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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 16 - 22 November 2000 Issue No.508 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 16 - 22 November 2000 Issue No.508
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Literature, criticism, Cairo 2000
THE DEPARTMENT of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts, University of Cairo, has held a biennial symposium since 1989. The English Department's decision to have a symposium on comparative literature signified its insistence on an interdisciplinary approach and a consequent relevance to the various issues and theories rampant in an increasingly complex world. It is therefore peculiarly appropriate that at the close of one century and the beginning of another that Symposium 2000 (held under the title Modernism/Postmodernism: East and West) should, perhaps, hubristically, attempt to view and review the present state of the two movements -- Modernism and Postmodernism -- that have affected our literary and our social lives which the past century, often incoherent and chaotic, has taught us to see as inextricably intertwined. These two mainstream trends changed the concept of the literary text, redefined the position of the reader and allowed for the emergence of a variety of critical approaches. Thus, amongst the issues to be discussed during the symposium are multiculturalism, translation issues and gender issues; writer-reader relationships, genres and hybrids, colonial/postcolonial discourses, institutional/non-institutional discourses and the discourse of power in language and literature. And true to the eclectic spirit of the age the creative impulse and critical theory are reflected in the keynote addresses, the panels and the papers that will be presented at the symposium.Each day will start with a keynote address given by a distinguished speaker: on Tuesday 21 November Egyptian writer, critic and historian, Abdelwahab Elmessiri will address the question of "Immanentisation and Postmodernism;" on Wednesday the 22nd, the symposium will be graced by the noted American novelist, poet and playwright Ishmael Reed, who will be speaking on "Postmodernism and the US Multicultural Renaissance;" Thursday the 23rd brings the intriguing address "Declining the West" which will be delivered by the astutely analytic critic Thomas Docherty, the director of the Kent Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities, who has written widely on Postmodernism. All three keynote addresses promise to be stimulating and provocative, providing an impetus that will generate much academic excitement. Subsequent to these addresses will be the various papers presented by scholars from the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the US. Each day will end with a bang and not a whimper with a variety of subjects discussed in panel sessions: "Modernism/Postmodernism in Arabic" (Tuesday), a telepress conference with Elaine Showalter, the prolific Feminist critic (Wednesday), and finally a poetry reading (Thursday).
This three-day symposium is an opportunity for all who believe in the importance of the humanities to our lives to get together to wrestle with words, to struggle with meaning, to indulge in voluble and perhaps vociferous argument, animated by one pursuit -- that of learning.
The venue of the Sixth International Symposium is the Department of English Language and Literature, the University of Cairo from which the detailed conference schedule may be obtained. Registration will be from 9 to 10 on the morning of Tuesday 21 November.
Hoda Gindi,
professor of English Literature, Cairo University
MEANWHILE, the Second International Conference for Literary Criticism, titled "Literary Criticism at the Threshold of the Century," boasts more than 80 participants, including many who have achieved international distinction. Half of the participants are from Egypt or the Arab World; the other half an impressive international group.
photo: Randa Shaath
The nine-session conference (each session with papers being delivered simultaneously in two halls) is organised around five main themes --- The Discourse of Globalism and Literary Theory, The Ideology of Language, The Ideology of Criticism, Feminist Poetics, Hypertext -- each of the themes constituting the umbrella under which a variety of topics will be discussed. Registration for the five-day conference -- the venue of which is the Infantry House (Dar Al-Mushah), El-Fangari Street (off of El-Khalifa El-Maamoun St), Kobri El-Qubba -- is scheduled for 9am on Monday 20 November, with the official inauguration taking place at 10am.
J. Hillis Miller, delivering a paper titled "Will Literary Study Survive the Globalisation of the University and the New Regime of Telecommunications?," will open, at 12pm, the first session of the conference, dealing with the theme of Globalism and Literary Theory, on Monday 20 November. Said Alloush ("Chaos and the Globalisation of Literature"), Mark Poster ("Nations, Identities and Global Technologies"), and, in absentia, Ihab Hassan whose paper titled "Postmodernism and Postmodernity in a Global Context" will be read by Abdel-Aziz Hammouda, are among other participants in this session.
Speakers on Tuesday 21 November will include, in the second session (10am-12pm), Kamal Abu Dib ("The Collapse of Totalising Discourse and the Rise of Marginalised/Minority Discourses") and, in the third session (12.30pm-2.30pm), Wolfgang LŠngsfeld ("Interpretation of Literature Through Film: A Case Study, Youssef Idris") and Bill Ashcroft ("Resistance and Transformation").
Terry Eagleton, speaking about "The Geopolitics of Culture," will open the fourth session of the conference -- the theme of which is Criticism as a Cultural Institution -- on Wednesday 22 November at 10am. This session will also include, among other speakers, Abdallah Al-Ghozzami. Later in the day, in the fifth session (12.30pm-2.30pm), Saad El-Baz'i and Sherbal Dagher will deliver, in Arabic, papers titled "Exploring Origins: A Reading of the Critical Work of Shukri Ayyad" and "The Situatedness of the Text," respectively.
Thursday's speakers will include in the sixth session (10am-12pm): Gerald Gaylard ("What has Happened to Politics in Contemporary African Fiction") and Maier Hofer ("Filling the Gaps in Historiography"); and, in the seventh session (12.30pm-2.30pm): Teun vanDijk ("Towards a Theory of Context") and Helmut Arntzen ("A Critique of Media and the Ethics of Language," in German. Translation will be provided).
On the fifth and final day of the conference, Friday 24 November, papers in the eight session (10am-11.30am) will focus on the theme of Feminism as Discourse. These will include Yomna El-Eid's "Anti Feminist Discourse" and Sandra Gilbert's "The Widow." The ninth, and closing, session of the conference (12.30pm-2.30pm) will host speakers addressing the issue of Theory and Non-Theory from a variety of perspectives. Speakers in the closing session include Patricia Waugh ("Criticism, Science and the Problem of Knowledge: Post-Modernism and its Critics"), Ezz Eddin Ismail ("Hermeneutics of Prejudice") and Ursula K. Heise ("Thinking Globally: The Place of Ecocriticism").
Synopses of the papers to be presented at the conference as well as a detailed schedule may be obtained from the Department of Arabic Language and Literature, the Faculty of Arts, Ain Shams University.
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