Sixth Annual Global Souths Conference

537 Cajundome Boulevard,Lafayette LA 70506

16 March, 2022

Description

The Global Souths Conference aims to explore connections between the U.S. South and the Global South. The Global Souths Conference is a three-day, interdisciplinary conference that aims to explore the connections between the U. S. South and the Global South. The South is more than place: It is a point of connection, a nexus of ideas transcending both geographical and ideological boundaries. On Thursday, we will be holding an Opening Reception Banquet at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette's Student Union: https://goo.gl/maps/214U2JJazbJepYWn6 The rest of our conference will be held at the LITE center: https://goo.gl/maps/dmnPR7Rmt3EA3LAP9 On Saturday, at 6pm, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette's English Graduate Student Association will be holding a social gathering that participants are welcome to attend. Depending on the weather, this social will be either held at a local park or restaurant. Participants at the conference are welcome to join. Details will be announced closer to the conference date. This year, to acknowledge the global struggles of the Covid-19 pandemic globally as well as Louisiana’s struggles with extreme weather events affecting our local community, we are setting a focus on disaster in the formation of the Global South. We are approaching this topic broadly, looking at disaster not just as a tangible force of nature, but a social force, an economic force and a personal force, and how those disasters inform our sense of self, our literature, our fiction and folklore, our communities, geography and history. Our Key Note Speaker this year is Dr. Pallavi Rastogi. Dr Rastogi is a Professor of English at Louisiana State University where she teaches classes on Global Anglophone literature, postcolonial theory, and international film. She has won multiple awards for teaching including the English Graduate Student Association (EGSA) Outstanding Faculty Award, the Tiger Athletic Foundation Award for Undergraduate Teaching, and the LSU Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award for Graduate Teaching. She also received the LSU Alumni Association Faculty Excellence Award in 2019 and the LSU Distinguished Faculty Award in 2021. Dr. Rastogi’s second book, Postcolonial Disaster: Narrating Catastrophe in the Twenty-First Century, was published by Northwestern University Press in 2020. Her first book, Afrindian Fictions: Diaspora, Race, and National Desire in South Africa, was published by Ohio State University in 2008. She has edited a special issue of the journal, South Asian Review, on "Precarities, Resistance, and Care Communities in South Asia" (December, 2018). The special issue was published as a book, Vulnerable South Asias: Precarities, Resistance, and Care Communities, (Routledge, 2021). Our Opening Speaker is Juyanne James. James is a Louisiana native. She is an Associate Professor of English at University of Holy Cross in New Orleans, La. Juyanne’s short stories and essays have appeared in a various journals, and her collection of stories, The Persimmon Trail and Other Stories (Chin Music Press), was published in 2015. Her collection of essays, Table Scraps and Other Essays (Resource Publications), was published in December 2019. Juyanne’s short story, “The Elderberries,” appeared in New Stories from the South 2009: The Year’s Best, and her essay “Table Scraps” was a notable essay in The Best American Essays 2014.