Concourse: August 2018

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Monday, August 13, 2018

International Seminar on the topic "Marx Today" on 02 -03 September 2018.Dept. of English, St Berchmans College, Changanacherry, Kerala

















Call for Papers

The Post-Graduate and Research Department of English, S B College,Changanacherry is organizing a two-day International Seminar on 3rd and 4th of September 2018 on the Topic: “Marx Today”. The conference on Marx is organised around the life and works of Karl Marx in the context of the two hundredth year of his birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of Das Kapital. Political thought and philosophy are incomplete without a Marxian dimension. Marx’s 1859 Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy posits a notion of politics that sets subjective agency in relation to its objective determinants. Marx here contends that human society “inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation.” The problem of politics, in other words, is how to correlate specific sites of struggle to the deeper structures that condition them. However, the enduring relevance of Marxist intellectual thought remains a point of spirited debate in the ideological history of the late twentieth century. With the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union, the emergent currency of postmodern concepts, and the rise of new social protest movements in the spheres of race, gender, and sexual orientation, Marxism came to appear the ‘signifier par excellence of theoretical hubris, redundancy and error’ (Pendakis and Szeman 2014).














In the twenty-first century however, propelled by the succession of economic and ecological crisis scenarios, Marxist criticism has experienced a critical resurgence. Fredric Jameson, David Harvey, and Alex Callinicos have provided new formal readings of Marx’s seemingly ‘inexhaustible’ text (Jameson 2011). Accompanying the apparent epistemological exhaustion of post-structuralist approaches, what palpably remains are the visible signs of an underlying crisis – secular stagnation, intensification of racism, sexism and xenophobia, militarised state repression, ecological collapse, deepening inequality and general human suffering for vast segments of the population. In the face of what some have argued is capital’s terminal crisis, our political world seems singularly unable to tackle the problems it has created and desperately needs to solve.But times of crisis are also times of possibility and the conference seeks to posit both questions and answers that address the matter of “The relevance of Marxism Today”. 


Proposals on all topics of relevance to Marxist theory and practice are welcome, including but not limited to:
  • Subalterninty
  • Postcoloniality
  • Economic Thought
  • Cultural studies
  • Marxian Literary Criticism
  • Political Thought
  • Marxism and aesthetics
  • Protests, Political Movements, Manifestos
  • Literature as praxis and theory
  • Marxism, ecology, and the Anthropocene






























Papers from teachers, research scholars and students of Universities and Colleges in India are invited.


Dates to Remember
1. Deadline for the submission of Abstracts : 14/08/2018
2. Intimation of the acceptance of the Abstract : 16/08/2018
3. Deadline for the submission of full papers : 31/08/2018
4. Seminar at SB : 03, 04/ 09/2018




























About the Abstract
The abstract should be in 300 words and should be sent to any of the email addresses given
below. The abstracts will be assessed by a peer review committee and the acceptance will be
intimated. The abstract should include the following
1. Name of the Presenter
2. Designation
3. Address of the Institution
4. Email and Mobile Number
5. Topic/ Title of the paper
About the Full Paper
1. Papers should be between 3000-5000 words in length.
2. The MLA 8th edition format should be followed
3. The text must be in Times New Roman, size 12, and double spaced.
We solicit your papers and participation in the seminar. Other details of the seminar will be conveyed to the participants through email and seminar brochure. Thank You,
Yours Sincerely
Dr Sabu Joseph                             Mr Thomas P J 
   
(Head of the Department)             (Co-ordinator)










Please Note
1. The Seminar Participation and Duty Certificates will be issued to the participants, provided they attend the seminar on both the days from 10am - 4pm.
2. Send your abstracts to : nithinvettu23@gmail.com or vimalmohanjohn@yahoo.co.in
3. For inquiries please contact: Mr Thomas P J - +91 9447806302
Mr Anish K Joseph - +91 9846702410
Mr Nithin Varghese - +91 9497669286
Mr Amal Toms - +91 8089678867
Mr Jerin B Sebastian - +91 9496379293 

Thursday, August 2, 2018

CFP:Region/Nation/Trans-Nation: Literature-Cinema Interface January 31-Feb 2, 2019 BITS Pilani, Goa
















Call for Papers 

This conference traces the various modes of engagement that exist between some of the globally dominant literary and cinematic forms, without limiting itself to the age-old domain of adaptation. It tries to locate these engagements and negotiations across three geopolitical formations and locations of culture, namely region, nation and trans-nation. These three locations work as contact zones where the literature-cinema interface manifests in various forms. With the emergence of transnationalism and comparative film studies as methods in cinema studies, multiple modes of literature-cinema negotiation are becoming increasingly evident with cinema studies borrowing concepts such as ‘world literature’ and ‘comparative morphology’. In the Indian/South Asian context, these locations are entangled with issues such as the language question, regional nationalisms, the crumbling idea of a federal republic with an increasingly stronger unitary governance, linguistic identity politics as manifested in popular cinemas and literatures, translational politics and the formation/development of certain national centres for the production of various modes of translation, India’s cultural/literary/cinematic negotiations with the trans-nation before and after globalization/economic liberalization etc. 

With contemporary India as its primary site of inquiry, the conference moves towards inter-continental geopolitical engagements without considering Indian regional/national and literary/cinematic questions in isolation. Apart from thematic and ideological associations with the trans-nation, it involves participants beyond the borders of the Indian nation (from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh), transforming itself into a discursive space where the conceptual apparatus meets with the narratives that inform and shape the former. Narratives from the margins will also significantly feature in the conference, with panels and plenaries on and from the Indian North-East. Moreover, a panel and a plenary will be devoted to Goa and its distinctive history of colonial and postcolonial politico-cultural engagements as manifested in indigenous literature and art.














Possible topics for presentation might be, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Transnationalism as Method
  • Comparative Cinema Studies and the transnational question
  • South Asia’s Cultural Engagement with the ‘West’
  • Cultural/Literary/Cinematic Migration within South Asia 
  • Idea of India and the Language Question
  • Linguistic Identity Politics in South and North-East India
  • North-East India and the Politics of Translation
  • South Korea’s Cultural Penetration into the Indian North-East
  • Goa’s legacy as an erstwhile Portuguese colony
  • Goa’s engagement with other Portuguese colonies (Brazil, Cape Verde, Mozambique)
  • Goa as a contact zone of culture
  • Histories of colonial, anti-colonial and postcolonial cultural negotiations in Goa
  • The Un-Indian Space/Region: Goa’s challenge to the Hindu Nation 
  • National and Transnational Cultures in South Indian Cinemas 
  • Regional Militancy in National (Popular) Cinema
  • Trans-Nation and Indian Modernity
  • Trans-Nation/Translation
  • Subtitling/Fan-Subbing/Dubbing/Remake as Cultural Translation
  • Internet Sharing in the Age of Post-Cinema
  • Formative Years of Film Industries and the Cultural and Literary Translation(s)
  • From Adaptation to Cultural Translation and Beyond
  • State and Non-State Actors in translation















Select conference proceedings will be published as a co-edited volume for the publication of which Oxford University Press (OUP) will be approached. 

We would like to invite abstracts for individual presentations and/or panels from Comparative and English literary studies/Cinema and Media studies/New Media studies/South Asian studies scholars. Interested speakers/presenters may mail a 250 word abstract along with a brief bio-note to lci2019@goa.bits-pilani.ac.in














Registration and other Details

A registration fee of INR 3500 (for outstation participants) or INR 2500 (for local scholars) must be paid. This fee includes registration, conference kit, working lunch, tea and snacks for three days and participation certificate, but does not cover accommodation in Goa. Participants are supposed to find their own accommodation; conference committee can help with suggestions regarding places nearby though. We cannot offer bursary/travel grants as we expect the participants to be supported by their respective home institutions. 

Participants who are willing to attend the conference dinner hosted on the penultimate night need to pay INR 1000 additionally. 












Deadlines

Submission of abstracts: September 30, 2018

Notification of Acceptance: October 15, 2018

Completion of Registration: November 15, 2018 

Submission of full paper: November 30, 2018 



















Plenary Speakers
Mariano Mestman (Universidad de Buenos Aires & CONICET, Argentina- TBC)
FakrulAlam (East West University, Bangladesh) 
KanchukaDharmasiri (University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka)
Supriya Chaudhuri (Jadavpur University)
M. Asaduddin (Jamia Millia Islamia- TBC) 
Ravi S. Vasudevan (CSDS, New Delhi) 
Moinak Biswas (Jadavpur University)
Kaushik Bhaumik (Jawaharlal Nehru University) 
GJV Prasad (Jawaharlal Nehru University) 
Asha Kuthari Chaudhuri (Gauhati University)   




















Contact Details
Amitendu BhattacharyaAssistant Professor in English
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani
K. K. Birla Goa Campus
NH 17 B, ZuarinagarGoa, India. 403 726
Telephone: +91-832-2580296
Mobile: +91-8378841351
http://universe.bits-pilani.ac.in/goa/amitendub/profile