ELTWeekly Vol. 5 Issue#43 | December 30, 2013 | ISSN 0975-3036
Department of English & Other European Languages, Dr. Hari Singh Gour University, Sagar (M.P.) is organising a seminar on “Narratives of Violence in Postmodern Literature” on February 27-28 at Sagar, MP, India.
Theme Statement
All along their evolution and dissolution, various ancient and medieval civilizations– from the Indo Aryan regions of the East to the Middle Eastern to the Greco-Roman to the fuzzy Indigenous Americas on the other side of the Atlantic to the Australian continent and around and farther into the Pacific –have all seen, suffered and perpetrated violence of the most overt and crude forms. Many of these civilizations perished or metamorphosed under attack and threat of violence. Therefore, violence and its various manifestations have been the core issues in philosophical and religious and other cultural discourses ever since the ancient and medieval times, both in the East and the West.
In our times, which we (debatably) reckon to have started in the decades surrounding the year 1900, the issues related to violence have become fixtures in several discourses, broadly in the fields of Literature, Politics and Religion. In these times of Postmodernity and Post Postmodernity, violence has assumed a range of shapes from the manifest to the convoluted. Barring the regions under religious or political extremism, open violence would be a scarce possibility because of active presence of various monitoring and law enforcing agencies. The situation thus prepares ground for many subtler forms of violence. So, here is a world in parts of which armed groups and outfits are wrecking the most primitive forms of violence, while in the ‘civilized’ parts of the same world violence appears in many camouflaged and psychologically convoluted shapes like emotional/intellectual/physical aggression between individuals, maltreatment of children or the elderly, and open or hidden sexual harassment and assaults, suicidal tendencies, and sado-masochism.
Although there have been numerous sociological and historical studies of violence and its origins, there is still a lot to be done towards a systematic analysis of the reflections of violence in literature and towards a study of the various crises violence has created. There is a lot of scope for investigation into the ways in which violence has jeopardized the thought processes and militated against deep seated human urge to communicate and share. For this purpose, literature would serve both as a subject and a powerful medium because of its inherent capability to call upon the larger human community and rouse it from complacency. A systematic study of the ways violence affects human life and the ways it can be stalled from destroying humanity becomes a solemn duty of the people at academia.
The seminar proposes to explore the world of literature to trace the responses to the global phenomenon of violence in all its modes- terrorism, genocide, aggression, coercion, militancy, radicalism.
The seminar would cover the following sub-themes and more for an insightful discussion:
- Social revolutions
- War(s) of independence
- Genocide
- Militancy
- Religious intolerance
- Domestic violence
- Sexual violence
- Sadism & Masochism
- Suicidal tendencies
- Forms of aggression
- Ecological violence
- Clash of political and cultural ideologies & identities
These sub themes only delineate the course of deliberations, and by no means limit the scope of the seminar. It is quite probable that there can be many more variations and varieties of sub themes, and we would welcome such variations and varieties. There are many great plenary speeches and a greater keynote speech scheduled for the seminar. We would expect a 250 word abstract of your paper to reach us electronically by 20 January 2014. You may mail the abstract/paper to conference.saugor@gmail.com. The complete paper of around 3000 words, typed in Times New Roman 12 pt. with the line space of 1.5, and a margin of 1” on all sides, should reach us by 10 February 2014 in both hard and soft copies. The paper should conform to the latest norms of the MLA stylesheet. A selection of papers will go into a book with an ISBN number, published by a reputed publisher.
Accommodation and Registration:
We will extend full local hospitality to the outstation participants, and will arrange their stay and food with no extra cost other than the registration fee. We would like the willing participants to send their registration fee well in advance, so that we can make decent arrangements for their comfortable stay at Sagar.
The registration fee for outstation participants is Rs. 3000/ (which, as stated earlier, includes stay and food for two days). The registration fee should be paid by Bank Draft/Check drawn/written in favour of the Registrar, Dr. Harisingh Gour Vishvidyalaya, Sagar (M.P.) and posted/couriered to the Head, Department of English, Dr. Harisingh Gour Central University, Sagar 470003 (M.P). The registration fee for local participants is Rs. 1500/, which doesn’t include stay.
Almost centrally located in Madhya Pradesh, Sagar is on main rail trunk lines from Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bhopal, Bina, Puri, Raipur, Varanasi, Agra, Jabalpur, Kota and Jaipur. The nearest airport is Bhopal, just three-hour road distance from/to Sagar.
Mail your queries at, or call, the following contacts:
Dr. Nivedita Maitra (niveditamaitra62@gmail.com)
Dr. Prakash Joshi (drpjoshi.bu@gmail.com)
Phone: 09826282089 Phone: 09479983965