Contact Zones and the Configuration of (De)Colonial Agencies (Roundtable. NeMLA 2020, 5-8 March, Boston)

Please submit an abstract up to 250 words and a brief bio or CV to ltaianoc@nd.edu, iarellanotorres@gmail.com. Papers will be considered both in English and Spanish.

Deadline: 30 Sep.

The “Baroque of the Indies” has always been a privileged field for the study of cultural transfers and involved issues specific to the literary, ideological and religious realms. Since the last century, several scholars have tried to explain it, focusing on its most visible manifestations: imitation, syncretism, mestizaje, transculturation, anti- and sub- discourses and hybridism, concluding that [de] colonial agencies are a result of a large history of cross-cultural tensions and misunderstandings in the Latin American society.
Based on the well noted concepts of Creole consciousness, Creole agencies, Transculturation, Creole Deixis, Americanity, Border-thinking, and contact zones; this roundtable aspires to reflect how the encounters and missed encounters produced in the Spanish colonial territories during the XVI and XVII centuries became a catalyst for the configuration of [de]colonial agencies. We seek to analyze broadly the relationship between the contact zones and [de] colonial agencies as a socio-cultural phenomenon that not only includes the blend of the indigenous and European cultures (mestizaje), the popular attempts to reconcile different beliefs such as Christianity and indigenous religions (syncretism), and the merging of different cultures into new cultural forms (hybridism), but also the breeding ground for the development of a [de] colonial thought. Please submit an abstract up to 250 words and a brief bio or CV to ltaianoc@nd.edu, iarellanotorres@gmail.com. Papers will be considered both in English and Spanish.