(Fwd) Conference

Dear WSN,

Below is a call for papers for a conference I am helping to organize. 
Proposals more than welcome.

Best,

Terry McDonough

THE
THIRD
GALWAY CONFERENCE ON COLONIALISM

DEFINING COLONIES

17-20 JUNE 1999




CALL FOR PAPERS

The aim of this multidisciplinary conference is to explore the
meanings of the contemporary and historical entities which are
categorised under the rubric of colony.  Historically, colonies were
defined in a wide variety of ways, with varying relationships to the
imperial centre, and with a number of widely differing forms of
colonial or imperial government.  In like manner, there have been
different kinds of colonizing and decolonizing processes.  The modern
discourse of colonialism is not equivalent to the earlier discourse of
colonization and terms such as empire, charter colonies, crown
colonies, dependencies, provinces, dominions, and commonwealths need
careful discrimination.  Papers would address the question of how
colonies have been defined, politically, economically, socially, and
culturally.  Are there any sure signs of coloniality, postcoloniality?
 What are the roles of ethnicity, race, gender, and social class in
different colonial dispensations?  Papers might consider the
ever-present danger of generating colonial theory from the specific
experience of certain kinds of colonies and then conferring on it the
dignity of universality.

A central strand of the conference will address the question, ‘Was
Ireland a Colony’?  After the Act of Union in 1800, Ireland was
constitutionally an imperial power, but in many other respects was a
colony in all but name.  Many nationalists refused to see Ireland as a
colony and remained enthusiastic imperialists.  Ireland was widely
seen as ‘anomalous’, resisting definition as either colony or empire. 
The wider theme of this conference should illuminate this discussion,
while the specificity of Ireland’s experience might test the validity
of colonial theories generated from different colonial situations.


Papers should be no longer than 20 minutes.  If you wish to contribute
to the conference, please send an abstract of not more than 300 words,
preferably by email, to the Conference Organisers, Department of
English, NUI, Galway, Ireland, before 15  February 1999.

There is a special conference email address: colony@bodkin.ucg.ie

Details of the conference, which will be updated regularly, are
available on the World Wide Web at:

http://www.ucg.ie/enl/colony/conference.htm



Conference Organisers


Fiona Bateman, Tadhg Foley, Lionel Pilkington, Seán Ryder, and
Elizabeth Tilley, Department of English, and Terry McDonough,
Department of Economics, National University of Ireland, Galway,
Ireland

Tel: 353 [0]91 524411
Fax: 353 [0]91 524102
email: colony@bodkin.ucg.ie


-- PLEASE DISPLAY --