English & Foreign Languages, Bharathiar University. He has eleven years of pedagogical experience in Cognitive Literary Studies, Contemporary Critical Theory, Indian Aesthetics and Cultural Studies. He guides M.Phil. and Ph.D. scholars in Memory Studies, Ethnic and Indigenous Studies, Digital Humanities and Area Studies. He is the coordinator for the Centre for Electronic Archives and Industry Support housed in the Department of English. He is a
member in the Academics Bodies of State Universities and affiliated colleges in Tamil Nadu. He has published over forty research papers in reputed journals and is an editorial board member of several peer-reviewed national and international journals.
Contact: +91-9994815821