Women Remembering Power and Violence: Postcolonial Trauma Studies
Special Issue of Postcolonial Text

Editors:
Dr. Chantal Zabus, University Sorbonne Paris Nord, France
Dr. Esther de Bruijn, King’s College, UK
Dr. Alessandra Capperdoni, Simon Fraser University, Canada

Guest Editor:
Dr. KC Barrientos, University of South Carolina, USA


“Violence is man recreating himself,” psychiatrist and critic Frantz Franon wrote in 1961 in The Wretched of the Earth as he witnessed postcolonial destruction in the wake of the Algerian War. The violence he underscored in his seminal work was not the centuries-long decimation of the land and culture of the oppressed, but rather the revolution of the colonized against hegemony to reclaim a national and racial identity.

With revolutionary narratives in colonized spaces often centering on masculine heroics, the editors of Postcolonial Text are seeking to publish a guest issue that foregrounds feminine voices confronting power and violence. This issue, Women Remembering Power and Violence, will center on the traumas of postcolonialism, slavery, and other types of subjugation on the individual and collective body, memory, identity, and relationships of women in former colonies of the West. The journal solicits full-length articles on literature, cinema, or other cultural production that contributes to this discourse. Of special interest are essays that answer one or several of the following questions:
● In a postcolonial era, how is womanhood defined by and for women?
● How does the history of colonization manifest itself in the memory or self-perception of women?
● In what ways can women relate race with the flow of power and violence in their life experiences?
● How has the transaction of power between subjugated women and agents of hegemony shifted from colonial times to the present day?
● On what forms of violence do women draw to recreate themselves?
● Can art by women create violence, and if so, in what capacity?
● What feminine narratives of resistance have been historically erased which now must be examined?
● How has the legacy of colonialism impacted the formation of and healing from trauma in the collective body and/or memory of women?

For this special issue, scholarly work is welcome from any geographical area (with the exception of African-American literature) as it relates to postcolonialism.


Submission Guidelines and Process

Please submit a 300-word abstract and 100-word biographical statement to Dr. KC Barrientos (kcbarrientos@sc.edu) by Monday, March 31, 2025.

If the abstract is accepted, authors will have to create a user account on the Postcolonial Text website and upload submissions at the attached web link by Sunday, June 15, 2025. Essays shall meet the following guidelines:
● 6,000 to 8,000 words (including endnotes)
● Single-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font, with 1” margins
● Adherence to the 8th edition of the MLA format
● In-text citations and endnotes only
● Works cited page at the end of the article
● No author name(s) on any of the pages of the article to ensure blind peer review
● Electronic upload as a Word doc/docx file
● 300-word abstract, name, and institutional affiliation separate in the metadata submission page


General Timeline

● Abstract and biography submission deadline: Monday, March 31, 2025
● Invited papers submission deadline: Sunday, June 15, 2025
● Notification of acceptance and review process: Summer/Fall 2025
● Anticipated publication: Winter 2025/2026