Shifting Grounds Postcolonial Translocations

Abstract

The Association for the Study of the New Literatures in English
(ASNEL) held its twentieth annual conference at the University of Münster
between 21-24 May 2009 in Münster, Germany. The conference was coordinated
by Mark Stein, Silke Stroh, Marga Munkelt, and Markus Schmitz,
all of whom are based at the University of Münster. Around 300 delegates
from thirty-five countries attended.
This four-day conference featured three major keynote speakers, four
prominent authors, and 100 presenters whose abstracts had been selected
fromaround 300 submissions. This event explored translocation, an increasingly
significant theme of postcolonial studies. The conference promoted a
critical evaluation of postcolonial texts and media while investigating their
institutional academic contexts. The concept of “translocational identity” is
part of a new debate in postcolonial theory. From border regimes and border
crossings to translocal space, from translocal food to cyber diasporas and
diasporic literature, participants sought to address major paradigms of postcolonial
critique ...