Call for Papers: India@70

The conference will be held on 21 September 2017 at the University of Nottingham. Marking the 70th anniversary of India’s independence, the conference seeks to engage with the events of 1947 in their historic moment and the multiple afterlives of Indian independence as a concept in fields ranging from history and politics to literature, film, music, and performance studies. 

The keynote speaker will Andrew Whitehead, Honorary Professor Institute for Asia and Pacific Studies, Senior Research Fellow King’s India Institute, and former Editor of BBC World Service News.

We are especially interested in submissions that conceive of India’s independence beyond national boundaries and contexts, or explore the globalized connections of 1947 and its aftermath across disciplinary, geopolitical and linguistic landscapes. Examples of possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• India’s emergence as a global power

• India’s diaspora

• Narratives of decolonization

• Foreign Policy and Indian Non-alignment

• Historiographies of Independence

• Kashmir

• Political Economy

• Regional nationalisms

• Literature

• Film

• Performance Studies and Theatre

• Music

• Visual culture

250-word abstracts and a one-page CV should be submitted to ruth.maxey@nottingham.ac.uk and paul.mcgarr@nottingham.ac.uk by 1 July 2017. There will be no conference registration fees. Limited assistance is available to support the presenter’s travel and accommodation expenses.