Dissident Writing, the Cold War, and the Decolonizing World

Dissident writers and repressive states are ubiquitous features of the long Cold War. During the second half of the twentieth century, literature became a fiercely contested site as writers faced harassment and intimidation in First, Second, and Third Worlds alike. Although many writers suffered at the hands of national governments, debates about human rights and literary freedom transpired on a global stage. Dissident writers appealed to constituencies beyond national borders while rival states attacked and defended one another over the duties and obligations of writers. In the Global South, writers were particularly vulnerable, running afoul of states who could view them as anti-nationalist, anti-party, secessionist, communist, or anti-communist. Many of the leading writers of Africa and Asia, from Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Nawal El Saadawi, and Wole Soyinka to Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ding Ling, Kim Chi-ha and Pramoedya Ananta Toer spent time in detention.

Although the fantasy of the lonely, persecuted writer protesting against state orthodoxy persists, scholars increasingly recognize that dissident writers were enmeshed in complex international networks that often crossed Cold War affiliations and boundaries. The ideological coordinates of the persecuted writer/repressive state relationship were particularly blurry in the decolonizing world, where the line between committed anticolonial revolutionary and dissident could change rapidly. As such, the values of literary autonomy, committed or activist writing, and freedom of expression as a human right were hotly debated.

In this seminar, we are particularly interested in papers that consider how the emerging discourse of human rights evolved in tandem with the shifting contours of the Cold War and decolonization.

Topics may include:
-How did the image of the dissident writer evolve over the course of the Cold War?
-With what cultural and political organizations did dissident writers collaborate?
-How did individual writers reshape cultural organizations, such as PEN, to fit their own needs, and likewise how did interactions with cultural organizations change individual writers?
-How did cultural institutions and writers’ organizations manage Cold War affiliations?
-What is the relationship between the cultural policy of states in the decolonizing world and their Cold War alliances?
-How did dissident writers’ identification with persecuted groups, such as ethnic minorities or LGBTQI+, influence the articulation of human rights in a transnational context?
-How were the translation and international circulation of writers affected by state persecution?
-How did the discourse of solidarity or collective resistance, so prevalent in the anticolonial movements, affect or inform the emergence of human rights through dissident writing? 
-How might the demands of dissident writers exceed human rights notions of “freedom of expression” or “freedom of conscience”?