Essay Collection: New Readings in the Literature of British India c.1780-1947

"New Readings" provocatively invites its contributors to newly interrogate and contest established readings of canonical texts, as well as offer new readings of critically neglected works. Contributors are encouraged to interpret the term "literature" as broadly as they wish, including within its permeable boundaries both fiction and non-fiction, verse and prose, essay and memoir, drama and travel writing. As such, each essay in the collection should offer a close and stimulating new reading of a specific literary work. Contributors are free to adopt whatever literary critical perspective they feel will be most productive in offering a new reading of their chosen work, but they must offer a sustained close reading of their chosen text. This volume will aim to demonstrate the rich, ?conflicting and often coextensive diversity of interpretation opened up by the concept of "new readings" of, and in, the literature of British India from a variety of critical and heuristic positions.

Please register your interest in this project by sending an abstract of c.500 words and a brief CV by the deadline of 1 September 2006 to the editor, Dr Shafquat Towheed at sstowheed@aol.com with the heading "Literature of British India". Accepted contributors will have until 1 February 2007 to submit their essays, which should ordinarily be between 10,000 - 12,000 words in length and should conform to MLA guidelines (citations in parentheses and a list of works cited). This book has been contracted by Ibidem Press to appear in its "Studies in English Literatures" series and it is anticipated that publication will be in the summer of 2007 (in time for the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise). Contributors will retain the copyright to their essays and will be entitled to publish them elsewhere. As a paperback publication, it will be able for adoption on undergraduate and graduate courses.

Dr. Shafquat Towheed
Institute of English Studies
University of London
+442084496539
Email: sstowheed@aol.com