Concourse: 2018

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Wednesday, November 28, 2018

CFP:Two-day Interdisciplinary National Conference ‘Indian Popular Fiction: Redefining the Canon’ on January 16 & 17, 2019 Maharaja Agrasen College, Delhi.














Call for Papers
The Department of English, Maharaja Agrasen College (University of Delhi) in collaboration with FORTELL is organising a Two-day Interdisciplinary National Conference ‘Indian Popular Fiction: Redefining the Canon’ on January 16 & 17, 2019 (Wednesday & Thursday) at Maharaja Agrasen College, Vasundhara Enclave, Delhi.

Keynote Speaker: Mr Surender Mohan Pathak

Invited Speakers: Ms Advaita Kala, Ms Deepa Agarwal, Mr Vishwajyoti Ghosh, Mr Niraj Srivastava, Ms Devapriya Roy amongst several luminaries from the world of Indian Popular Fiction











Conference Theme:
Flourishing in non-academic registers and trashed as low brow literature unworthy of literary attention and critical gaze, Indian Popular Commercial Fiction seemingly should suffer from a huge identity crisis. Instead, it stands tall amidst market forces, laughing its way to the bank. Dismissive of the criticism, unfettered by pretentious launches and awards; and indifferent to meritorious reviews that matter to literary pundits, it dominates the publishing industry by vetting the voracious appetite of its readership constituencies albeit in cheap pulp on which it is printed.


Both domains - Canonised Literary Writing and Popular Commercial Fiction - though not mutually exclusive have been categorised and segregated by the academia. The foster child, Popular Commercial Fiction is governed by market forces wherein the publisher/editor is supreme. Here, as Suman Gupta demarcates, “…publishing professionals increasingly partake of a sort of greater authorship: they seem to speak as authors of a commercial field of literary production and reception in which the immediate authors - the functional writers of commercial fiction - contribute in a subsidiary way”. The erstwhile predominance of localised formulaic fiction in the likes of Om Prakash Sharma, Ved Prakash Kamboj, Surender Mohan Pathak, Raj Bharti, Anil Mohan etc found prolifically at Wheeler’s stands at Railway Stations, Book shops at Bus Stops, Traffic-Light vendors, Pavement Bazaars and the like, picked for the instant gratification they offered, paved way for a more ‘respectable’ glocal platform. Reprinted and translated in several languages, the assembly line production though mass produced and consumed was given a short shrift by academics and literary critics. Such popular writings were as Pathak comments “harlots who are looked down upon by the high-nosed English-speaking crowd”. Fortunately, this is no longer the case.


The immense popularity of Indian Commercial Fiction both as literary enterprise and as commercial venture has attracted global publishers: Penguin, Harper Collins, Hachette, Random House etc., vindicating both the merit of the author and the taste of the readers. The incognito writer now has a face and more significantly, a voice. Sisir Kumar Das, Suman Gupta, Buddhadev Bose, Tabish Khair amongst several others are the eloquent participants in the debate that blurs the hiatus between literary merit and commercial success. The former is often associated with the Salman Rushdie, Amitava Ghosh, Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy bandwagon and the latter with the Anuja Chauhan, Chetan Bhagat, Shobha De, Anurag Mathur, Ashwin Sanghi, Ravinder Singh, Durjoy Dutta brigade. Today, the latter are not just names churning pulp at the altar of commerce. They are names to reckon with and are dismantling categories and rebuilding hierarchies. What was dismissed earlier as low brow simply because it was popular can no longer be wished away and the fact that the reading public is just a mindless mass sans aesthetics holds no water in contemporary context. Though not credited as literary crusaders they are localised, rooted in India and as Claudia Kramatschek succinctly puts it, “…they write about this sense of connection in new and innovative – and at times surprising - ways. A marked turn towards localism is observable, meaning toward the micro cosmos of one’s lived world…”


Indian Popular Commercial Fiction has spawned successful genres and formulas. In addition to the popular habitat occupied largely by Detective and Science fiction, today, Mythological Series, Chick Lit, Campus Novels and Fantasy Fiction have invaded book shelves and must-read lists not just in the vernacular and regional spaces but also in Indian English. Erotic Fiction of course continues to remain a safe venture, be it in Tamil Nadu, Kerala or Maharashtra. Furthermore, the emergence of social media and new web spaces such as blogs, Tumblr etc., along with self-publishing facilities, book reading mobile apps and gadgets, democratisation and globalisation of writership and readership is near complete.


The key question also arises, what is the gratifying impulse behind this commercial success? Why is the Indian youth, the middle classes and even the alleged elite in academic circles fascinated with this so-called sub/low/cheap/para literature? Todorov while writing on whodunit mysteries said that the fact that popular literature is being referred to as some kind of literature is of course, a way of giving it the currency denied to it. So, in the last few decades, literary criticism has trained its lens on this cultural production with serious theoretical rigour and systematic textual and contextual engagement to examine the osmotic divides, expressive imperatives, urban phenomenon and libidinous urges enshrined in it. This conference seeks to open the debate surrounding the potent, fertile and pulsating site visited by many: Indian Popular Fiction. Drawing on both the key aspects: literary and the commercial, the Conference attempts to explore the legitimacy, literariness and popularity of this terrain. There is no denying that a systematic critical engagement needs to be carried forward: both synchronically and diachronically, replicating and innovating the parameters/tools used to critique serious and meaningful literature. This is not just about giving the devil its due but perhaps acknowledging the vitality and tenacity of a huge terrain in the literary domain that academia can no longer ignore.















The conference will focus on all aspects of Indian Popular Fiction: The forms, authorship, reader base, and the publishing industry which govern most of what is written in postmodern times as well as the alternative routes offered by technology. We welcome critical perspectives, on the above theme or on one of the following tracks which are in no particular order:


1. Literary Popular and Commercially Popular
2. Historicising Popular Fiction in the Indian sub-continent
3. Who is writing for whom: The key connections between authorship and readership
4. The local and the glocal
5. Publishers as key voices
6. Giving the Devil its Due
7. The ‘Indian’ in Popular Commercial Fiction
8. Moving Beyond: Social Media and the Web space
9. Voices that Matter: Regional Languages and Spaces
10. Genres and Formulas
a. Mythological Fiction
b. History and Pulp
c. Detective Fiction
d. Science Fiction
e. The Fantasy Novel
f. Thrillers and Suspense
g. Chick Lit
h. Romance
i. Erotic Fiction
j. Graphic Novel
k. Serialised Magazine Fiction
l. Campus Novels
m. Web Fiction















Details of Abstract submission


Please email a 300-word abstract with the requisite information (paper title, name, designation, affiliation, contact information: Address, email ID & phone number along with a 75-word bio-note to macengdept@gmail.com latest by December 15, 2018. Early submissions are welcome.
The subject line of your email should read “Abstract IPF 2019: (YOUR NAME)”

All abstracts will be peer reviewed before acceptance.
In your proposal, please outline your presentation plan and any audio-visual and space needs. We also seek proposals for panels and workshops that address the central theme of the conference.


Accepted abstracts will require a full draft paper, double-spaced, in not less than 3000 words and not exceeding 4000 words referenced according to the 7th edition of APA Stylesheet to be submitted electronically in MS-Word by December 31, 2018. Select papers presented at the conference will be published as part of a digital or paperback book.


Presentation time for the delegates will be of 15–20 minutes.

The Best Paper in the Conference shall be awarded Rs 5000/- by Fortell. The screening committee shall comprise of members of the Executive Board of Fortell and the Conference Committee.

Delegates are required to pay registration fees of Rs 1000 (Rupees One thousand only), which will entitle them to the conference kit and meals.
Mode of payment will be via bank transfer latest by December 31, 2012
Bank Details for collection of Registration Fees are as given below: -
Name of the Account :Principal, Maharaja Agrasen College Student Society A/c
Bank Account Number : 481606239
IFSC Code : IDIB000M102 (0 stands for Zero)
Bank Name : Indian Bank
Branch : Mayur Vihar












Key Dates
Last date for submission of abstract: December 15, 2018 (Saturday)
Intimation of acceptance: December 20, 2018 (Thursday)
Last date of Submission of Registration FeeL December 31, 2018 (Monday)
Last date of submission of Full Paper: December 31, 2018 (Monday)
Dates of the Conference: January 16 & 17, 2019; (Wednesday & Thursday)


Conference Committee:
Patron: Dr Sunil Sondhi
Convenor: Gitanjali Chawla (9818679187)
Co Convenor: Prem Kumari Srivastava (9810600363)
Treasurer: Mona Sinha
Members: Sangeeta Mittal, Anupama K Jaidev, Vinod Verma, Charu Arya, Shilpa Gupta, Subodh K Upadhyay, Debosmita Paul, Indrani Dasgupta, Guntasha Tulsi, Shashi Tigga, Aditya Premdeep

Monday, October 22, 2018

Travel Bursaries Assisted CFP: IRELAND INDIA INSTITUTE SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES CONFERENCE , April 2019, DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY
















Call For Papers:
The Ireland India Institute, Dublin City University is pleased to announce its Third Conference on South Asia, which will be held on the 24-26 April 2019 in Dublin, Ireland. Doctoral researchers, academics and activists are invited to send proposals for papers and panels addressing one of the thematic sections listed below.

Themes

Contemporary Nationalisms in South Asia
Acknowledging that the idea of ‘the Nation’ is a contested concept this section explores the impact of the current rise of nationalism and the legacy of nation-building in South Asia. Economic globalisation and the internet revolution has made the world more interconnected than ever before; however, the past decade has also seen an acceleration in the growth of nationalisms and a retreat into the ‘nation-state’. This section invites papers that address the following questions: In the context of South Asia, what are the contradictions for modernising societies associated with the re-emergence of nationalism? What are the political trends that are being shaped by nationalisms? What are the implications of current nation-building projects in the region? What are the ongoing implications of past nation-building projects?

Electoral Transformations in South Asia: Forging New Hegemonies?
Situating itself in the contemporary electoral landscape of South Asian politics, this section focuses on the political impact of recently held or scheduled general elections. This section invites papers that address the following topics: Do recent elections represent an ideological and material shift in the political systems of South Asia? Does the rise of right-wing and populist politics, reflected in the establishment of the electoral dominance of single parties – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India or the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in Pakistan – represent a political paradigm shift? Papers on these topic areas can range from empirical studies on the general elections, electoral behaviour, and the influence of these elections on federal relations to theoretical reflections on whether the elections contribute to the creation of new dominant ideological frameworks in the region.




















Framing identities in South Asia
Identity politics in South Asia today stands at an interesting threshold, which is in flux between co-operation and conflict, with different emerging nationalistic discourses in the region. This section explores the construction of identities in both the macro and in the micro-politics of its operation. How are majoritarian identities framed vis-a-vis the minority identities? How are emotions, ideologies and sense of belongingness mobilised to create languages of solidarity and or languages of hate? How are discursive identities (which are not necessarily minority identities) framed/maintained for the perpetuation of majoritarian identities? Are there common parameters or spaces in which majority and minority identities intersect to assert themselves? At the various levels of this hierarchy, what affirms assertions in the interests of the competing identities? This section applies these questions to an analysis of the contemporary debates around Refugee, Queer, Dalit and Indigenous tribal identities in South Asia, while examining the constructions and the contradictions that drive both the discourses of hate and of solidarity in these debates.

The Politics of Environmental policies
The adoption of policies in response to the severity of climate change varies considerably across South Asia, this includes the adoption of different strategies when implementing similar environmental policies. This section welcomes papers that address the following questions. What explains this cross-national variation in both policy adoption and implementation? Why do some countries perform better than others in addressing environmental issues? What are the roles of party politics at the national and local level in the design, adoption and implementation of policies? What are the roles of political and economic institutions in South Asia in the formation and adoption of an environmental policy, including from a comparative perspective? How have South Asian states responded to international debates on climate change and international agreements on environmental policy?

Interpreting the past, predicting the future: Literature and film in South Asia
Literature and film in South Asia encompass a diverse range of narratives. Within this broad topic area, the section welcomes papers that engage with narratives that reflect perspectives on the past and on present representations of these experiences. How do these perspectives influence, or shape, literary and cinematic discourses? Papers in this section, for example, can discuss these themes through the lens of South Asian diasporic literature; Dalit narratives; representation of Minorities/Dalits in South Asian cinema; literatures on South Asian Conflicts; literatures in translation; vernacular South Asian literature; depiction of gender, sexuality, class, and caste in regional South Asian films; and new literary genres in South Asia.




















Interrogating Colonial Relationships
The impact of colonialism on the South Asian subcontinent continues to exert a major influence on the form of both state and society. These post-colonial relationships have been interrogated from a range of perspectives, including anthropological studies of post-colonial state institutions; studies of bureaucratic traditions; the impact on governance; the study of state-sponsored violence, providing evidence of the ongoing impact of colonialism on the political culture of South Asia. This section invites papers on this topic through the lens of history, anthropology, contemporary literary and cultural studies, that critically discuss the nuances of the colonial legacy, including on-going interactions with former colonial powers and with other post-colonial states.

The politics of cyberspace
In the wake of the proliferation of smartphones with high-speed internet, the capacity of the individual to communicate information to an almost unlimited audience has been hailed as the ‘democratization of communication’. This ‘democratization of communication’ presents a paradox as although the communication revolution has created space for previously unheard, subaltern voices and perspectives it has also enabled the rapid spread of misinformation and the manipulation of information by elite groups. This section asks what has been the South Asian experiences of this paradox? How is cyberspace shaping social interactions and the day to day experience of politics in South Asian? What are the hierarchies that exist in this space? Contributions are invited on the role of fake news and rumour campaigns that use cyberspace as a platform, the role of cyberspace in contemporary politics, and on the role of cyberspace in the wake of #metoo in Indian academia.


















Submission Details:
Proposals for papers should include a title and abstract (300 words). Proposals should be submitted via Google forms no later than 30 November 2018. We especially encourage papers from underrepresented groups including queer, Dalit and minority perspectives. Without the mention of relevant themes, abstracts will not be included. We also invite panels with no more than 4 panellists. Panel Proposals can be made via email. 
Please write to us at india.postgradconference@dcu.ie for more information.


Travel Bursaries: The organizers hope to be able to offer a number of bursaries to support the participation of PhD students from South Asia. To apply for a travel bursary, please attach a 300-word justification statement in the space provided within the google form, explaining why you believe you are a suitable candidate for a bursary. The bursary will only be awarded as reimbursements after the conference. Participants have to arrange for their own travel and accommodation.

For More Details:http://irelandindia.ie/2018/09/17/call-for-papers-ireland-india-institute-south-asian-studies-conference-2019/

Sunday, October 21, 2018

CFP: International Conference on Women Studies, Language, Culture and Social Sciences-28th to 29th December 2018 Goa, India















Call For Papers


The International Conference on Women Studies, Language, Culture and Social Sciences 2018 (ICWES 2018 ) to be organized by IMRF in collaboration with Carmel College for Women and other International Bodies shall be one of the significant conferences in Women Studies, Education & Social Sciences Community held in conjunction with the IMRF International Journals .

The Conference is designed with Special Invited Research Lectures, Paper Presentations and Poster Presentations. International Conference on Women Empowerment, Education & Social Sciences 2018 is honored by bringing Peer Reviewed Arts & Education International Research Journal Vol-5 Issue 1 with 2349– 1353, Peer reviewed Social Sciences International Research Journal Vol-4 Spl Issue with ISSN 2395 – 0544, with all papers accepted for publication. The main intention is to reflect the pioneering state of research in Women Empowerment, Education & Social Sciences 

Some non-technical talks connected with promotion of research in Women Empowerment, Education & Social Sciences will also be convened. 















Themes

Original research papers in the following disciplines but not confined, related to  Women Empowerment, Education & Social Sciences  from Post Graduate Students, Research Scholars, Faculty, Scientists   are invited for presentation.​

Women Studies 
Feminist method |Gender studies |Gender mainstreaming |Gynocentrism |Kyriarchy |Matriarchy |Women's studies | Patriarchy |Écriture féminine | Leadership etc., and allied subjects

Education
Primary education |Secondary education |Higher education |Vocational education |Adult education
Alternative education |Madrasa education |Woman education |Dance education |Distance education | International studies | Journalism education |Special education |Vocational education

Social Sciences 
Anthropology |Archaeology |Criminology |Demography |Economics |Geography (human) |History International relations |Jurisprudence |Linguistics |Pedagogy |Political science |Psychology |Science education |Sociology | Public Administration |Journalism etc.,  and allied subjects.
English Studies Linguistics |Sociolinguistics |Discourse analysis |Language learning and teaching | Literature American literature – including African American literature |Jewish American literature Southern literature | Australian literature |British literature |Canadian literature | Irish literature New Zealand literature |Scottish literature |Welsh literature |South African literature  | Translations
 ​














Submission of Papers
 
Participants intending to present papers in conference are requested to submit soft copy of the abstract incorporating the motivation, method of solution and important findings of their investigation to  icwlcs2018@gmail.com
 




Important Dates
Participation is for limited number. 
To reserve your participation with the notified fee and with out any late charges  register the earliest

Last date to submit Abstract :                                                                                                                          20/10/2018
Last date to Register :                                                                                                                                        10/11/2018

Optional
Last date to submit Full Paper if interested in Publication :                              20/10/2018
Submission of Papers
 
Participants intending to present papers in conference are requested to submit soft copy of the abstract incorporating the motivation, method of solution 
and important findings of their investigation to  icwlcs2018@gmail.com.
 















Contact Us

If you need more information, have questions, or would like to offer a suggestion, please be in touch.
You can contact us via phone, email.

 We’ll get back to you as soon as possible. 
Tel: +91 9533421234, +91 9618777011
HQ : Vijayawada, Amaravathi, Andhra Pradesh, India