Submission of your Assignments - Regarding

Dear Students,

Those of you who are doing your assignments under my supervision, kindly remember these points!

If it’s going to be a “cut and paste” job, you better not send it at all, because I think I can ‘search’ your assignment’s “40 KB of googled data in MS Word," all by myself on the great grandmother of knowledge – Google.com, and well, even much much much more than your 'stolen,' and/or ‘smuggled’ data.

A Sample Submission  for your perusal

Oh come on guys, give my plagiarism software some rest. It hasn’t stopped beeping since last week! J

Well, it’s YOUR assignment, and please do take it seriously. (Remember, it substitutes one CIA Test! Just in case you forgot all about that!)

If you think you don’t have the time and the integrity to do an honest assignment all by yourself, you’d better not submit it at all!

And please, for heaven’s sake, don’t submit anonymous attachments! [that have no details, whatsoever, about the sender].

Moreover, while submitting an online assignment, please have the courtesy to introduce yourself, the title of the course paper, the class you are from, etc. 

Making their Voices heard...

The stories in this book will agitate your heart and energise your intellect, and stimulate and open up your imagination to the possibilities of women’s agency and endurance. The book was first published in Hindi as Sangtin Yatra (a journey of solidarity, reciprocity and of enduring friendship). The English version Playing with Fire appeared as a response in defence of the first book. Sangtin Yatra gives us hope that women can move from individual empowerment to form a collective countervailing power bloc. In the Foreword, Chandra Talpade Mohanty captures the theme and spirit of the book. She acknowledges the book as a gift ‘which enacts and theorises experience, storytelling and memory work as central in the production of knowledge and resistance’.

Playing with Fire was conceived and researched by nine women but portrays the lives of seven village-level activists from diverse castes and religions. The seven activists are: Anupamlata, Ramsheela, Reshma Ansari, Shashi Vaish, Shashibala, Surbala and Vibha Bajpayee. These women have worked in seventy villages in the Sitapur District in rural India. The women work for the Nari Samata Yojana – a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) which seeks to empower rural women of the Dalit castes (lowest castes). Eight of the women started an independent organisation, Sangtin, that befriends poor rural women.  

This is one of the few intimate books in the development and gender field that presents the stories and perspectives of village-level fieldworkers. Very often fieldworkers do not get to tell their own stories as the seven women reflect, ‘so often we have asked other women to share their personal stories but no one has ever asked us to tell our own’ (2006: 15).

It is in these personal and collective journeys that we are given intricate and in-depth pictures of the power structures in the Indian family, which ‘are often difficult to observe and record’, and as another fieldworker writes, ‘many fieldworkers are unable to effect change in their own homes and quietly endure family violence – but outside the home in a collective and in the community they are towers of strength’ (Krishanmurty, 1999: 118). These are the stories that often feminist researchers or even activists hesitate to intervene in, the stories of individual oppression in the family. The reflective stories tell how women negotiate these multiple oppressions and strategically challenge them. The collective stories become a ‘chorus’ as they inform us how their personal consciousness developed and changed. The vivid and compelling stories tell us how personal issues get intertwined with the political and social and rescue that long forgotten feminist slogan that the ‘personal is political’.

Confy @ Durg, Chhattisgarh

Institute Seminar Series @ MIDS

Transforming the Subjective and the Objective

A Dialogical Workshop

24 March 2017        Friday       2:00 PM

Chair: Prof. Ananta Kumar Giri, MIDS

Speakers: Prof. Ananta Kumar Giri

Dr. Marcus Bussey, University of Sunshine Coast, Australia (through Skype)

Dr. Subir Rana, Independent Scholar, Bangalore

Prof. Manjubala Dash, MTPG & RIHS, Puducherry

Outline: Subjective and objective are inter-related dimensions of human existence and our quest for objectivity in science, society and scholarship is part of this broader human condition.  Objectivity in social sciences has been much discussed and much water has flown in our rivers of understanding, from Max Weber to Michel Foucault. To this complex field of critique and reflections, Amartya Sen has offered his perspective of what he calls positional objectivity: “[..] positionally dependent observations, beliefs, and actions are central to our knowledge and practical reason. The nature of objectivity in epistemology, decision theory and ethics has to take note of the parametric dependence of observation and observation on the position of the observer.” But the objectivity here is that of an observer but agents in a field of life as well as subjects and objects of understanding are not only observers but also participants. 

MIDS Seminar Series - March 2017

THE INSTITUTE SEMINAR SERIES - March 2017

Topic: Mobility of World Refugees: Nature, Causes and Trends

Speaker: G. Sathis Kumar

[Assistant Professor, Great Lakes Institute of Management]

Chair: K. Sivasubramaniyan, Associate Professor, MIDS

Date & Time: 22 March 2017, Wednesday, 3:30 pm

Venue: Adiseshiah Auditorium, MIDS

All are Invited...!

The truth about lies...

The Truth About Lies!

D. E. Benet

Sometimes the choice of the subject makes the going heavy in the classroom. The recent socio-cultural and political events brought to the classroom a kind of exigency that catalysed a debate over the post-truth society. On that droll day, the millennials wanted to know their living status and took time to pose questions.

They had these two questions, one existential and the other moral - “Is it true that you all spoke truth, nothing but truth once and is telling lies a talent or sin?” For a while, we analysed the cold hard data available and came to the conclusion that our lives are awash with lies, after all.

Fighting hard to snap judge anyone, we arrived at a list of typical liars — innocuous, genial, congenital, compulsive, malicious, pernicious and unconscionable. Then we found out that the word ‘liar’ could be used after any number of adjectives. We all agreed there is none called an infallible liar, and commiseration for the liars is not a misplaced emotion.

The mundane part of it was the spirited discussion on distinction between cock-and bull story and shaggy-dog story. Shallow understanding makes such sessions light and bearable, but attempting deeper understanding can be enervating.

The PSA Essay Competition for Postgrads 2017

PSA/Journal of Postcolonial Writing 

Postgraduate Essay Competition 2017

The PSA/Journal of Postcolonial Writing Postgraduate Essay Competition provides a great opportunity for postgraduate scholars to show case their work in a leading postcolonial academic journal and to earn some really useful research funding. 

The winners and runners-up constantly remind us of the innovative and timely contributions that postgraduate scholars make to postcolonial studies. The competition is a means of duly recognising their work and of furthering their careers as postcolonialists. 

The deadline for submissions is 1 April 2017.

Applicants are invited to submit an essay on any topic relating to postcolonial studies. We welcome essays from all disciplines, including cultural studies, geography, politics, theology, history, anthropology, literature, film, or development studies. The competition is open to any postgraduate student who is registered at any institution anywhere in the world, by, or within three months of, the submission deadline.

All essays are subject to an anonymous peer review by a panel of established experts in postcolonial studies. The winning essay will, subject to editorial approval, be published in The Journal of Postcolonial Writing, a journal that has a long tradition of publishing innovative work in the field and which has had an ongoing partnership with the PSA.

The winner will be awarded £250, and, should they not already be a member, will receive a complimentary year-long membership to the PSA. The runner-up will also have their work notably mentioned.

Guidelines for applicants

Essays should be no longer than 7,500 words (including bibliography and any notes), and must conform to the MLA referencing style), or shorter than 7,000 words. Any essays that are too long or too short will be automatically disqualified, so please ensure your word count meets this requirement.

Seminar @ Women's University, Karnataka

Dept of PG Studies & Research in English

Karnataka State Women's University

Vijayapur, Karnataka

invites you for a

UGC Sponsored Two-Day National Seminar

On

Indian Women’s Literature in English

(Origin, Growth and Evaluation)

24, 25 March 2017

For more details, click on the Brochure HERE

This is also a personal invite on behalf of Dr. P. Kannan, the Organising Secretary of this conference.

Seminar @ University of Gour Banga, West Bengal

Two-day International Seminar

on

Nation and Beyond: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Organized by

University of Gour Banga, West Bengal, India

14, 15 April 2017

Seminar Concept Note

Ernest Renan famously observed that ‘[a] nation is a daily plebiscite.’ This observation reveals the contested nature of the modern nation. The imagination of a ‘nation’ depends on a wide consensus among the members of a ‘community’ (which itself a homogeneous term) and the national imaginary contingent on this consensus is vulnerable to critical scrutiny; for it is problematised by issues such as the right of secession, urge for state-formation, ethnic conflict, minority protection, control of resources, globalization, diasporicity, and trans-national formations, corporations and mechanisms. The objects and ideas having semiotic values (e.g. the national flag, certain sartorial style, particular food habit) are supposed to be constitutive elements of a nation or a national identity, but these are often simultaneously received as divisionary and exclusionary. The assertion of nationality often assumes aggressive masculine qualities. The immigration of new groups of people problematises the issue of the nationality, and the nation state often adopts a policy of, to use Giorgio Agamben’s phrase, ‘inclusive exclusion.’ The emergence of contestatory discourses of separatism and self-determination speak up against the forces of homogenization and hegemonisation. The question of whether to include or exclude the diasporic community within the scope and definition of the nation remains yet another gray area. The concept of nation thus invites debates and discussions.

ELTAI Confy @ St.Teresa's, Ernakulam

12th International and 48th Annual ELT@I Conference

Jointly Organized by

ELTAI

&

Department of English and Centre for Research

St. Teresa’s College (Autonomous)

Park Avenue Road

Ernakulam, Kerala 682011

Theme: English Language Acquisition: Western Theories and Eastern Practices

29th June, 30th June & 01st July 2017

Submission of abstracts : 15th May 2017

Submission of full-length paper : 30th May 2017

Sub-themes:

• Teaching-learning theories of other languages

• Indigenous theories of teaching-learning English

• Failed models of teaching-learning English

Seminar @ Sree Sankaracharya, Kalady

CALL FOR PAPERS

Three-day National Seminar

on

VISUAL POLITICS AND CONTEMPORARY CULTURE:

IDEOLOGY, REPRESENTATION AND NARRATIVE SPACE

Organized by

Centre for Comparative Literature

Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit

Kalady, Kerala

05-07 April 2017

This seminar would discuss about visual-image discourses on contemporary cultural contexts and political positions. The visuals are superimposed over the society, which leads to new cultural shift. It is an unobjectionable fact that visual culture influences our daily lives by creating identities and by generally influencing our views.

The creation of movement and pattern within the film create a space for the action to take place, where the spectator follows and moves throughout the narrative space provided by the film. We particularly welcome contributions on the presence of narrative space and politics of cinematic representation in cinema and the role of film in the social construction of culture.

We invite research papers from research scholars, teachers and P G students of colleges and universities and academicians of other field interest in this subject. Eminent scholars and theoreticians, performers and film personalities would participate this seminar as resource persons. You are welcome to discuss aspects of your work, and talk of its challenging and exciting moments.

Confy @ Vidyasagar

UGC Sponsored SAP, DRS Phase II National Conference on

"Dalit and Tribal Identities, the Nation, and Globalization"

on

29 and 30 March 2017

organized by

Department of English

Vidyasagar University, West Bengal

Concept Note

In India, the concern with identity has been more practically oriented for a very long time rather than being a matter of intellectual analysis. As if in reflection of this, most Indian languages have no word conveying the idea of identity; the words used as equivalents convey the meaning of uniqueness or identification. In the light of the increasing scholarly concern with the idea of identity, especially of the dalit and tribal people of the country, this conference seeks to engage in a problematic dialogue on it. Complex philosophical arguments about the nature and significance of the individual, self, or person aside, the Hindus, by and large, demand strict conformity to social norms and conventions from the individual. Not surprisingly, therefore, the answer to the question “Who are you?” is invariably in collective terms. Depending on the situation, the individual draws from his/her repertoire of identities to answer this question.

The dynamics of social relations in India are characterized by two interrelated processes: the perception of one’s own identity in a given situation; and the reaction of others in terms of the perceived identity of that individual. To the extent that a social situation is traditionally or otherwise ordered and there is a consensus about the norms and values governing that order, social transactions through identity marks or symbols are routine and facile. However, in the light of various forces of social, economic and political change in operation at the national and transnational levels, there arise situations that are fluid or that challenge the traditional norms (for example, when a member of the ex-untouchable caste group is appointed as a temple priest). There also arise anomic situations characterized by sudden breakdown of norms, as during communal conflicts. The asymmetry that once characterized the paradoxical clash between liberty of the state and the servility of its specific socio-cultural groups requires to be reviewed now.

Perhaps the most visible of the identity marks of individuals in India are the prefixes and suffixes to their names, which has neither been uniform across the country nor remained fixed. As part of a process of their upward socio-cultural mobility, members of the lower-caste groups dropped their old vernacular names in preference for the Sanskritic names. However, in the context of a growing caste and tribal consciousness, many people have been reverting to their caste-specific jati names as suffixes. While religion is the broadest community category of identification, the process of ascriptive identification starts with the primordial group affiliations. Conversion from Hinduism to religions like Christianity, Islam and Buddhism does not secure the convert from the politics of discrimination that he/she suffered before. Identity in terms of geographical space, language, economic status and gender within a community and across communities is a plural heterogeneous idea that is constantly in flux in these days of globalization.

Talks and discussions will include but will not be restricted to the following issues:

"An artist! an Amateur in the real sense! A man of passions!"

The weekend is but a reprieve to a 'regally reclined' reading time! 

Today it was yet another ‘unputdownable’ by Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands, where, he holds his gritty sway over your concentration straight on - right from his insightful and hilarious 'Introduction,' which bowls you over with his free, unstilted conversational prose, to the next chapter, where he proceeds to ask the enigmatic question that an exile encounters: “What does it mean to be 'Indian' outside India? How can culture be preserved without becoming ossified?”

Well, one particular chapter attracted me the most! Of course, it was more for the title than for the essence contained therein J

“The Painter and the Pest”

It’s about an artist from Bengaluru – whom Rushdie describes as ‘an amateur in the real sense: a man of passions. In fact, he is quite possibly the most enthusiastic individual on the face of the planet.’

The following extract - culled from Rushdie - is given below, for your Sunday motivation! :-)

The Painter and the Pest

A new name, it appears, must be mentioned, the name of Harold Shapinsky, sixty years old this month, an artist of Russian extraction presently living in New York City, where for most of the past four decades his work has been completely ignored.

Now, after all the years of neglect, there has been a remarkable reversal of fortunes, and Mr Shapinsky is experiencing an annus mirabilis, with a major retrospective of his work at London’s Mayor Gallery, loads of publicity on both sides of the Atlantic, and several important European galleries reportedly queuing up to buy his work.

The story of the belated ‘discovery’ of Harold Shapinsky must surely be one of the most extraordinary in the history of modern art. It is hard enough to believe that a painter who is now attracting lavish praise from every corner of the European art establishment could have languished so long in Manhattan, the undisputed capital of the art world, without gaining any sort of real recognition. Even less plausible, perhaps, is the identity of his ‘discoverer’; because the man who has singlehandedly worked the miracle is not an art expert at all, and has no links with -either the American or European art establishments. He describes himself variously as ‘some crazy Indian’ and ‘a pest’.

This man is Akumal Ramachander, thirty-five, a teacher of elementary English at an agricultural college in Bangalore in southern India—a suitably improbable background for the hero of a shaggy-dog story whose saving grace is that it happens to be quite true.

Professor Ramachander—Akumal—is an amateur in the real sense: a man of passions. In fact, he is quite possibly the most enthusiastic individual on the face of the planet, as I discovered a couple of years ago when I was on a lecture tour of India. Akumal, then a complete stranger, arrived at my Bangalore hotel room, introduced himself, and proceeded to overwhelm me with the unstoppable frenzy of garlands, vast smiles, flashing eyes, unceasing monologues and emphatic gesticulations to which those who find themselves in his vicinity rapidly grow accustomed. He struck me as a bit of an operator, but it was impossible not to warm to his openness and affection for life, as well as his obviously genuine love for literature, art, cinema and many other things, including butterflies. (He also sings.) This inexhaustible, ‘crazy’ energy needed something to focus on. That necessary sense of purpose was provided when Akumal met, by chance—though one sometimes wonders if anything in his life really happens by chance—the son of the painter Harold Shapinsky.

You are Invited...

Confy on 'Environment and Literature'

UGC Sponsored

Two-Day National Seminar

On

Environment and Literature

(Golden Jubilee Seminar)

March 30-31, 2017

Organised by

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

Kakatiya University

Warangal, India-506 009

Call for Papers

The issues that the seminar addresses include: What is “the environment”? What is “environmental literature”? What is its purpose? What is the role of “literature” in the human relationship with the environment? The environmental literature has a long history as early as the fifteenth century from all corners of the globe. It originated from slave spirituals, sermons, captivity narratives, landscape art, plays poems, cartoons, science fiction, bumper stickers, billboards, films, laws, architecture, and the University curriculum itself. There are no geographical, temporal, linguistic, or genre confines to what we could “read” as a “text” for its environmental themes. The seminar serves as a forum for the literary scholars, environmental historians, environmental philosophers and environmental writers and activists to deliberate their voices.

Thrust Areas

v  Environment and Fiction

v  Environment and Poetry

v  Environment and Drama

v  Environment and Non-Fiction

Abstract Submission

Abstracts of 300 words with a bio-note of 50 words may be submitted to

prabakar_mateti@yahoo.com by March 20, 2017.

Confy @ Madurai

The Department of English

Arul Anandar College

Karumathur, Madurai

National Seminar

on

Literature of the Exiles:

Cultural Depletion and Culture Mix

Monday, March 13, 2017

Papers are invited from eminent faculty, researchers and students from Colleges / Universities / Research Institutions.

Some of the thrust areas are mentioned below yet you can be innovative.

  v  Cultural Relativism

  v  Displacement

  v  Up-rooting and re-rooting

  v  Home & Homelessness

  v  Migration & Multilingualism

  v  Language of the Exile

  v  Hybridization

  v  Exile & Counter-Exile, Self, and Society

  v  Women & Exilic Literature

  v  Refugee Literature

Registration Fee includes working lunch, seminar kit, local hospitality.

Faculty Members: Rs. 500/-

Research Scholars: Rs. 400/-

PG Students: Rs. 300/-

Spot Registration: Rs. 200/- (participation only)

Fore more details, click on the brochure HERE

Seminar @ Tripura University

National Seminar

On

‘Violence against Women’

6, 7 April 2017

Organised by

Women’s Studies Centre

Tripura University (A Central University)

Suryamaninagar, Tripura - 799022, India

Violence against women is manifested in a variety of ways – physical, ideological, sexual, psychological and economic; and emanates from various sites. These sites from where power structures arise often work in covert collaboration with each other so as to obfuscate the underlying continuities in which patriarchal power operates. In the Indian context these sites take the form of the State and the Law, Caste, Class, the sites of formation of discursive knowledge such as the media, literature, academia and popular culture and the ever recalcitrant control on female body through codes of family, sexuality and performativity.

Venue: Seminar Hall No.1, Academic Building XI at Tripura University Campus

Suryamaninagar, Tripura.

Registration fee: Rs. 500/-

The participants are requested to fill up the Registration form & submit it to the Women’s Studies Centre along with the fee after being selected.

Travel allowance only by second class sleeper/bus to be reimbursed for participants from other states.

Workshop @ Assam University

The Department of English

Assam University, Silchar

invites you for a

Five-day workshop

on

Performing Shakespeare: Theory and Praxis

10th to 14th April 2017

The objective of the Workshop is to acquaint participants with the enduring enigma that is William Shakespeare and expose them to the technicalities of adapting and performing Shakespeare for the twenty first century stage.

The Workshop will provide a stimulating forum for interaction on the theoretical and performative aspects of adapting Shakespeare for the modern stage. The technical sessions of the workshop would include demonstrations and lectures on various aspects of Shakespearean theatre, such as, acting methodologies, stage craft, style, history and historiography of Shakespearean adaptation so that the participants can derive a first-hand experience of learning the intricacies of the art.

Last Date of Registration: 30th March, 2017

Confy at Pune

Institute of Advanced Studies in English

Pune, Maharashtra

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND CULTURE

15 – 17 DECEMBER 2017

The academic fraternity world over is preoccupied with various ways of understanding language, literature and culture. In addition to their interrelations and interdependence, the new ideas and approaches emerging from various disciplines like literary theory, philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, pragmatics and discourse analysis alongside technological revolution and socio-cultural transformations, have a bearing on our study of language and literature. The conference aims at exploring this dynamics with a focus on the complementary nature of language, literature and culture and their centrality in human life.

This year, we especially encourage papers that examine the intersection of digital technology and the Humanities. What are the new methodologies, theories, and sites of study that are emerging from this intersection? What kind of collaborations between the Humanities and Sciences must we envision for 21st century education and research? Papers that take up these and related issues should be submitted under the Digital Humanities, New Media Studies, and Future of Humanities Studies tracks.

Tracks for Discussion and Presentation

The ICLLC December 2017 will address a range of important tracks including the following:

1. Language, Literature and Ideology

2. Culture, Communication and Identity

3. Cultural Studies

4. Postcolonial Literature and Theory

5. Diaspora Identities

6. Feminist and Gender studies

7. Language, Gender and power

Confy on Indo-Canadian Studies @ Ahmedabad

Indian Association for Canadian Studies Sponsored

30th International Conference on Imagi/Nation

India/Canada: Past, Present and Future

25-27 March 2017

Jointly organised by

Indian Council of Literary, Social, Educational

and Cultural Research,

Gujarat Arts & Commerce College (Evening)

and

UGC-HRDC, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad

Website: http://www.councilofresearch.org

Venue: Gujarat Arts & Commerce

College (Evening), Ahmedabad

Call for Papers: We are calling for the submission of abstracts/full papers related to but not limited to the topics listed below. Abstracts will go through a rigorous review process by our Conference Committee. Submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis, and authors will be typically notified within two weeks with a decision. 

You are Invited...