INSTITUTE SEMINAR SERIES - May 2016

Topic: Evolution of Fiscal Transfers in India: Challenges Ahead

Speaker: Dr. Sitharam Gurumurthi, IAS (retired)

Member, Planning Board, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirapalli

Chairperson: Shashanka Bhide

Professor and Director, MIDS

Date & Time: Wednesday, 04 May 2016 at 3:30 p.m.

Venue: Adiseshiah Auditorium, MIDS

All are cordially invited

Call for Papers

[This note is on behalf of my friend and brother Dr. Kavi from Bishop Heber College, Trichy. Please read on and do submit your original, unpublished articles either for this volume or for the other one that is up on the next post. Do visit his wonderful blog for more details.]

Dear learned friends,

I feel delighted to inform you that I am editing two volumes of books - "Enriching English Language Teaching" and "English Literature across East and West" which are my 7th and 8th books respectively. If you have original unpublished articles you are welcome to contribute. I request you to pass on this information among your learned colleagues and friends.

The details are available on my blog.

Kindly check my blog kkseminars.blogspot.in

Regards,

Dr. K.Kaviarasu, M.A., M.Phil., PGDELT., Ph.D.,

Assistant Professor of English,

Bishop Heber College (Autonomous),

Trichirappalli - 620 017

Phone: +91-9894981142

kkblogspace.blogspot.in

Call for Papers

[This note is on behalf of my friend and brother Dr. Kavi from Bishop Heber College, Trichy. Please read on and do submit your original, unpublished articles either for this volume or for the other one that is up on the next post.]

Greetings!

I [Dr. Kaviarasu] am pleased to inform you that I am editing my 7th book entitled “English Literature across East and West” with an ISBN. Original, unpublished, quality research papers are invited from Researchers/Scholars/Members of Teaching Fraternity. The wide range of areas focused in this book are:

ü  British and European Literature

ü  American and Canadian Literature

ü  African and Caribbean Literature

ü  Indian Writing in English and other Asian Literatures in English

ü  Australian Literature

ü  Literary Theories and Criticisms

ü  Translations of World Literatures  

The papers will undergo a Blind Peer Review process. So, the contributors are advised to strictly adhere to MLA 7th Edition methodology and Works Cited and are expected to send the error-free paper on or before 10 May 2016. The book will be published in May 2016.

A 'thoughty' treatise of sorts...!

Scene I: A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there.  It contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement. 

Scene II: Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word book acted as a transient stimulus, and I begged her to fetch Gulliver’s Travels from the library.  This book I had again and again perused with delight.  I considered it a narrative of facts, and discovered in it a vein of interest deeper than what I found in fairy tales. 

Like Jane, was I, when I had my hard copy of Switching Codes: Thinking Through Digital Technology in the Humanities and the Arts in hand. I was, too, like Jane - ‘shrined in double retirement’, and very much like her, this particular book, ‘I had again and again perused with delight’!!!

Well, everything about the book fascinates me! The book is simply unrivalled in the treatment of its new-age subject with time as its central metaphor or paradox!

After ploughing in all earnestness through the 440 pages of ‘transient stimulus’ that the book offers, my eyes rested on the wonderful epilogue to the book titled, ‘Enquire Within upon Everything’ by Richard Powers.

After having read through this wonderful book (in around a week’s time), I was thrilled or rather enthralled by this ‘oh boy’! epilogue. What a brilliant way of putting things in perspective! Indeed most of the essays in the volume, like the ‘Migration of the Aura or How to Explore the Original through Its Facsimiles,’ or ‘the Truth in Versions’, or ‘Untidy Generativity’, or ‘Electronic Linguistics,’ or ‘Rewiring Culture, the Brain, and Digital Media,’ or ‘Re-placing’ – now all these wonderfully thought-provoking articles have their logical culmination in this wonderful epilogue by Powers. Those of you who’ve read his ‘Pulitzer-winning’ novel The Echo Maker can tune yourselves in without much ado - in sync with his frame of mind – to yet another brilliant narrative of Powers - this time in prose – for those wonderful ‘relating modes of thought’ that pervade this thoughty [my coinage J ] treatise!

Just giving you excerpts [aka a teaser trailer] from the first two pages!

Say a boy is born in a northern middle class suburb of the large Midwestern metropolis of C.

Say he is born in the year 1989.

This is the last of years. This is the first of years.

This is the year the walls come down and the webs come up.

Are you game???

Are you a Teacher/Professor based in Chennai?

Do you feel like, ‘If only I were able to escape away into another time, far far away from the madding crowd?’

Well, do you have it in you to be a part of a grand road trip that traverses the length and breadth of India?

Do you sense your soul reverberating to the finest of music when you wake up to hear your friends call you for an enticing road trip of 2000 kilometers and more? Does the sight of a summer getaway entice you more than your KFC or Dominoes?

Then, plan packing your travel bags and join us rightaway!

You need a good car, (not older than three years!!!) and of course, money for your food and petrol. Stay and other amenities would be taken care of!

It’s a Road Trip from Chennai to New Delhi, covering ten hill stations from Morni to Parwanoo, to Nainital, and a whole lot of equally adventurous getaways including amazing adventure sports like trekking, bird watching, boating, Aqua Zorbing, Kayaking, Ziplining, Rafting, Paragliding, etc etc etc…

The Institute Seminar Series @ MIDS

The UID/Aadhar: Understanding the Issues after the Law

Speaker: Dr. Usha Ramanathan, Legal Researcher

Chairperson: Dr. Ajit Menon, Professor, MIDS

Date & Time: Wednesday, 27 April 2016 @ 3:30 p.m.

Venue: Adiseshiah Auditorium, MIDS

Abstract: Is Aadhar UID now mandatory? How does one understand the money bill route, and what are its implications for the validity of the law? What will happen now to the court cases challenging the UID?  Where are we now on the thorny issues of surveillance, tracking, profiling, biometrics, private and foreign companies and subsidy? What does the law say? And why is the Aadhar not like the social security number? This discussion will revisit the debates around the UID and examine the implications of the new law.

About the Speaker: Dr. Usha Ramanathan is a legal researcher and a regular guest professor at many universities. She works on the jurisprudence of law, poverty and rights.  Her work draws

Myriad Musings on Mumbai

Have you ever wondered why Hyundai Santro and its micro-sedan Xcent are the most sought after taxis in the commercial capital of India?

Carved from below a hill!!!

Have you ever imagined in your wildest and weirdest of dreams that autorickshaws are banned in a great part of Mumbai, including the precints in and around the Gateway of India?

Have you ever thought about beaches without waves? [Well, at least in Chennai we don’t!!!]

Well, for an answer you should plan a visit to the Commercial Capital of our country - Mumbai!!! Indeed we [three of us professor-friends from Tamil Nadu and an equal three from Kerala] were witness to this and much more curios on the go, during our three-day tour of this wonderful tinsel-town - dubbed the bollywood of Indian Cinema!

Although the domestic airport is an eyesore, and an apology for an airport, one redeeming feature is that, you’ll forget this eyesore the moment you snatch one step into the International Airport which is really a paradiso eartho!!! And well, on the brighter side, there is no coo cooing by taxi wallahs out there on the high lanes and by lanes, coaxing and cajoling their intended ‘target’ customers, which has become a way of life or shall we say, the norm at the Railway Station and at the Domestic Airport in Chennai! Like in Calcutta, the taxis are regulated by pre-paid taxi stands that don’t charge you a penny extra than what is fixed!

This not only lends credence to their services but also lets the passengers heave a great sigh of relief – far far away from the maddening cries of the taxi wallahs who drone around their ‘victims’ like a bird hovering around its prey!

Internal Marks - Reg

Dear Students, 

All your CIA Marks with me will be up on display on Thursday, 21 April 2016 on the Department Notice Board. Alternatively, they will also be displayed on my table for your convenience. 

Regards, 

Rufus

Course Teacher

Talks @ MCC in Audio/Video Format

Dear Students, [Past & Present]

While we make every possible effort to make available to you the video series of the guest lectures by eminent personalities at the Department of English, MCC, may we also take this opportunity to inform you that almost all back volumes of all these guest lectures are available for you in MP3 format.

Some of the lectures by eminent personalities that are available in audio format include:

Dr. Gauri Viswanathan's talk @ MCC

Dr. G. N. Devy's talk @ MCC

Dr. Joseph Dorairaj's talk @ MCC, etc. 

Copies of the same are also available with the College Librarian.

With warm regards, 

Rufus

Just Arrived...

Dear Students of I MA English,

Your much-awaited book review presentation videos along with Dr. Premila’s scholarly profiling of Ms. Anita Nair and her works, have come in just now. The videos are now up on Youtube.

To view Dr. Premila Paul’s profiling of Ms. Anita Nair, click HERE [Part 1] & click HERE [Part 2]

To view the release of the tenth issue of our bi-annual Journal Eclectic Representations and the release of an anthology of poems titled Upbeat Vista by Ms. Esme Robina, and Ms. Nissy & Team’s wonderful performance, click HERE

With all best wishes,

Rufus

Class Mentor [I MA English Literature]

Rendezvous with Anita Nair @ MCC

Oral Presentations - An Overview

PG & Research Department of English

Madras Christian College (Autonomous)

Chennai – 600 059

Oral Presentations Day for Book Reviews 2016

Wednesday, 06 April 2016

Guidelines for Student Participants

1.        Begin with the author, title, and date of publication.

2.       Speak clearly, and look directly at your audience (not just at the Prof.!)

3.       Showing the cover of the book is a nice way to capture the attention of the audience, and to quickly demonstrate the book’s length, size, and appearance.

4.      Summarize the thesis or main idea (s) of the book in 2-4 sentences.

5.       Mention at least one memorable aspect of the book, so that at the end of your presentation we all will remember something distinctive about your book.

6.      Limit the presentation to less than 5 minutes.  You should time yourself at least once in advance so you have some sense of how much can be said in five minutes.

7.       Give the book a thumbs-up or thumbs-down for inclusion in a future iteration of our class, and briefly explain why it should (or should not) be included for future students.

8.      Now it’s the turn of the Moderator/Chairperson to ask you questions/clarifications based on your presentations and assess you for a score of 100.

9.      Toppers in each of the five teams win prizes.

I MA English Special Invite :-)

I MA English Special... :-)

Reading File for I MA English [Updated]

Reading List for Oral Presentations [Updated - 04 April]

S.No	Name	Book	Author
1.	AGNES EUNICE JASPER	Jesus > Religion	Jefferson Bethke
2.	AISWARYA SUSAN SAMUEL	The Diary of a Young Girl	Anne Frank
3.	ANNMARIA SEBASTIAN	Randaamoozham	M. T. Vasudevan Nair
4.	ANU M. VARGHESE	The Kite Runner	Khaled Hosseini
5.	APARNA R.	A Thousand Splendid Suns	Khaled Hosseini
6.	CHITRA S.	The Unexpected Guest	Agatha Christie
7.	CHRISTINA MARY GEORGE	Memories	Lang Leav
8.	FRAGRANCE PRAISY GEORGE	Hostage of the Sea	Cherith Baldry
9.	HANNAH CHANDRAN	Wide Sargasso Sea	Jean Rhys
10.	HARIPRIYA SREEKUMAR	True Believer	Nicholas Sparks
11.	HELEN ANN JOSEPH	Lord of the Flies	William Golding
12.	HELEN GLORY ROBERT	Tit for tat to Treat for tat	Dr. Pal
13.	INDUMATHI	Countdown	Amitav Ghosh
14.	IRENE SHILPA S.	The Cross and the Switchblade	David Wilkerson
15.	JAYASHREE RAJAN	Asura	Anand Neelakanthan
16.	JOANNA SHALOM JOHN	Bad Ground	Joanna Shalom John
17.	JOLENE CANDICE	Roadside Crosses	Jeffery Deaver
18.	JOSE MARY JENIFER A.	if tomorrow comes	Sydney Sheldon
19.	MAANINIJAYAL V.	Midnight’s Children	Salman Rushdie
20.	MAGDELENE ANEETEE BROWN H.	The Last Wave	Pankaj Sekhsaria
21.	MERRIL MARY MATHEW	The Namesake	Jumpha Lahiri
22.	MOHANA PRIYA	The Rainbow	D. H. Lawrence
23.	NISSY SARA GEORGE	The Book Thief	Markus Zusak
24.	PHEBA K PAUL	Night	Elie Wiesel
25.	PRIYANKA TOMY	Mahashweta	Sudha Murty
26.	REBECCA JACOB	Animal Farm	George Orwell
27.	SADEPALLI JHANSI RANI	SOMEONE LIKE YOU	Nikita singh and Durjoy Datta
28.	SALEENA S.	En Kadha
29.	VIJAYALAKSHMI INDIRAN	Kavalaigal anaithirkum theervu	Sri Bhagavath
30.	Abhishek I Singh	The Whale Rider	Witi Ihimaera
31.	Akash Saji Kumar	Kite Runner	Khaled Hosseini
32.	Akil Raj G.	Ner Ner Thema	C. Gopinath
33.	Andrew Titus Jasper	Three Men in a Boat	Jerome K Jerome
34.	Bhuvanesh Kumar	The White Tiger	Aravind Adiga
35.	Kumara Sethupathi R.	Manakkugai Chithirangal	Aathmaarthi
37.	Oswin Barnabas	The Kite Runner	Khaled Hosseini
38.	Phinehash R.	The Sacred Wood	T S Eliot
39.	Ravi Shankar	Digital Fortress	Dan Brown
40.	Sampaul C.L.	The Home and the World	Rabindranath Tagore
41.	Sivakumar	"I'm not twenty four... I've been nineteen for five years"	Sachin Garg
42.	Veillakshmikanth	Karna’s Wife	Kavita Kane
43.	A. M. Arun Kumar	Balyakalasakhi	Vaikom M. Basheer