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Wednesday, November 8, 2017

International Conference on Indian Literature as World Literature: Past, Present, Future -18 to 20 January 2018. EFL University, Hyderabad, Telangana





Call For Abstracts:

In recent years Indian Literature in English has been generating renewed interest in its writers and writings not just among students and scholars of literature but also intellectuals and thinkers working in other areas of Humanities and Social Sciences. There has also been a huge global increase in sales of literary works produced by Indian writers living in India as well as writers of Indian origin living outside the country. This new era in Indian Writing, as we all know, was ushered in by the epic-success of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children published in 1981. Today, interestingly, many of the works published in the 80s and 90s, especially Rushdie’s own magnum opus, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger and others feature on the reading lists of departments of World Literature in universities across the globe.







Not very long ago, classical literatures of India produced over the last two millennia, had generated a similar interest among scholars of British India. English translations of The Rāmāyaṇa, The Mahābhārata, Pañcatantra, Kathāsaritsāgara, Jātaka Tales, Abhijñānashākuntala, Raghuvaṃśa, Mṛcchakaṭika, Svapnavāsavadattam, Harṣacarita, Pṛthvīrāj Rāso and Padmavat began to come into the public domain as early as the last quarter of the 1800s and after. The contribution of indologists and translators like Ralph Griffith, Arthur Ryder, E. B. Cowell, Charles Henry Tawney, Sir William Jones and others in the preservation and dissemination of India’s most loved classical texts across the limits and boundaries of the ancient languages is unquestionably one of the most important milestones in the journey of Indian literatures. Sadly, however, these extraordinary texts, or at least parts of them, despite their incomparable literary quality and universal appeal have rarely been featured on reading lists of World Literature departments.







The fate of literatures produced in the regional languages of India has not been very different. Most of the literature produced in Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and a host of other languages has to a large extent remained unknown both to readers outside the language of its origin as well as to the English-speaking world simply for lack of translation across  languages within India and of course, into English. Can an understanding of World Literatures ever be complete without having known the worlds of Kalidas, Kabir, Meera, Mir Taqi Mir, Mirza Ghalib, Kaifi Azmi, Gulzar, Sri Sri, Gurram Jashuva, Kuvempu, Premchand, Sarat Chandra Chatterjee, Nirala, Sumitranandan Pant, Maithili Sharan Gupt, Bhisham Sahni and O V Vijayan,  to name a few?
Thus, the range of possibilities and array of questions that glare at those engaged in a serious and sincere promotion of the idea of “world literature” are overwhelming and intriguing at the same time. But the ride, however bumpy and bouncy it may seem, has also been immensely rewarding in terms of the varied points of arrivals, the reactive and commendatory responses, fresh challenges and new possibilities in the domain of world literatures.








Today, “world literature”, presents itself as a field of study with major thrust on global circulation, transcultural reading methods, wide ranging stylistic patterns, “intertextuality,” and interesting affiliations between texts and readers, hitherto not so evident. Indian writers, in their elaborate visions of particular locales/settings, have all along been challenging the notions of worldliness as something divorced from the local and the indigenous as something insulated from the world as the West would prefer to view them. These writers preferred rather to display the synergies between the local, national, regional, and global, and show how the local and the familiar function as the co-ordinates of the world. Being quite in consonance with one of the major pursuits of postcolonial literatures - fostering an understanding of the traffic between the local and the global, and that of world literature insisting that power and the way one is socially situated affect how one reads and writes the world - Indian literature does not seem to have any different purpose or end from that of world literature. The world then becomes not something exotic, menacing, and inhospitable but an accretion of what we consider home, a larger community to which we are all native.








The conference aims to explore the promising avenues of exchange between Indian literary studies and world literature. What role can writers, readers, critics, scholars, teachers, translators, literary agents, publishers, journalists, film makers, print and electronic media professionals etc. can play in promoting Indian literatures in English and translation at the global level? Consequently, the Conference looks to bring experts from various fields on to a single stage, all looking to share their learning and expertise in addressing the concerns. 









Well-researched and unpublished papers are invited on topics related to all aspects of Indian literature and literary criticism in English, in translation as well as regional language literatures. However, all submissions must strictly be in English only. If you choose to make an impact submit your abstract in not more than 250 words along with the keywords.  Do not forget to mention your name, place, affiliation, mobile number, and email address.  All submissions and correspondence may be made at efluiwlconference2018@gmail.com








Important Dates:
Deadline for submission of abstracts: 20 November 2017
Notification of Acceptance: 30 November 2017
Deadline for Registration: 15 December 2017
Full paper: 25 December 2017
Registration Fee:
Faculty Members (Out-station paper presenters) Rs 5000/-
Research Participants (Out-station paper presenters) Rs 2500/-
Local Participants (presenters & non-presenters) Rs 1500/-
EFLU Research Scholars Rs 1000/-
Foreign Delegates 100 USD
Please pay conference registration fee through Money Transfer to the bank account provided below. You are requested to email us your name and complete transaction details like amount, transaction number, date and name of the bank along with a scanned copy of the counterfoil.
Beneficiary’s Name: Internal Income Account
Acc No.: 62122901303
Type of Account: Savings
State Bank of India
IFSC Code: SBIN0021106
Bank Address: SBI, EFLU Branch, Hyderabad-500007








Payments may also be made through a Demand Draft drawn in favour of Internal Income Account, A/C No.62122901303, SBI, EFLU Branch, Hyderabad and sent to The Conference Coordinator, Dept. of Indian and World Literatures, EFL University, Hyderabad, Telangana - 500007. Please furnish complete transaction details like amount, Transaction number/DD No., date, Name of the Bank etc. in your communication. The Registration Fee includes the conference kit, three lunches, the conference dinner on January 18, and tea & snacks at intervals. Outstation participants will be provided breakfast on all three days. Accommodation will be available from 3 pm on 17 January to 10 pm on 20 January. ¬-Participants making joint presentations need to register separately.










Our Distinguished Conference Speakers

Prof. Graham Huggan, Professor of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Literatures, University of Leeds, UK will deliver the Keynote Address. Prof. Huggan is one of the world’s most renowned critics in the comparative postcolonial literary/cultural studies.








Prof. Vinay Dharwadker, Professor of Comparative Literatures and Folklore Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, is an expert in Indian and South Asian literatures and culture. 









Prof. Aparna Dharwadker, Professor of English and Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, specializes in comparative modern drama, modern Indian theatre and contemporary world theatre.







Mr. Ananth Padmanabhan is Chief Executive Officer of HarperCollins India and was former senior vice-President of Penguin India, the biggest multinational publishing houses in India. Mr. Padmanabhan has been at the helm of publishing business in India for more than 20 years now.








Dr. Arshia Sattar specializes in South Asian languages and civilizations and Indian narrative. She is one of the finest experts in Ramayana, an extraordinary translator of ancient texts and author of several books inspired by Indian mythology.










Volga is a popular Telugu novelist, short story writer, poet and translator. She was honoured with the Sahitya Academi Award for her collection of short stories titled Vimuktha.








Ms. Bhawana Somaaya, film journalist, critic, author and historian will deliver the Valedictory Address. Ms. Somaaya was recently honoured with the Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian award, by the Honourable President of India Shri. Pranab Mukherjee. She has also served on the advisory panel of the Central Board of Film Certificate.









ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Prof. N. Ramadevi Murru, Dean, School of Literary Studies
Conference Coordinator
Dr. Chinnadevi Singadi, Assistant Professor
Joint Coordinator
Dr. Thoty Subramaniam
Head, Department of Indian and World Literatures
The EFL University, Hyderabad





Sunday, November 5, 2017

International Conference on Cultural Practices of Labour in Migration- April 20-21, 2018, TISS Patna.













Call For Abstracts:

The purpose of this conference is to bring together works from diverse fields and discipline that will re-examine the making and unmaking of cultural practices that accompanies labour migration both historically as well as in contemporary times. How does labour migration mutate the established genres? How does it create new ones? What is the role of memory and acts of forgetting? What are the processes through which the culture industry commodify the cultural practices of migrant labour and sell it back to them and in the process not only accumulate surplus value through their labour but also through their hitherto non-commoditized cultural artefacts? Is it possible to revisit and reconceptualise such concepts like hybridity, multiculturalism, exile, and so on by keeping at the centre of our analysis workers in plantation, or mining, or shipping, or as is the case in contemporary times, in the globalized construction industry? Are these workers creating new methods of articulation of cultural practices which literary studies, cultural studies, and social sciences in general need to unearth? These are only some of the questions that we want to address in the seminar.










The papers in the seminar would be on following subjects which are only indicative and can go beyond these stated themes:
  • Literary genres in migration
  • Cultures of resistance, association, and intersectionality
  • Memory, loss, identity
  • Language and its development through labour migration
  • Genealogy of cultures created through labour migration
  • Gender and sexuality
  • From folklore to mass production of culture
  • Representation of labour and migration
  • Transitions and Translations of Culture
  • Migrant Labour and Urban Culture
  • Migration and Indigenous Culture











Please send an abstract with title of the paper (250 words max) to mithilesh.kumar@tiss.edu and patnacentre@tiss.edu.
The last date for submitting the abstract is January 10, 2018.
Authors whose papers are selected will be informed by January 15, 2018.
Full paper should be submitted latest by April 1, 2018.
Papers can be presented in English, Hindi, or Urdu.
Poster exhibition and documentaries are welcome. A copy of the art work will be housed and catalogued in the repository of the Migration Archive of the Centre.











Organised by: Centre for Development Practice and Research, TISS Patna.
Conference Coordinator: Mithilesh Kumar, Research Fellow, TISS Patna Centre; Shanker Dutt, Professor, Department of English, Patna University; and Pushpendra Kumar Singh, Professor, TISS Patna Centre.
Date: April 20-21, 2018
Venue: TISS Patna Centre
Contact Email: mithilesh.kumar@tiss.edu

Friday, November 3, 2017

Funded South Asia Graduate Student Conference XV The University of Chicago March 1st-2nd 2018









Call For Abstracts:

Humanistic inquiry has played an important role in shaping South Asia, and South Asia has played an important role in shaping humanistic inquiry. But how far back into the past and how far into the future does this hold true? The fifteenth annual South Asia Graduate Student Conference at the University of Chicago invites papers that address the limits—whether temporal, institutional or conceptual—of humanistic inquiry. The question we pose is a simple one: Why should scholarship on South Asia lead academic discussions that invest new agency in the environment and other non-human entities? 













Often unacknowledged in discussions of humanistic practices, South Asia has been the site of disciplinary regimes where distinctions of the human and non-human were instituted for the first time or at an unprecedented scale. The conference hopes to foreground South Asia as the site of a double exclusion: certain practices of knowledge were excluded from scholarly inquiry at the same time as animals, mountains, rivers and other non-human agents were written out of humanistic concerns. By bringing this double exclusion into view, we can see how the limiting of inquiry and the limitations of inquiry are distinct, yet related phenomena.









Practices such as philological close-reading, the collection of big data, and ethnographic fieldwork have determined the scales and working objects of scholarship in subtle, yet powerful ways, and we solicit papers that explore the limits of such practices. How might we learn from different epistemologies of precolonial South Asia and how they divide the phenomena of the world? What can we gain by returning to moments when current divisions were not presumed to be inevitable or obvious? How have institutional changes in South Asia—whether enacted by political interests or techno-developmentalist visions—enforced disciplinary divisions and values?










These questions are urgent as South Asia today also serves as a reminder that we can no longer afford to leave the agency of nonhumans out from our analyses. Catastrophes that have been put off by massive investments in engineering projects in the Global North have a much more immediate presence in South Asia. 









Deadlines:

We invite contributions that are at the intersection of but not limited to literature, media studies, ecocriticism, history, religious studies, science studies, philosophy, anthropology, sound and visual studies. Please send 200 word abstracts to http://tiny.cc/SAGSC by December 31st, 2017.

The conference will assist with travel and lodging for all graduate student participants. If you have any questions please write to us at sagsc2018@gmail.com







Organizing Committee:

Anna Lee White, Divinity School
Eric Gurevitch, South Asian Languages and Civilizations
Joya John, South Asian Languages and Civilizations
Faculty Advisor: Constantine V. Nakassis, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology
South Asia and the Limits of Humanistic Inquiry
The University of Chicago 

Sunday, October 29, 2017

National Conference on "Empires Writing Back: Aboriginal and Regional Literatures across Continents and Cultures"23rd January, 2018 Kristu Jayanti College (Autonomous), Bengaluru











Conference Concept:




CALIBAN: You taught me language, and my profit on 't
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language! (The Tempest Act I, Sc. 2.)






The response of Caliban to Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest is an epitome of the colonised lashing back to their colonisers. This wave of writing back resulted from the questioning of the indigenous people regarding their (mis)-representations or exclusions from all sorts of narratives written by the colonisers and also for being rendered as the “Other” in one’s homeland. Writing has inevitably been regarded as a mark of superiority and to re-view and re-write one’s position in history, indigenous/ aboriginal people want to tell their version of the stories, in their own way with a purpose of their own. In the light of colonization the spotlight would also fall on the colonization that can arise between human relationships and the hegemonic repercussions it can have on individuals and their concept of self, paving the way for a particular niche in subaltern literature. This conference seeks to look into those native writings across continents and cultures full of richness and diversity. We welcome original, unpublished research papers related to aboriginal and regional literatures across continents and cultures. 




The conference directorate invites papers related to the broad theme “Empires Writing Back: Aboriginal and Regional Literatures across Continents and Cultures” and the following sub-themes:





ϖ Aboriginal autobiographies
ϖ Literary landscapes as portrayed in aboriginal or regional literature
ϖ Aboriginal and regional literatures in comparison
ϖ Race, Gender, Ethnicity
ϖ Languages and cultural heritage
ϖ Folk literature / Tribal literature
ϖ Cultural identity
ϖ Gothic tradition in aboriginal writings
ϖ Diasporic Literature
ϖ Multiculturalism
ϖ Regional writing in India / Aboriginal writing in Africa, Australia







Guidelines for paper submissions
 Standard A4 size paper with 1.5 margins on all sides
Double spacing throughout
Scripts should be in MS Word (2003-2007) – Times New Roman,  Font size 12
Title page: full name of the author(s), designation, affiliation and title of the paper, e-mail id, contact number
All submissions should follow the latest edition of MLA stylesheet for documentation (8th edition)
Abstracts must not exceed 300 words
Full papers must be within 2,500 - 4,000 words
Soft copy of the abstract and full paper may be sent as an e-mail attachment to: englishpg@kristujayanti.com

Selected papers will be peer reviewed and published in an UGC Indexed journal as conference proceeding.







Important dates:
Submission of abstracts: 15th November, 2017
Notification of Acceptance: 25th November, 2017
Submission of full papers: 15th December, 2017





For any other queries please mail to: englishpg@kristujayanti.com


Friday, October 27, 2017

International Fellowship Program at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin







Call For Applications:

Launched in 2009, the International Fellowship Program (ISP) offers the opportunity to international researchers, especially early career scholars, to conduct research at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.






The program supports projects that are directly related with the diverse institutions and the rich collections of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. The fellowships, which can be held to up to three months, allow researchers to work on their individual projects and to establish professional contacts at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. The program aims to strengthen the position of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in the international research network and therefore specifically addresses scholars who do not reside in Germany. The fellows will also gain the opportunity to participate in the academic and cultural life at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz.





The applicants must hold at least a first university degree (M.A. or equivalent degree) by the time of the application.

Guidelines and Application form you can finde here:

Other institutions, which are part of the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, the Geheime Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, the Staatliche Institut für Musikforschung, and the Ibero-American Institute), offer similar fellowship opportunities. For more information, click here.







Please submit your application in one PDF file by 31.12. 2017 to forschung@smb.spk-berlin.de

For queries on the program please consult our website










or contact

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Three-day International Conference on “Transnationalism, Culture and Diaspora in the Era of Globalisation” - February 21-23,2018, Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar .








Call For Abstracts: 
The conference will address the mutual relations and converging contours of Diaspora, Trans-nationalism and Culture against the unfolding process of Globalisation. Some of the key concepts that are central to the discipline of Diaspora such as nation, nation-state, ethnicity, locality, identity etc. have undergone massive changes in the wake of  globalisation. AtoQuayson and Girish Daswani rightly point out that “a diaspora, of whatever character, must not be perceived as a discrete entity but rather as being formed out of a series of contradictory convergences of peoples, ideas, and even cultural orientations.” The shifting nature of the immigrants’/emigrants’relations to places, both remembered and inhabited, and cultures, both inherited and acquired, across borders, both real and imagined, complicate their everyday perceptions and necessitate constant negotiations between their locations and origins. This is as much a cultural process as political or social.Literature of the Diaspora is replete with long journeys across both space in search of one’s  Individual or collective self. The conference will examine these relations in terms of conceptual categories like ethnicity, nostalgia, identity, nation, nation-state etc.






About the Conference
The conference has been divided into the following themes and subthemes. However, these themes and subthemes are not absolute.

Themes and Subthemes:
  • Diaspora and Development
  • Diaspora and Conflict (Resolution): Peace
  • Makers or Wreckers
  • Diaspora andYouth
  • Diaspora Philanthropy
  • Diaspora and Civil Society Organisations
  • DiasporicAssociations or Organisations
  • Diaspora and Entrepreneurship
  • Gender and Diaspora
  • Technology and Diaspora
  • Diaspora as Economic, Social, Cultural and Political Capital
  • Methodological Issues of Migration and Diaspora
  • International Migration and Human Rights
  • Illegal Migration
  • Migration and Identity
  • Theoretical Perspectives of Diaspora
  • Global Diasporas
  • Indian Diaspora across the Globe
  • Diaspora, Media and Trans-nationalism
  • Diasporic Literature (pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial period)
  • Refugee Literatures, Exile Literatures and Travel Writings
  • Refugees, Exiles and Travelers
  • Diaspora Engagement Policies
  • Diaspora and Soft Power
  • Diaspora and Citizenship
  • Diaspora and International Relations
  • Effect of International Migration on Origin and Destination Regions
  • Migration and Globalisation
  • International Migration and Human Trafficking 







Important Dates



Last date for receiving abstract (Tentatively) 02 Dec 2017
Communication about selection (Tentatively) 10 Dec 2017
Last date for receiving full paper (Tentatively) 15 Jan 2018
Date of Conference (Tentatively) 21-23 Feb 2018
Venue of Conference (Tentatively) Central University of Gujarat






Registration Fees
Academician / Professional / Faculty Member : 1,000 INR
Research Scholar/Student: 500 INR







For More Details:
Please send your abstracts in about 200-250 words to the
For any further information or query please contact Dr. Atanu Mohapatra at
Tel : 079-23977436, Mob. : 93748 31813 


National Conference On “Routing the Rootless: exploRing the liteRatuRes of indigenous CultuRes” 1-2 December 2017 Organized by Department of English Government Degree College Udhampur, J&K







CONFERENCE BACKGROUND

The term ‘Fourth World’, albeit being in its early formative stage, is designated to mean one third of the world’s population whose descendants are forcefully incorporated into states yet maintain a distinct political culture that predates and continues to resist encroachment of the recognized states and are ceaselessly engaged in a struggle to gain a fair amount of sovereignty over their national homelands. On account of persistent global patterns of ethnocide and ecocide perpetrated against these ancient but internationally unrecognized nations, the Fourth World has received some fresh attention. As an inevitable by-product of post World War II upheavals, the core of the world power system split into two large geopolitical blocs of associated interests. A Euro American bloc of the states with political and economic ties came to be called the First World to which Japan joined the bandwagon later. The Second World, the other geopolitical bloc comprised the communist socialist states including the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, North Vietnam and until recently, Eastern Europe. However, few newly decolonized states that were characterized by economic dependency and debt burden, preferred to sit on a fence by not aligning with either bloc of the geopolitical power were christened the "Third World.” The people of ancient nations that lived beyond modern industrial norm and abounded in hunter gatherers, nomadic, pastoral and farmers constitute the Fourth World. The inhabitants of the Fourth World reside both in urban and rural areas but they are structurally irrelevant in the society as they neither produce nor consume what is considered important in  a globalised and technologically connected world. The Fourth World includes a whole range of the tribal and peasant societies that share a number of attributes, including a low level of political and economic integration in the state system, an inferior political status, and an underprivileged economic position. We welcome contributions on the following themes:






Dynamics of Social Exclusion - Issues, Trends and Prospects
➢ Identity Politics, Stereotypes and Platitudes in Literature
➢ Art and Aesthetics of Aboriginal Art, Craft and Culture
➢ Discourse of Nativism
➢ Cultural Studies
➢ Re-Writing, Re-Visiting and Critiquing History
➢ Literature of Social Protest
➢ Regionalization and Literature
➢ Rural Literature
➢ Localization and Literature
➢ Ethnocentrism in Literature
➢ Post-Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism
➢ Role of Class, Caste, Race and Gender in Literature and Culture
➢ Dalit, Tribal, Nomadic and Black Literature
➢ Subaltern Discourse
➢ Children’s Narratives
➢ Ecological Concern in Literature
➢ Issues and Challenges in Translating Minority and Subaltern Text
➢ Any other topic(s) relevant to the theme of the Conference

You are requested to send your abstracts on or before 13 November 2017 at gdcudhampurconference2017@gmail.com 








Registration Details:
1. For Outstation Participants: Rs. 3000/- (Faculty) & Rs. 2500/- (Students and Scholars),
exclusive of boarding and lodging and Rs. 4000/- (Faculty) & Rs. 3500/- (Students and
Scholars), inclusive of boarding and lodging.
2. For Local Participants: Rs. 1500/- (Faculty) & Rs. 1200/- (Students and Scholars).






Bank Details for NEFT / Online Transfer:
Beneficiary Name : PRINCIPAL GOVT. DEGREE COLLEGE, UDHAMPUR
Bank Name : JK BANK
Bank Address : JK BANK MAIN BRANCH, UDHAMPUR
Account No. : 0028040500000676
Account Type : Saving
IFSC Code : JAKAOUDMPUR
Chairperson: Prof. S.S. Balwal
Organizing Committee: Deptt. Of English








For any Queries Contact:
Prof. Kamaldeep Kaur: 09419962957
Dr. Shubhra Jamwal: 09419130321
Dr. Rippy Bawa: 094191609