“In a deeply interconnected world, there is no ‘other’”—Anand Gandhi, Indian Filmmaker
The 2022 English Graduate Organization Conference interrogates aspects of interconnectivity and disconnection that manifest themselves either implicitly or explicitly throughout the planet. As much as Covid-19 seemed to have created a ‘new normal,’ the pandemic only served to normalize what we already know: we are simultaneously connected to and disconnected from each other in a myriad of ways. The plurality of socio-political, ideological, environmental, and public health conditions that we exist within—and which have been accentuated by the Covid-19 pandemic—intersect with disparities in race, gender, and sexual politics. Moreover, the liminal nature of borders, islands, oceans, and maps already contextualizes our existence by introducing considerations of non-human agents. As we are situated by materials that continuously alter and dictate our approaches from the global context, factors such as displacement, migration, nationalism, transnationalism, inter-imperiality, and competing internationalism(s) trigger new understandings of how we are simultaneously inter-and dis-connected.
Following these concerns, this conference looks for diverse connections, interpretations, perspectives, and possible solutions in response to the various manifestations of interconnections and dis-connections. Through these perspectives, we raise questions such as: How can we rethink our identities in relation to those whose identities are erased, distorted, or ignored? How can we reimagine the racialized and gendered global infrastructure? How can we project the impact of a global pandemic on the archives that will be compiled? How do we remap our spatial and conceptual borders? Most importantly, how do we think nationally, internationally, or globally?
In addition to these questions, this year's conference is purposely broad so as to welcome a wide range of approaches, particularly those of an interdisciplinary orientation. Our participants will address variety of topics such as:
(Re)-imagining locality, globality, and planetarity
Migration, dispossession, and assimilation
Medieval worldbuilding
American (un)exceptionalism
World deconstruction and reconstruction through SF (science fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, & folklore)
Ruins and revolts
Memory and archives
Alternative narratives and futurities
Race, ethnicity, and empire
Rhetoric, digital media, and social justice
Pollution, pandemic, and politics in a pre-and post-Covid world