DPAL 2015 - XI International Conference on Anglo-American Studies: The Discourse of Power in Anglo-American Literature

The Discourse of Power in Anglo-American Literature
XI International Conference on Anglo-American Studies
Cetinje, September 11-13, 2015
National Library “Đurđe Crnojević”
The English faculty of the University of Montenegro invites scholars to join the discussion of the challenging issue of the discourse of power. Although our topic focuses on the examples from Anglo-American literature, we propose a multidisciplinary approach.
Before we begin to discuss the discourse of power, we must answer the fundamental questions: what is power? Dictionaries interestingly disagree. An entry in the Oxford Dictionary talks about “the ability or capacity to do something or act in a particular way.” The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as “the ability or right to control people or things.” The Encyclopædia Britannica Online, however, has no entry for power per se, it discusses under “authority” which it defines as “the exercise of legitimate influence by one social actor over another.”
In his Republic, Plato dismisses poets because they are twice removed from truth. His dismissal negates the creative power which recreates in words the physical incarnations of the metaphysical.
Machiavelli believes that there is no moral basis on which to judge the difference between legitimate and illegitimate use of power. Rather, authority and power are essentially coequal: whoever has power has the right to command. In his Phenomenology of the Spirit, and in his famous master-slave dialectic, Hegel says that in order for the master to achieve his existence he must exercise his power over the slave who must relinquish all of his in order to achieve his right to exist. The relationship is that of assertion and submission, confiscation and relinquishment. Nietzsche, who exerted much influence on early twentieth century philosophy, argues that power is all. “There is nothing to life that has value, except the degree of power-assuming that life itself is the will to power.” If the “morality [that] guarded the underprivileged against nihilism […] would perish,” he concludes, “then the underprivileged would no longer have their comfort-and they would perish” (Will to Power). As Frantz Fanon elaborates in Black Skin, White Masks, this brute and coercive power is used in oppressing the colonized out of their savagery, while offering no model of civilization but the White Man’s.
Feminists approach to power is “understood in terms of an oppressive or unjust power-over relationship” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), of domination or control of the masculine over the feminine, or, to borrow a term from postcolonial theory, the oppression of the masculine of the female other. As Judith Butler asserts, “feminist critique ought also to understand how the category of ‘women,’ the subject of feminism, is produced and restrained by the very structures of power through which emancipation is sought” (Gender Trouble).
As the word originates from the Anglo-French “poueir,” “poer,” a derivation from the Vulgar Latin “potēre” that replaced Latin “posse,” meaning “to be able,” “have power,” it is also closely related to “potent,” coming from the Medieval Latin “potentia.” Therefore, apart from physical and political power, as explained above, there are other forms and expressions of power, such as the power of creativity, of love, of beauty, of literature, of knowledge, of discourse, of now, etc.
We are pleased to announce that our confirmed keynote lecturers are Professor Isabel Carrera Suárez from the University of Oviedo, Spain, and Professor Éric Athenot, from l’Université François-Rabelais, Tours, France.
Your proposals, containing an abstract no longer than 300 words, with up to 8 key words and a short CV, should be sent to Marija Krivokapić (marija13a-AT-gmail.com) or Aleksandra Nikčević-Batrićević (alexmontenegro-AT-t-com.me), by April 15, 2015.
The conference fee of 80,00 euros includes a book of abstracts, conference material, conference dinner, conference excursion, refreshments, peer reviewing and publishing. The payment method will be announced by the beginning of July 2015.
For more information on the conference visit http://www.nicells.ac.me/.
For the Organizing Committee,
Dr. Marija Krivokapić
Dr. Aleksandra Nikčević-Batrićević
For the Academic Committee,
Dr. Bojka Đukanović, University of Montenegro
Dr. Miloš D. Đurić, University of Belgrade, Serbia
Dr. Aleksandra V. Jovanović, University of Belgrade, Serbia
Dr. Raad Kareem Abd-Aun, University of Babylon, Iraq
Dr. Marija Krivokapić, University of Montenegro
Dr. Aleksandra Nikčević-Batrićević, University of Montenegro
Dr. Petar Penda, University of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Dr. Sanja Runtić, University of Osijek, Croatia
Dr. Nina Sirković, University of Split, Croatia
Dr. Robert Sullivan, University of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Dr. Bledar Toska, University of Vlore, Albania