Pakistaniaat: CFP for Special Issue on English Language Pakistani Literature

Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies

CFP for a special issue on English-Language Pakistani Literature

Co-editors: Dr. Cara Cilano, Professor, Department of English, Michigan State University & Dr. Aroosa Kanwal, Assistant Professor, Department of English, International Islamic University

This special issue of Pakistaniaat seeks to forge new critical insights into the now well-established field of English-language literature in Pakistan. The co-editors invite analyses and theorizations of moments, trends, oeuvres, and writerly or readerly generations that push beyond received interpretations of individual texts, the diasporic in relation to the nation, or, most fundamentally, the antagonistic position of English as a language in Pakistani political, cultural, and literary contexts.

Well-researched and argued contributions may address, for instance, how writing and reading in English amidst Pakistan’s multi-lingual cultures are metaphorical acts of translation. That is, how do literary works originally written in English negotiate Pakistan’s multi-lingual realities? How does English interconnect with regional literary traditions and practices? What influences circulate, including those from Urdu, Persian, and Sufi traditions, on English-language literature? How do questions of difference or connectedness—be they in terms of class, gender, religion, ethnicity, etc.—get born across these multiple linguistic practices when viewed comparatively and constitutively? Understanding “translation” more broadly, how does Pakistani English-language literary production engage with histories, be they subcontinental, national, regional, or folk? To what archives does the literature contribute and from which does it draw? How do such literary texts re-cast what archives and historical knowledge are? What do we learn when we look at literary texts as themselves stretched across historical moments and geographical locations? What critical accumulations occur through interpretations, marketing, teaching, and other forms of reception? With a view to broader cultural dynamics, how does English-language Pakistani literature work to translate places, histories, injustices, triumphs, or inequities for its readers? In other words, in what ways does literary culture as exemplified in English-language Pakistani literature address/redress the materialities of our lives?

Please submit 6000-10000 word essays to both Drs. Kanwal (aroosa.kanwal@iiu.edu.pk) and Cilano (cilano@msu.edu) by May 1, 2018. All submissions should follow MLA formatting guidelines and should have not been published previously.