[csaa-forum] Research Seminar at UNSW, Tuesday 9th April

[Collin Chua]

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Seminar Series 2013 at the School of the Arts and Media, UNSW
‘Galang! Beyond Discourse and Textuality in Postcolonial Theory’

This paper sets out to question the pervasive logocentricity of theory in the field of postcolonial studies. Against the dominance of approaches which iterate the legacies of particularly French theory after the linguistic turn, I propose a reorientation which takes account of the transcultural realities of the viral 21st century. This reorientation entails attention to concrete, historically and locally grounded performances of ‘texts’, the concrete medial embeddedness of such performance, and its material grounding in concrete formal as well as informal material structures.
I will inductively work from the example of a single cultural ‘text’, M.I.A.’s 2005 hit single ‘Galang’. Mainly working through its (performed) lyrics, I call up and question the validity of classic thinkers in the tradition of Anglophone postcolonial theory (Said, Bhabha, Gilroy) for understanding the transcultural complexities of ‘Galang’. This will take me to an account of more recent research into what Ravi Sundaram has coined as “pirate modernity”, which challenges us to rethink received notions of artistic authorship and authority, hegemony and subversion, culture and theory.

Lars Eckstein is Professor of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures outside of Britain and the US at the University of Potsdam, Germany. His publications include Reading Song Lyrics (2010) and Re-Membering the Black Atlantic: On the Poetics and Politics of Literary Memory (2006), and a range of further editions and essays in the field of postcolonial literary, cultural and media studies.

Tuesday, 9th April, 3.30-5pm
Robert Webster Building, Room 327 (Kensington Campus)
http://sam.arts.unsw.edu.au/seminars/

All are welcome.
Food and refreshments provided.

The School’s Research Seminars provide a forum for local as well as international scholars, researchers, industry practitioners and creative artists to present their work. Contact Collin Chua (C.Chua at unsw.edu.au<mailto:C.Chua at unsw.edu.au>) with any inquiries.


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