Organizations

Postcolonial Studies Associations and Organizations

The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) is a scholarly, non-political, non-profit professional association open to all persons interested in Asia and the study of Asia. With approximately 7,000 members worldwide, representing all the regions and countries of Asia and all academic disciplines, the AAS is the largest organization of its kind.

Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies

ACLALS was started in 1964 with a conference at the University of Leeds and was officially accredited to the Commonwealth in 2005. The objectives of ACLALS are to promote and coordinate Commonwealth Literature Studies, organize seminars and workshops, arrange lectures by writers and scholars, publish a newsletter about activities in the field of Commonwealth Literature and hold one conference triennially.

ACWWS

The Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars

African Diaspora and the Atlantic World Research Circle

The African Diaspora and the Atlantic World Research Circle was originally funded as the African Diaspora Cluster. It explores the dispersion of African peoples from their original homelands, not only within the continent of Africa, but also worldwide — to places such as the United States, Europe, the Caribbean and South America.

African Studies Association

The African Studies Association was founded in 1957 as a non-profit organization open to all individuals and institutions interested in African affairs. Its mission is to bring together people with a scholarly and professional interest in Africa.

AMSS

Association of Muslim Social Scientists of America

Mission Statement: To provide a forum through which Islamic positions on various academic disciplines can be promoted, with an emphasis on the social sciences and humanities. AMSS has based its activities on the belief that the development of Islamic thought is vital for the prosperity of the Muslim world and for the continuity of the Islamic intellectual heritage. AMSS strives to serve the interests of the larger Muslim community by bringing together Muslim and non-Muslim scholars in an academic setting to examine and define Islamic perspectives on issues of global concern that contribute to the prosperity of Muslims around the globe and the betterment of humanity.

Border and Transcultural Studies Research Circle

The Border and Transcultural Studies Research Circle at the University of Wisconsin-Madison addresses issues of intercultural contact and cultural practices in global and historical perspective.

CSA

Caribbean Studies Association

The Caribbean Studies Association (CSA) is an independent professional organization devoted to the promotion of Caribbean studies from a multidisciplinary, multicultural point of view. It is the primary association for scholars and practitioners working on the Caribbean Region (including Central America and the Caribbean Coast of South America). Its members come from the Caribbean Region, North America, South America, Central America, Europe and elsewhere even though more than half of its members live in the United States many of them teaching at U.S. universities and colleges. Founded in 1974 by 300 Caribbeanists, the CSA now h as over 1100 members. (Join our Facebook Group).

Feminist Knowledge Network, The

The Feminist Knowledge Network

Born at the 7^th International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women’s Studies held in Tromso, Norway in June 1999, when some editors and managing editors of Women’s Studies journals met informally. That meeting made it clear at that meeting that a network was needed in order to:

foster communication and discussion about common problems of gathering, publishing and disseminating feminist research about women in an increasingly difficult financial and political climate;

make use of advances in technology to overcome the intellectual isolation experienced by feminist journal boards and editors, especially those working in the economic South, by making the most effective use of e-mail and Internet opportunities, and by sharing existing resources;

initiate mutually supportive endeavours to break down boundaries and bridge communication gaps and develop collaborative activities, including research and the building of a sustainable resource base which can be shared by all members.

to develop networks and partnerships of researchers to develop projects related to common interests or themes.

Lusophone Postcolonial Research Network

The international Lusophone Postcolonial Research Network coordinates, develops, and promotes research and teaching activities centered on colonial and postcolonial issues involving Lusophone countries and their historical areas of influence. The Network brings together scholars and students from Universities linked in the World Universities Network (WUN) engaged in such studies.

MESA

Middle East Studies Association

The Middle East Studies Association (MESA) is a non-political association that fosters the study of the Middle East, promotes high standards of scholarship and teaching, and encourages public understanding of the region and its peoples through programs, publications and services that enhance education, further intellectual exchange, recognize professional distinction, and defend academic freedom

NAPS

Northern Association of Postcolonial Studies

The Northern Association for Postcolonial Studies (NAPS) is a research collective working through Newcastle University and the University of Sunderland seeking to advance links in the area of post-colonial studies both regionally, and across Britain.

NCBS

National Council for Black Studies

The National Council for Black Studies (NCBS) is the leading organization of Black Studies professionals in the world. For more than 30 years our members have been at the forefront of driving the development of Black/Africana Studies as a respected academic discipline. Our commitment to putting theory into practice, however, has also led us to the front lines of community issues throughout the African Diaspora. Our guiding philosophy is that education should engender both academic excellence and social responsibility.

Our members include top scholars, community leaders and students focused on a variety of issues related to the African World experience. NCBS supports their efforts by working steadfastly to:

Establish standards of excellence and provide development guidance for Black Studies programs in institutions of higher learning
Facilitate the recruitment of black scholars at all levels
Promote scholarly Afrocentric research on all aspects of the African World Experience and make this information more accessible to the general public
Assist in the creation of multi-cultural education programs and materials for K-12 schools
Provide professional advice to policy makers in education, government and community development.

Network in Postcolonial Translation

Network in Postcolonial Translation

This 3-year international research network, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, will be running from 2008 to 2011. It seeks to explore the multicultural and polyglot context of literary production in postcolonial South Asia, and aims to develop an in-depth collaborative study of contemporary writing in Bengali, English, Hindi, Malayalam, and Tamil, in order to identify models of â€œpostcolonial translationâ€� as a way of understanding South Asian literature as a multi-lingual corpus of texts. The network brings together scholars based at Newcastle, School of Oriental and African Studies University of Delhi, andJawaharlal Nehru University. (London),

Post-Colonial Literatures Research Group

Pos-colonial Literatures Research Group

Founded in 1992 by Dennis Walder, the Postcolonial Literatures Research Group has developed over the past seventeen years into an active community of scholars engaged in a wide range of different activities. Organised as a research collective, the group’s various projects will be co-ordinated by Glenn Hooper, Director from 2008-10.

The main research focus of the group is on postcolonial literatures, broadly conceived to include the range and variety of literary works representing colonial and neo-colonial experience. Initially, research centred on the literatures of South Asia, Southern Africa and the Caribbean, but in recent years this has been expanded by the appointment of new members of staff with research interests in Black British and West African literature. The group has been especially active in the past five years, notably with externally-funded AHRC Projects; through the international journal Wasafiri; and through a number of Conferencesand Seminar Series (see Events)

Postcolonial Reading Group

The Postcolonial Reading Group is housed in the Department of English at the University of Florida, and is open to any interested graduate or undergraduate student. This reading group focuses on postcolonial theory and literatures and their intersections with race, class, gender, and sexuality studies. PRG also fosters discussion of feminist postcolonial theory and U.S. Multi-ethnic literatures and film.

Postcolonial Studies Research Network

The Postcolonial Studies Research Network brings together an interdisciplinary group of established and emerging scholars whose research engages with a range of aspects of postcoloniality. These include the historical cultures of empire, and the contemporary cultural politics of indigeneity, of (post)colonial settlement, and of the diasporic condition. We make critical theoretical interventions into diverse historical and contemporary questions of ethics, political economy, cultural formations and representations, and the uses and implications of media and technology in relation to a variety of (post)colonial contexts, including Aotearoa-New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the Pacific Islands, India, South and South East Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.

PSA

Postcolonial Studies Association

The Postcolonial Studies Association (PSA) is a professional organisation that aims to bring together scholars working on postcolonial topics in any discipline or language.

SALA

South Asian Literary Association

SALA was founded by the late H. B. Kulkarni and Satya Pachori of the University of North Florida in the early seventies to promote the knowledge of South Asia in the American academia by bringing interested faculty and students to its conferences. SALA is an Allied Organization of the Modern Language Association and holds its annual meetings at the Annual MLA Convention.

SASA

South Asian Studies Association

The primary purposes for which SASA was organized are:

to promote scholarly study of and public interest in South Asian civilizations and affairs;
to provide a public forum for the communication of research and scholarship on South Asia, by means of an annual conference;
to promote scholarship and networking opportunities for scholars of South Asia between annual conferences through electronic and other media;
to assist public and private cultural and educational agencies and institutions in the development and dissemination of programs and teaching materials on South Asia;
by means of a newsletter, journal, or other such publications and programs as may be feasible for the association to undertake, to facilitate exchange of information among persons and accredited academic institutions interested in South Asian studies, to disseminate research results, and to further educate the general public about South Asian affairs;
to build bridges of understanding linking the academic, entrepreneurial and diaspora communities.

SAWNET: The South Asian Women’s NETwork

SAWNET (S outh Asian Women’s NETwork) started as a mailing list in Nov 1991, with about 40 subscribers. The mailing list was originally run by its founders by simply emailing the collected posts to all subscribers every day. The number of subscribers grew rapidly, and the logistics of running it manually became too much for us. Darci Chapman and Lata Narayanan got Sawnet its own email address, which eventually moved to its current home at Concordia University in Canada.

SCS

The Society for Caribbean Studies

The aims of the Society are to encourage education and research about the Caribbean and to provide some opportunity for mutual contact among those concerned with the region and its diasporas.

Every year since 1977, the Society has held a conference, attracting participants from the Caribbean, Europe, Canada and the United States. It features exhibitions by the major publishers and the smaller presses and bookshops specialising in the region. Several publishers are members of the Society and members have contributed to the upsurge in publications on the region.

Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies

SFPS was launched in November 2002, and it grew out of an earlier scholarly association, ASCALF, which many of you may have known. SFPS aims to bring together scholars and researchers with an interest in any aspect of the Francophone dimension of postcolonial and transnational studies. I hope these web pages will prove to be of interest to you and will facilitate a wide range of new and ongoing contacts and exchanges.

South Asian Regional Cooperation Academic Network (SARCAN)

The eight nations of South Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) have come a long way in forging regional cooperation. Yet numerous conflicts and challenges impede full cooperation and economic development among them. The academic community interested on South Asian cooperation issues needs a portal to realize what is going on in different countries and research institution globally. Keeping this in view the McGill University–Université de Montreal Research Group in International Security (REGIS) (http://www.gersi.umontreal.ca/defaulten.aspx) in collaboration with the Asian Study Center for Political & Conflict Transformation (ASPECT), Kathmandu, Nepal, has created this online searchable database. We hope that scholars, students, policy makers, NGOs and all others interested in the region would find this free portal useful.

The project is called South Asian Regional Cooperation Academic Network (SARCAN), and it is coordinated by Dr. T.V. Paul, McGill Director of REGIS. Manish Thapa of ASPECT is the Regional Coordinator of the network, working from Nepal. It is sponsored by the projects on “Globalization and the National Security State,” and “When Regions Transform: From Conflict to Cooperation,” both funded by the Fonds québécois de recherche sur la société et la culture (FQRSC) Quebec. http://gnss.mcgill.ca/).

South Asian Studies Association, Australia

The South Asian Studies Association of Australia (SASA), established in 1971, represents scholars whose interests are in the South Asian region. It is not strictly focussed, either geographically or by discipline. Generally, the interests of SASA members covers countries such as:

India
Bangladesh
Pakistan
Afghanistan
Sri Lanka
Burma
Nepal
the Himalayan states

The diasporic nature of south Asian cultures and the supra-national influences on the region mean that the interests of scholars may extend well beyond the borders of these states. SASA members represent a range of academic disciplines and approaches, and membership from establised, as well as younger scholars, is welcome and encouraged.

The Freire Project

The Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy

The Freire Project is dedicated to building an international critical community which works to promote social justice in a variety of cultural contexts. We are committed to conducting and sharing critical research in social, political, and educational locations.

The project promotes research in Critical Pedagogy, and brings together local and international educators. We are committed to continuing the global development of Critical Pedagogy and to highlighting its relevance with marginalized and indigenous peoples.

The Freire Archives and International Journal of Critical Pedagogy are publicly accessible, publications will be available in both hard copy and virtually through this website. Housed in the project are the papers of seminal scholars who have contributed to the evolution of Critical Pedagogy. In addition, the project will promote research in Critical Pedagogy and bring together both local and international educators and continue its development globally while highlighting its relevance with marginalized and indigenous peoples.

Critical Pedagogy is a domain of education and research that studies the social, cultural, political, economic, and cognitive dynamics of teaching and learning. Critical Pedagogy emphasizes the impact of power relationships in the educational process. Emerging in the late 1960s with the work of Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, Critical Pedagogy has evolved as a cross-disciplinary field.

The South Asian Literary Recordings Project

Launched in April 2000, to record the voices of South Asian authors for the Library of Congress’ Archive of Recorded World Literature, the project has captured the readings of prominent South Asian poets, novelists, and playwrights. The authors recorded so far represent more than fifteen of the languages of India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

USACLALS

United States Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies

The long-term goal of USACLALS is to study postcolonial literatures (including those of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Canada, New Zealand and Australia) in relationship to the varied and vital cultural contexts of the Americas. We encourage studies which reach beyond the literatures of the British Commonwealth to use comparative frameworks in relation to francophone literatures, ethnic American literatures, and African-American literature.