1Call for Papers
CONRAD IN THE FAR EAST, Editor: Pei-Wen Clio Kao (National Ilan University)
Vol. 36 of CONRAD: EASTERN AND WESTERN PERSPECTIVES, Editor: Wiesław Krajka
The Maria Curie-Skłodowska University – Columbia University Press Conrad Project
Lublin: Maria Curie-Skłodowska University Press; New York: Columbia University Press,
to be published in 2027.

This Call for Papers invites contributions from Conrad scholars, whether based in theFar East or outside the Far East, to address issues of Conrad’s relation to the Far East.
We encourage the Conradians to reread and rethink Conrad’s works from theperspective of the Global South, and reconsider how Conrad’s modernist works haveinspired and motivated our critical mentality as well as positionality. We welcome
academic articles based on the perspective of the Third World as inspired by thedecolonizing waves of the 1960s. We also suggest analysis of Conrad’s Eastern or
Malay tales in relation to his maritime life. A comparison of Conrad and his Asian
counterparts or followers is also particularly in alignment with our volume profile.
In “Decolonizing University” (2024), Paul Giles proposes three agendas regarding
teaching and studying literature in the university: decolonizing the iconography in theuniversity; decolonizing the curriculum; and decolonizing the racial representation in
the university. The thrust of the decolonizing university project is not to discard theWestern cultural as well as literary tradition, but to incorporate Africa, Latin America,
Asia and Oceania into the epistemological frame. As Asian Anglo-American literaryscholars based in the Far East, the curriculum and pedagogies of decolonizing
university have incited us to rethink our epistemic and political positionality, andreevaluate our given philosophical framework or even biases. Besides, as the literaryscholars from the Global South who are situated in the heyday of postcolonialism,
how to make relevance of Conrad’s works to our time has become a pressing issue
awaiting the Asian Conradians to address.
During 1883 to 1888, Conrad sailed to Singapore, and the impression of this seaportcity has become the materials for his later writing career. Conrad’s influences havegone beyond the confines of Europe and America to reach the Third World, including
Asia. Numerous Asian scholars and critics are claimed or self-proclaimed protégé ofConrad. We could see the legacy or traces of Conrad in the works of Asian academic
moguls like Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Homi Bhabha, etc. In the 2014 film
adaptation of Conrad’s “The Secret Sharer,” Peter Fudakowski transformed both thesetting and the characters from the European to the Far Eastern. We can see familiar

2faces of the Chinese and the Taiwanese stars in the film, which demonstrates theimportance of Conrad’s influence in Asian literary as well as cinematic circles.
Terry Collits maintains that there are two methodologies for the contemporary readers
to read Conrad’s works. One is “objective reading,” which is to see literature as thevehicle of disseminating moral truth. Another is “subjective reading” that centers on
the reader’s subjective historical-spatial position. The 19th-century literary critic
Matthew Arnold served as the representative of the former approach. In “TheFunction of Criticism at the Present Time” (1864) Arnold emphasized the way to treat
literary works as an object, and the responsibility of the literary critics “to see theobject as in itself it really is.” The latter approach is embodied in the works of thecontemporary American leftist critic Fredric Jameson. He highlighted the importanceof historical context in The Political Unconscious (1981), and argued that the reader’ssubjective positionality has affected the interpretation of literature. We encourage both“close reading” and “political reading” to approach Conrad’s works and tease out theembedded meanings for the Far Eastern readers and beyond.
Topics included in this volume are listed as follows, and other related topics are also
welcome:˙Conrad and postcolonialism
˙Conrad and the Global South Studies
˙Conrad and decolonization
˙Conrad and the Third World Perspectives
˙Comparative studies of Conrad and Asian writers
˙Conrad and Asian studies
˙Conrad’s biography and the Far East

Please send 300–500-word abstracts, along with brief 100–150-word biographies, toPei-Wen Clio Kao at peiwen.clio.kao@gmail.com before August, 2024. The fullmanuscripts are due in September of 2025. All manuscripts will undergo double blind
peer-review for consideration. As of now, the book volume is set for publication in2027.