IGNOU To Hold International Seminar From 20th Feb

The proposed bilingual (Hindi and English) conference is to contextualize marginality in an Inter-disciplinary framework with reference to past and with its possible effects on life in future and also provide a comparative platform of literary study between Dalit, African, Australian and American discourses.

Although the chief concern will be to review literature on marginality and figure out the points of coming together and departure in terms of marginalized writings yet scholarly contributions from every domain shall be discussed so that the inter-disciplinary or multi-disciplinary approaches can authenticate the main theme. The innovative, exciting, and intellectual discussion by the scholars of all domains will also help in promoting a high order research in this area.

The broad areas to be covered by the Seminar includes the following:

• Subaltern Consciousness in African Australian American and Dalit Writings.
• Parallelism and Ambivalences in literature of the ‘margins'
• ‘Art' and ‘Aesthetics' of African Australian American and Dalit Writings
• Literature of Marginality: African American Australian and Dalit Literature.
• Art, literature and films as modes of expression and Resistance
• Issues of language, form and genre
• Nation and its Others
• Autobiographies as layers of Identity and Resistance.
• Representation of women, caste and Race.
• Dynamics of Social exclusion - Issues, Trends and Prospects
• The Subaltern Consciousness and the associated challenges
• Politics of Empowerment and Subaltern issues.

Over the years, the traditional assumptions of disciplines have been challenged and scholars have also explored the role of the "canon" and debated on what the so called "great" (canonical) texts may be in their respective disciplines, and the more profound grounds of their canonicity. There is a great academic need to explore these comparative perspectives in African American and Australian, Indian Dalit Literature.

The advent of literary and cultural theories in the literary field has brought major changes in the way of reading, interpreting and understanding literature and culture. This has empowered, in a significant way, marginalized discourses which often remained unnoticed by the hegemonic culture. This has constantly been argued that a comprehensive literary study of marginality and its epistemic role is necessary and would contribute to a better understanding of how humanistic knowledge has been created, structured and transmitted.

For further information, please contact;
Prof. Vimal Thorat: 29572762,
Dr. Parmod Mehra: 9818209985