dear all,

as i am writing this, the world shook again; and again,  more human lives have been lost to the rubble, but also to the incapacity of another state apparatus to respond to human crisis, and to the fabricated precariousness of human life in the global south. 

apart from grief, the reactions these so called natural disasters seem to be calling for is what i would call epistemological empathy: a questioning of the premises on which capitalist (post)modernity has been built, and seemed to have been thriving, world wide.

accumulation, wealth concentration and exploitation of human life and ‘resources’, it becomes ever more obvious, are not a solid ground on which to build safe human community, and environments that will be protectable and protected in crisis.

haiti, therefore, is still and will be on our minds, and we are asking you to keep the information coming, and the debate going: caar 2011 in paris will certainly address *haiti *- past and present – in many facets.we will keep you posted.

as for matters closer to home: we have now published the call for papers for next year’s caar conference in paris, and we are looking forward to your many challenging and stimulating contributions; the conference debates – themed around dispossession but also transformation – will again carry us further in all our work in that it does not only echo other topics we have had so far but reaches towards new questions and issues.

it will add dimensions to our ongoing research in literatures, cultures and socialities in that it focuses on the dialectics of loss/oppression and change, and by highlighting the term of desire, it invites, but does not restrict us to, psychoanalytic dimensions in, and of black cultural textuality.

please let the abstracts roll in, and feel welcome to comment and criticize in this spot…

still cold in bremen, so here we are, urgently wishing for spring

sabine broeck