“In its breadth of contributions by scholars and writers with a distinguished background in their respective fields, Postcolonial Springs will serve as an informed platform for debate across scholarly, political, cultural, and activist fronts. These urgencies – foremost amongst them the realities of communities fighting for their dignity and basic rights in Libya, Syria, the Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine, Tunisia, Algeria, the Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan and beyond, remind us that, in a scenario driven by power and profit, authoritarian and financial interests, and the neoliberalist greed that has dominated the region, our intellectual vigilance asks of us to speak out and to object with resolve. As the political map of the southern Mediterranean is drawn and redrawn, it will be indeed difficult, henceforth, to reflect on the present history of postcoloniality without readily opening ourselves to these recent clamours, these voices for social change and economic justice heralded so clearly in the midan in revolt.”
Extract from Norbert Bugeja’s guest introduction to CounterText: Postcolonial Springs? 2011 and the Articulation of Post-Despotic Culture in the Southeastern Mediterranean
CounterText is a journal new to Edinburgh in 2015. It publishes articles, interviews and creative work concerned with contemporary literary and post-literary cultures – find out more at http://www.euppublishing.com/journal/count
