Vol. 4 Issue 3. – Event: UGC National Seminar on Voicing The Silence: Redefining English Literary Studies, February 17-18, Indore – India

ELTWeekly Vol. 4 Issue#3 | January 16, 2012 | ISSN 0975-3036

The Department of English, Mata Jijabai Government Girls P.G. College (Moti Tabela) Indore, is organizing a UGC National Seminar on “Voicing The Silence: Redefining English Literary Studies” on February 17-18 in Indore – India.

The National Conference will comprise of key note speeches, plenary sessions from eminent academicians and scholars and will have various parallel technical sessions on Poetry, Prose, Drama, Fiction, Indian Writing in English etc chaired by various Subject Experts/ Resource Persons from outside the State and participation from all over India. 

CHIEF GUEST: POILE SENGUPTA ( RENOWNED CREATIVE WRITER)

KEY NOTE SPEECH/ INVITED TALKS:

DR. I.D TIWARI PROFESSOR & HEAD , DEPT OF ENGLISH DEAN OF ARTS KHAIRAGARH UNIVERSITY , KHAIRAGARH

DR VIJAY SHARMA PRINCIPAL,RAMLAL ANAD COLLEGE , NEW DELHI

DR. NEERU TANDON,PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, VSSD COLLEGE, KANPUR

Objectives of the Seminar

  • To provide a special forum to present and discuss research on the theme of the seminar and discuss all its relevant key issues that are of great concern.
  • To facilitate sharing research based knowledge among academicians, teachers , scholars and students to promote collaborative research.
  • To provide exposure and interaction with the creative writers in the field to the academicians and researchers through plenary session, key-note speeches, paper presentation by the participants, panel discussions, and open sessions.
  • To work out an exhaustive report that will be prepared, and the research papers of quality refereed by the subject experts to be identified and recommended for publication.
  •  To review and utilise the final outcome of the various sessions and opinions of subject experts.

Introduction to the Theme & Concept

This conference means to address all areas of literature written in English including classical to Victorian, Edwardian, Modernist and contemporary Literature in English differently as the locus of impersonality and emotion, of autonomy and commitment, and also analyzing it in the light of ethics and responsibility and would address fundamental questions about ethics and literature. To work on ethics is quite a challenge since various definitions of the term have been given from Aristotle, Spinoza and Kant to Levinas, Ricoeur, Derrida, Deleuze, Nussbaum, Badiou, Bouveresse or Attridge. Such approaches as an “ethics of truths” or as morals or even as equity, words “the ethical turn” of the post-structuralist era but which are nevertheless useful in re-thinking modernity. Within the framework of an ethics of alterity, a form of confrontation which can take the shape of a simple encounter, a dialogue or even some sort of conflict. An ethical relation to the other implies some form of responsibility, towards the past, history or the story etc, a responsibility that can be connected with memory or repression, repetition or censorship and erasure. In fiction, responsibility can be represented through excess or reticence and can thus be connected with a baroque aesthetic or an aesthetic of decadence, or, on the contrary, with silence, more specific to Modernism than aestheticism or post-modernism. Responsibility is also predicated on values falsifying manipulating or appropriating data, the past, texts of the past and that in ethical and aesthetic considerations, all connected with the notion of responsibility. English literary studies the methodology used needs to be redefined; with the emergence of various theories including those applied by Practical Criticism and New Criticism, and even Structuralism.

Teachers professors, Resource Persons and Researchers and those who are keen on observing English literary studies are invited to share their experiences and insights about English studies and the Conference also aims and ensures at their wider participation and would encourage abstracts which incorporate interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary explorations of the subject. The number of participations to be around two hundred and we do expect to obtain valuable inputs from this seminar to develop English literary studies.

SUB THEMES & details of Sessions:

The Seminar may discuss and raise the following key issues/ sub-themes but of course not restricted to these:

  • Redefining the notion of Canon, the notion of `English’ in `English Literary Studies’, Incorporating pop literature in English Literary Studies, Methodology in English Literary Studies ,Teaching English Literature to student in India, English Literary Studies and nation building. The Making of Modern Cannons, Genesis and Crisis of Ideas.
  • Emergence of New Set of Values, Linguistic and Social Transformation through Literature.
  • Language and Literature as a Tool of Voicing the Silence, Literature and cultural expression. The manipulation of language for cultural/political purposes Race, language and culture; Art, language and culture Literature and cultural expression, Language as cultural resistance/subversion. Pedagogical applications of language and culture, The limits of language, especially for cultural expression.
  • Concepts of Mimesis, Ethics of Representation, Mimesis, Knowledge and Cognition Mimesis as Style (Intertextuality, Parody, Pastiche),Reality Effect and Concepts of Literary Realism, Mimesis and Allegory.
  • Futuristic View of the Third world through Literature
  • Recent Trends in Contemporary Literature in English
  • South East Asian Women Writers
  • The themes of Diaspora and Nostalgia and Immigrants’ experience
  • Family Strife and Estranged Relationship
  • Existentialism and the Subjectivity , Identity and Alienation
  • Colonial and Post-Colonial Issues
  • A Postmodern Approach to Understanding of Literature
  • Psychological Aspects in Literature
  • Philosophical Concerns and Aspects in Literature
  • Feminist Framework , Strategies and Methodologies
  • Women Empowerment
  • Oral traditions (storytelling, folktales, street poetry) as cultural expressions
  • Self-writing (travel writing, journals, diaries, and memoirs) as cultural expressions Translation/interpretation/adaptation of language
  • Multilingualism/multiculturalism
  • Music as a language of cultural expression. Music and Literature.
For more details, please write at englishdeptgdc@yahoo.com or contact ORGANISING SECRETARY Dr. Ashok Sachdeva
at ashoksachdeva@rediffmail.com or cell: 9926083522.

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