The ELA Valedictory 2026 | Loyola College, Chennai
The PG & Research Department of English
Loyola
College (Autonomous), Chennai
Monday, 2nd March 2026, 11:30 AM
Venue:
De Nobili Hall (Old LIBA Block)
The event will feature a special session titled, “Literary” Agency: Navigating the Pathway to Literary Excellence.
Writing as Therapy and Authenticity
When Literature Students Double up as Writers!
Reflections | 25 Feb 2026
For years and years, the traditional image that connects with a literature student has always been one of quiet ‘consumption’ – a passive consumer of literature!
However, of late, I could see a remarkable shift, or in Kuhn’s words, a ‘paradigm shift’ in the way our students connect with literature.
Today I was so happy to a stream of vibrant, aspiring student-writers walking into our office with their manuscripts / first drafts of their publications.
A proud moment for us when we see our students transitioning from passive consumers of literature to active creators of literature.
They are starting blogs. They are drafting manuscripts. They are proof-reading manuscripts. They are self-publishing books. They are doing book-reviews of their classmate’s books. They are interviewing people confidently. They are recording their own voices in recording studios.
And many of them are doing it so consistently!
We their teachers are so happy watching this trend unfold amongst literature students across all the literature classes – from I BA to II MA.
Most importantly, I could see a great sense of originality also in their writing. Again, writing is not everyone’s cup of tea. Also, they are not just writing to be published or to build a portfolio alone! they are writing because, as Chinua Achebe says, ‘they have a unique story, a unique voice waiting to come out’. By doing so, I am happy to note that, they are discovering for themselves the profound power of ‘writing as therapy’.
In a hyper-connected, fast-paced world where attention is constantly fragmented, finding a quiet corner can feel almost an impossibility! But for many of our students, a blogpost or a paper presentation or a book publication has become that sanctuary! that quiet corner! that private abode! That they so beautifully safeguard and nurture by all means!
When a student launches a blog, and nurtures their unique space on the digital platform, or through their personal diaries, they are creating a beautifully designed personalised ecosystem where their thoughts, anxieties, and observations take centre stage. This act of cultivating one’s personal space – what Virginia Woolf calls, ‘A Room of One’s Own’ then becomes not only liberating but also empowering for them! It allows them to articulate their own unique worldviews on their own terms.
Before we can speak our truth clearly to the world, we must first learn how to speak it to ourselves. Private writing is the rehearsal space for public authenticity.
In both literary and psychological studies, this deeply restorative act is known as scriptotherapy - the process of writing to navigate life’s challenges, and complexities in one’s own sweet terms, that proves therapeutic!
As their professors, our greatest hope is not just that our students leave with a degree, but that they leave with these lovely literary tools that help them navigate life effectively!
In that sense, seeing them embrace writing not just as an academic exercise, but as a lifelong therapeutic practice, is the ultimate testament to the enduring power of words. They are proving that literature is not just something we study - it is something we do to heal!
Finally, borrowing from Jane Austen’s immortal lines, “it is a truth universally acknowledged”, that, before we can speak our truth clearly to the world, we must first learn how to speak it to ourselves.
Personal writing then becomes that awesome ‘rehearsal space’ for public authenticity!
In short, writing becomes therapy and authenticity as well! 😊
Stories Multiply, Pain Remains: Exploring Nation Memory
Nation Memory | Book Review
#lovelyreads #nationmemory
Author: Ms. S. Amathullah Aafreen, II MA English
I am delighted to present a lovely book authored by our II MA English student Ms. S. Amathullah Aafreen, titled, Nation Memory and the Poetics of Nation Memory.
The concept of Nation Memory is a newly coined conceptual framework that explores how the collective memory of displaced, marginalised, and silenced nations is preserved through literature, poetry, testimony, and artistic expression.
The author frames the act of remembrance not as a passive record of the past, but as an active form of resistance against systematic erasure by dominant political structures.
To establish the necessity of this new term, the book contrasts “Nation Memory” with four existing frameworks, namely, Collective Memory, National Memory, Cultural Memory and Post Memory.
While collective memory builds social cohesion and privileges dominant, unifying narratives, Nation Memory highlights the fractures, exclusions, and traumas that the collective cannot absorb.
National memory, in like fashion, is curated by the state through official archives, monuments, and textbooks to sustain political authority. On the other hand, Nation Memory survives outside official records to document the experiences the state attempts to forget.
Similar is the case with Cultural Memory that relies on unbroken traditions, festivals, and rituals. On the other hand, because displaced nations suffer from fractured continuity due to exile or colonisation, Nation Memory preserves their survival through poetic testimony rather than tradition.
In the same vein, while Post Memory deals with trauma passed down generationally within families, Nation Memory describes the endurance of an entire displaced homeland through literature and the collective imagination.
Quite interestingly, the book also seeks to engage deeply with prominent literary and cultural theories which serve to vindicate and authenticate the necessity of coining a new concept called, Nation Memory.
Building on Aijaz Ahmad’s critique of “national allegory,” the author argues that Nation Memory does not force postcolonial literature into a rigid symbolic mould. Instead, it embraces memory as fragmented, incomplete, and affective.
The book extends Anderson’s concept of “imagined communities”. It argues that displaced communities do not imagine their nation through state institutions or shared media, but through inherited narratives of trauma, loss, and shared remembrance.
Engaging with Said’s “imagined geographies,” the text notes that colonial powers use mapping to erase indigenous histories. Nation Memory functions as a counter-cartography, reclaiming physical space through emotional detail and narrative.
The text posits that state archives are instruments of power that dictate what is authorised and what is excluded. For displaced communities that lack physical institutions or recognised territory, literature serves as the only viable archive capable of preserving their grief, history, and identity. As such, then, literature doubles up as an archive, in such cases.
Aafreen provides a compelling and highly original contribution to memory and postcolonial studies by successfully carving out “Nation Memory” as a unique and distinct category – as the need of the hour for academia. The rigorous comparison with established sociological concepts demonstrates strong academic grounding and provides a highly effective new lens for analysing literature from conflict zones and displaced populations.
Moreover, the book proves to be a highly engaging intellectual endeavour, coming from the mind and the pen of a II MA English Literature student.
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The book presents a judicious blend of scholarly analysis and creative, poetic interludes interspersed throughout the text – and some of them remain etched in our hearts for long! Sample this –
“Stories multiply, pain remains.”
“Every piece of chalk tells a story.”
By applying these theories to the specific lived realities of the renowned Palestinian poets like Mahmoud Darwish and introducing case studies concerning Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, the text grounds its theoretical claims in tangible, embodied experiences of displacement. It effectively frames remembrance as a practice oriented toward the future, affirming that storytelling holds the power to reclaim justice and restore dignity for silenced communities.
Well, literature, then becomes more than just a ‘mirror’ of society.
It transforms into a vital and dynamic archive, [or a counter-archive] that doesn’t just store the past - but actively interprets it and keeps it in dialogue with the present!
In that way, the book is an outstanding contribution to the conceptualisation of a new field of study – Nation Memory.
Congratulations Ms. Aafreen. We are so proud of you.
PS: Copies of the book can be ordered online on Amazon HERE.
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