Call For Applications:
Decolonization and globalization have made us conscious of the fact that not only is literature no longer national and autonomous, but it never was. Indeed one can only understand any national literature by comparing it with others…or by comparing it with a non‐national or a transnational literature. For these reasons the field of comparative literature is more urgent than it ever was.
If we understand the urgency of becoming genuinely comparatist, then we need to revisit what we mean by text, by genre, by periodization, and by the very category of literature. Fundamental questions arise as soon as one starts to think genuinely comparatively: Does every people everywhere have an epic? How does one understand the verbal culture of peoples without writing? Does tragedy arise only under certain circumstances? Does the novel have a particular relation to capitalism or have there always been long prose narratives? Does it make sense to compare feudalisms or medievalism across continents? How do the processes of diffusion and adaptation work? Are we witnessing the death of literature, or must we change our definitions? How have languages and literatures been codified, canonized, standardized and what are the political forces at work in shaping our understanding of literature? Do aesthetic categories of art and its appreciation, including affect, apply across cultures?
Course participants will learn these topics through lectures and tutorials. There is a definite scope to discuss, deliberate and create an individual take on Comparative Literature for the Twenty‐First Century through this course.
Modules:
1: The Grounds of Comparison
2: All the Difference in the World
3: What are we comparing?
Dates: 6‐16 December, 2017.
Venue: IIT Bhubaneswar
Deadline for registration: 30 November 2017.
Limited number of seats are available for the workshop.
You should Attend If…
- You are a Faculty of English interested in training yourself in Comparative Literature. you are a Teacher of Comparative Literature at any level.
- You are a student/researcher from the discipline of English interested to pursue Comparative Literature now or later in your academic life.
- You are a researcher from the disciplines of Humanities and/or social sciences interested to gain in‐depth knowledge of the Comparatist approach and apply the same in your research.
- You are a student or faculty from an academic institution interested in literature in general and Comparative Literature in particular.
- You are a freelancing scholar/ industry employee with an active interest in Comparative Literature.
- You are personnel from research organizations and publication‐related industry interested in Comparative Literature.
Fees and Registration:
The participation fees for taking the course is as follows: Participants from abroad : US $200 Industry/ Research Organizations: Rs. 6000/‐ Academic Institutions: Teachers : All modules : INR 4000/‐ Students : All modules : INR 1500/‐
The above fees include all instructional materials, computer use for tutorials and internet facility at the host institute during the course. The participants will have to take care of their travel, accommodation and food. However, accommodation can be arranged for a few participants on first‐cum‐first‐serve basis strictly against payment. Limited number of travel grants (III AC train fare) are available. For any queries regarding registration or other practical information, please contact the course coordinator.Participants can register for the course on the link below: http://www.gian.iitkgp.ac.in/GREGN/index
The Faculty:
Prof. Neil ten Kortenaar teaches African, Caribbean, and South Asian literature. He has published a book on Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children (McGill‐Queen's 2004) and another on Images of Reading and Writing in African and Caribbean literature(Cambridge 2011). His current research focuses on imagining state formation in postcolonial literature from India, Africa, and the Americas. This is a longstanding interest that has informed many publications, including an article on "Fictive States and the State of Fiction in Africa" in Comparative Literature 2000 and "Oedipus, Ogbanje, and the Sons of Independence" in Research in African Literatures (2007). He wrote the chapter on "Multiculturalism and Globalization" for The Cambridge History of Canadian Literature (2009). He is currently the director of the Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Toronto, Canada.
Dr. Punyashree Panda is working as Assistant Professor of English in the School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Management at Indian Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar. She is particularly interested in Postcolonial World Literature, Native American and Native Canadian Fiction, Indian Writing in English, Cross Cultural Communication, and English Language Teaching. Her book length works include Contemporary Native Fiction of the U.S. and Canada: A Postcolonial Study (Bäuu Press, 2011) and The Local and the Global in Postcolonial Literature (Authors Press, 2014). In 2014, she won the Fellow‐in‐Residence award from WISC, USA, the only Indian to have won it till date. This is her second GIAN Programme.
Contact Info:
Dr. Punyashree Panda
Assistant Professor of English
School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Management
IIT Bhubaneswar
Toshali Plaza, Satya Nagar
Bhubaneswar-751007
Odisha,India
Contact Email: punyashreepanda@gmail.com
