2024 CFP

Call for Papers: COEDA 2024 – Reclamation

September 27-28, 2024 (Friday and Saturday)

Department of English, Linguistics and Theatre Studies

Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences

National University of Singapore

Reclamation, the act of creating new land from sea, is closely intertwined with the making of modern Singapore. Like in many other coastal cities, land reclamation has served as a solution to limited natural land resources and a gateway to increased urbanization and economic growth. However, reclamation is far from a neutral and apolitical act. Critics position reclamation within a logic of extraction that precipitates unsustainable environmental and labor demands. Reclaimed land sits on shifting sands, and the sea that it swallows has no voice. In turn, reclamation may grant space and sovereignty, but at a cost marked by loss that is not so easily recovered.

While the reclamation of land and environment are chief examples, reclamation similarly occurs in more metaphorical contexts. The word ‘reclamation’ conjures a spirit of renewal, and yet remains fraught with possibilities of erasure and violence. Hence, the act of reclamation teems with renewed potential for analysis in the humanities and social sciences, from topics such as identity, heritage languages, and language revitalization, to legal reclamation as elucidated by historians like Nurfadzhilah Yahaya and imaginaries of reclamation as articulated by literary scholars like Jerrine Tan, Joanne Leow, and Saidiya Hartman.

We ask: how are the various facets of reclamation explored with, stretched, probed, or challenged in scholarship and praxis? Can we imagine affinities, reconciliations – or confrontations – between different kinds of reclamation? What does it mean to think of the resonances of a concept like reclamation, in a global terrain where the borders of language and nation are privy to reshaping and destruction? Furthermore, what does it mean to engage with reclamation in Asia, and how do our legacies converge with or diverge from established canons of thought and practice?

In this vein, we invite respondents to connect reclamation to various social, cultural, and theoretical issues. We cordially welcome perspectives and approaches drawn across multiple disciplines.

Possible fields of inquiry may include, but not limited to:

-   Power dialectics and dynamics

-   Identity construction and performance

-   Globalization and localism

-   Histories and legacies

-   Gender and sexuality

-   Heritage languages, language endangerment and revitalization

-   Environmental humanities

-   Indigenous research and methodologies

-   Literary canon and postcritique

Please submit a paper title, 250-word abstract and a short bio (up to 150 words) in a Word document to COEDA2024@outlook.com by 30 April 2024. The title should comprise 5 to 7 keywords. The paper should be 15-20 minutes long in presentation.

For further inquiries, please contact:

Student Representatives:

   Ms. Xinyu LI (Linguistics)               xinyu.li@u.nus.edu

   Mr. Khairillah IRWAN (Literature)       e0435464@u.nus.edu

  Ms. Caifang XU (Theater Studies)  caifang.xu@u.nus.edu

Faculty Representatives:

    Prof. Yanbing ER                                       elley@nus.edu.sg

    Prof. Nick HUANG                           znhuang@nus.edu.sg