1st Rupkatha International Open Conference on Recent Advances in Interdisciplinary Humanities (Virtual)
In collaboration with
Indian Institute of Technology Patna
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
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Siksha O Anusandhan (Deemed to be University), Bhubaneswar
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
ABSTRACTS & BIO-INFO
Day 2: 21st August
CHANNEL 1
Session 11
Time: 10:00 Am—11:00 AM (Indian Time)
Presentation 1
“Sense of Place and Sense of Planet”: Local-Planetary Experiences of Climate Change in Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior
Sonam Jalan
PhD Research Scholar
Bankura University, West Bengal
Email- sonam0726@gmail.com
Abstract
Climate change has become a harsh reality of our present times. It is happening here, there and everywhere unbound by the spatial and temporal dimensions. Borrowing the title from Ursula K. Heise’s book, Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global, where she proposes the concept of ‘eco-cosmopolitanism’, this paper aims at reflecting upon the globalization of the present ecocatastrophes, musing upon the local (the experiences of the working class people) and the global scale (Unnatural Migration and thereby extinction of the Monarch Butterflies) impact of the climate crisis. Ursula K. Heise believes that the ‘deterritorialisation’ of the local knowledge is not always detrimental rather can open up new avenues into ecological consciousness. My paper will fall back on Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior– a novel dealing with the eco-apocalypse, climate change and global warming. In providing a deeply humane account of the working people’s response to the local effects of the global crisis along with a poignant account of the impact on a planetary scale- the Migration of the Monarch Butterflies and their extinction, Kingsolver contextualizes the micro-geographically bounded human experience and memory within the larger context of the global Anthropocene. This paper thus aims at projecting the enormous consequences of climate change and the ignorance of reality calling for a ‘sense of planet’-‘eco-cosmopolitanism’ rather than a ‘sense of place’- which in fact go hand in hand.
Keywords: Climate change, Eco-cosmopolitanism, Monarch Butterflies, Global warming, Anthropocene
Bionote: Sonam Jalan is a PhD Research Scholar at Bankura University, West Bengal, working on Climate Change in Literature. She has pursued her Masters and M. Phil from Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, Odisha. She is currently engaged as Sact-I at Ramananda College, Bishnupur, West Bengal, in the Department of English. Her areas of interest include Anthropocene, Climate Change Fiction, Refugee Studies and the like.
Presentation 2
Title: Climate Change in India: A Wakeup Call from Bollywood
Manvi Sharma
Research Scholar (English), Dept. of Humanities & Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Uttarakhand,(An Institute of National Importance) Srinagar-Garhwal-246174, Uttarakhand
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Dr. Ajay K. Chaubey
Assistant Professor-I (English), Coordinator, Dept. of Humanities & Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Uttarakhand, (An Institute of National Importance)
Abstract
Amidst Bollywood’s romanticized landscapes and grandeur settings, depiction of the flora and fauna, roaring rivers and drought prone lands, is difficult to locate. But the new millennium has witnessed some new generation filmmakers, sensitized towards the ecological concerns, thus marking a shift from the illustration of idealised landscapes to the representation of nature’s wrath. Since, cinema in India, has a deep-rooted impact on the masses, these creators employ films as tools to sensitize the population towards the climate change threat which though as perilous as the COVID-19 crisis, is often ignored by a significant amount of population. Dawning upon themselves the responsibility of environmental awakening, Nila Madhab Panda and Abhishek Kapoor highlight in their movies, Kadavi Hawa(2017) and Kedarnath(2018), respectively, the horrors of human callousness, leading to drastic change in Climatic conditions in India. Panda’s Kadavi Hawa, dealing with non-repayment of loans followed by suicides, portrays the heart-wrenching imagery of environmental degradation and Climate change that has rendered the Village of Mahua, arid and infertile. Kapoor’s Kedarnath on the other hand, appeals for action through horrifying imagery of the catastrophic floods that disrupted the holy town of Kedarnath, in 2013. Through a detailed analysis of the aforementioned visual portrayals, this article aims to emphasise as to how Films can play an important role in effectively addressing dealing with the issues related to Climate. Further, the rationale of this paper is to underscore the possibility of more such storylines, as a tool towards effective engagement and levitation of conscience.
Keywords: Climate Change, Cultural Studies, Bollywood, Films, Eco-criticism etc.
Bio-notes:
Manvi Sharma is a PhD Scholar at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Uttarakhand. She has pursued her M.A. English from Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Katra, Jammu and Kashmir, with first position, and Infosys Medal for Excellence, 2015-2017. She has an M.A. Dissertation entitled “Revisionist Mythmaking in the Selected Indian Plays”, to her credit. The author has presented her paper entitled, “Revisionist Mythmaking in Varsha Adalja’s Mandodari” in the International Conference on “Beyond Postcolonialism: Rethinking Feminist and Dalit Discourses in South Asia” during 10-11 March 2017atSMVDU. The areas of interests include Ecocriticism, Popular Culture, Film Studies and Post-Apocalyptic Fiction, and Literature of the Indian Diaspora, etc.
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Dr. Ajay K Chaubey is an Assistant Professor of English at the Department of Humanities& Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Uttarakhand. His major academic publications include VS Naipaul (Atlantic,2015), Salman Rushdie (Atlantic, 2016) followed by a trilogy on South Asian Diaspora (published by Rawat Publications, Jaipur in 2018, 2019 & 2020). Dr. Chaubey loves to explore the unexplored and nuanced territory of travel narratives on South Asia. He has widely published his essays, interviews, and book reviews in national and international journals, magazines, and anthologies. He has presented his papers in international conferences held in India and abroad. Dr. Chaubey visited NTU, Nottingham; the University of Leicester and York St. John University, York (United Kingdom) in 2014, and presented his papers on V S Naipaul and Dalit Literary discourse in India. He has also delivered many talks in the FDP’s and STC’s as a resource person and plenary speaker.
Presentation 3
Sustainability, Civilization and S‘tree’- Environmental Triad in Richard Powers’ The Overstory
Author 1: Nikita Gandotra
PhD scholar, Amity Institute of English Studies and Research, Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Author 2: Dr. Shuchi Agarwal
Associate Professor, Amity Institute of English Studies and Research, Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Abstract
The Overstory (2018) by Richard Powers is an interesting reflection of the environmental issues gripping the human civilization once ozone depletion and global warming loomed into focus. Global warming and an intensive exploration of environmental effects on the human civilization came under a scientific gaze prominently by 1830s and gained significance in the 1960s and 70s; leading to international negotiations from 1992. While Emerson and Thoreau pay serious literary attention in America; and Robert Frost engages with ecology in the twentieth century; more contemporary American literature reflects the conflicts that surfaced due to the environmental maneuver that took place in North America and Western Europe in 1960s and 1970s.
Richard Powers’ novel deals with the ways in which individuals and communities negotiate with these phenomena which are very distant from Wordsworth and the English romanticists. There is nevertheless a romantic idealism in the stories of many characters whose engagement and commitment to environment and trees is portrayed by Powers. His reference to the Chipko movement of Sunderlal Bahuguna in Uttarakhand is at once a gesture towards radical practical need as towards a human commitment, never easy to sustain. Powers lets one of his characters, Mother N to affirm the strength of the Chipko women in India and the Kayapo Indians in Brazil, who decided to stand up for trees and encouraged the hope that even they might. This strongly underlines the author’s intention: women are central to civilization and sustainability. The beautiful Chipko women and the Kayapo Indians are conflated in the title of this paper through a deliberate pun with ‘women’ translated as ‘stree’ to establish a close relationship between sustainability, trees which symbolize life, and women who play a crucial role in sustaining both nature and civilization, in a sense, ecofeminism.
Keywords: Richard Powers, The Overstory, Sustainability, Trees, Ecofeminism.
Bionote: Nikita Gandotra is a PhD scholar at Amity University, Noida. She is pursuing her PhD in English Literature and her area of study is American Literature. She is also working as a teaching assistant with the same institution. She qualified UGC NET in July 2019.
Dr. Shuchi Agrawal, an Associate Professor at AIESR. She has been a Gold Medallist during her graduation and post-graduation. She has also qualified NET and SLET (Rajasthan) in English. She has, to her credit, a number of research papers published in scholarly journals that reflect her wide range of scholarship. Her book A Study of Philip Roth: an American Bestseller Novelist has launched internationally.
Presentation 4
Title: Humans, Animals and Habitats: Liminality and Environmental Concerns in
George Saunders’ Fox 8: A Story
Author 1: Raisun Mathew
Designation and affiliation: PhD Research Scholar, Department of English, Lovely
Professional University, Punjab, India
Author 2: Dr. Digvijay Pandya
Designation and affiliation: Associate Professor and Research Supervisor, Department of English, Lovely Professional University, Punjab, India
Abstract
Encroachment, displacement and exploitation of environmental resources are the critical issues faced by the global community that in turn leads to consequences with long-term effect. Even at the high alert of environment issues, humans continue to exploit nature for their vested interests. Nature is victimised because of such activities by humans, who are indirectly being affected by their deeds. This interdisciplinary research of qualitative approach explores the environmental concerns highlighted in George Saunders’ Fox 8: A Story through the theoretical lens of Victor Turner’s Liminality. The ‘betwixt and between’ situation of the environment and its inhabitants are explored through the perspective of Fox 8. With the methodological use of textual analysis and interpretation, the research paper argues that human beings exert ‘forced liminality’ on the environment, making it and the inhabitants to experience the negative effects of liminality. This forceful liminality on environment would ultimately affect the safe living of several generations of human beings on earth. Insights of this research would help scholars to identify how Saunders has portrayed the transitional nature of liminality of the inhabitants and the natural habitat of their living, defining both as a liminal entity having the status of ‘communitas’.
Keywords: anthropology, communitas, displacement, ecology, environment, interdisciplinary, liminality, George Saunders, Victor Turner.
Bionote:
- Raisun Mathew is a PhD Research Scholar in the Department of English at Lovely Professional University, Punjab (India). His interdisciplinary research is on Liminality in George Saunders’ selected works. He has taught various literature courses to undergraduate students while working as Assistant Professor and Teaching Assistant. He has presented and published 20 research papers in various international and national conferences and journals, and has several poems and short stories to his credit. His research and publication interests include liminality in literature, post-truth, postmodern poetry and historical fiction.
- Dr. Digvijay Pandya is an Associate Professor and Research Supervisor in the Department of English at Lovely Professional University, Punjab (India). His area of specialization is Modern Poetry. He has more than 16 years of teaching experience in the field and has presented and published more than 40 research papers in various international and national conferences, seminars, symposiums, UGC CARE listed journals, and SCOPUS of high reputation. Two books are also there on his credit. Till date, 10 candidates have successfully completed and awarded their Ph. D. degree under his kind guidance and supervision and 9 are in the pipeline.
Presentation 5
Tragedy and Ecophobia: A Study of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and J.M. Synge’s Riders to the Sea
Thakurdas Jana
Terry Eagleton’s humorous question of “how a tragedy differs from a congress of global warming” echoes the tragic and traumatic life of human beings facing increasing violence of nature. In a tragedy, the protagonist does not have biophilia as conceptualized by Edward O. Wilson to explain the innate tendency of human beings to find connections with nature and other forms of life, rather experience with themselves of an ecophobia, ‘antipathy towards nature’ as defined by Simon C. Estok. In a tragedy, “the unfathomable agencies of Nature”, to Eagleton, create ecophobia among the characters of tragedies written in most of the periods of literature. It is experienced in a Renaissance tragedy, Macbeth by the Bard of Avon with the appearance of ‘nature’s mischief’ as well as in a modern tragedy, Riders to the Sea by J.M. Synge with the destructive sea devouring Maurya’s five sons, husband, and husband’s father creating an antipathy towards nature as shown in Macbeth’s fear of the ‘unruly’ and ‘rough’ night and the ambiguous movement of the Brinamwood, and Maurya’s desperate request to resist Bartley to travel by sea to the Galway fair. Their ecophobia has created an unhinged personality among them. With all these perspectives this paper aims to re-establish a connection between ecophobia and tragedy and examine how ecophobia has been internalized among the characters of the aforementioned play.
Keywords: ecophobia, biophilia, tragedy, Macbeth, Shakespeare, Riders to the Sea, J.M.Synge.
Bio-note: He teaches in the PG Department of English, Bhatter College, Dantan as State Aided College teacher, Grade 1,
Presentation 6
Title: America Saw It Coming: Crisis Through Two Road Narratives
Author 1: Parushi Ruhil
Designation and affiliation: Independent Researcher
Abstract
The paper will track the environmental crisis from 1930s till the 2000s through two important American novels- Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and The Road by Cormac McCarthy, covering major events from the Dust Bowl to Hurricane Katrina with the background of the Great Depression, The New Deal, World War Two, Atomic Bombing, Cold War, 9/11 and the Kyoto Protocol.
The paper shows how the world has reacted to the climate change in a manner of the frog who sat in the boiling water and ultimately perished not realizing the intensity and the urgency of the situation.
The journey starts with the Grapes of Wrath where the Dust- Bowl wrecks havoc leading to immense loss of life and property. It was said to be the worst man- made disaster which led to the recognition of soil erosion as a national menace. Important point here is of the man- made disaster as we live in the age of the Anthropocene. It’s the action of the humans that impact the climate and the environment. This narrative is culminated in the Cormac McCarthy’s book The Road which not only shows the apocalyptic view but also systematically breaks down the symbols which represented the civilized world. For instance, the mall, the road, and the processed food.
The paper will also explore the similarities in the two novels to unearth the basis on which the American culture stands. For instance the road narrative and how something which extrinsically symbolizes freedom and opportunities, become a constricting and almost torturous path towards doom.
Keywords: Dust bowl, American Literature, road narrative, anthropocene, apocalypse, ecology
Bionote: Parushi Ruhil is an educator. She believes in education to be a primary tool to cultivate a sustainable, resilient and empowered mindset in children. Her work in the capacity of a fellow and content advisor with Teach For India encouraged her to look into identity formation of an individual in the contemporary context. She holds a bachelor’s degree from I.P. College for Women, Delhi University and master’s degree from Ambedkar University Delhi. She has been accepted in the English PhD program in IIT- Jammu and is presently transitioning from her teaching position to the research role.
Session 12
Time: 11:05 Am—:12:05 PM (Indian Time)
Presentation 1
Title: Food politics and Gender Construction in Ruth Ozeki’s My Year of Meats
Author 1: Sathiya Priya T
, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Sathyabma Institute of Science and Technology.
Abstract
Food in general is seen as a substance of nourishment; nevertheless, it carries several symbolic messages with reference to an individual’s culture, ethnicity, gender, identity and class. Subsequently, food being an important element of societal construction, a great amount of politics exists in connection to gastronomy at local, national and global level. Starting from colonization times to modern times, food has been an important cause underlying the major events of the world. Apart from that, over the ages, the society has constructed certain ways of food and consumption practices for women which have been overlooked in the field of gastronomy. Ruth Ozeki in her novel My Year of Meats brings to the limelight the major meat politics that is enforced by the leading national forces on the developing countries by having women as a centre of exploitation. By differentiating the American and Japanese way of food consumption practices, Ruth Ozeki exposes the politics of American meat industry and its supply. Also, gendered construction is portrayed in the novel through the forced instructions and directions imposed on women, a generic but immoral exhortation on their food consumption practices. Food is used as an important tool to objectify women which is masked under several criteria like culture, ethnicity, class, nation etc., Further, food being the central domain for women in everyday life with their regular activities like cooking, feeding and nourishing their family members, Ruth Ozeki conveys the sudden transformation of food power from the hands of women to men when it comes to public forum. Hence this article focuses on the food politics that exist in the global meat industry and its connection to the gender politics curbing the growth of women as individuals in the society.
Keywords: Food Studies, Gastronomy, Women and Food, Gendered construction, Food politics.
Bionote: Sathiya Priya T. is a Ph.D. student pursuing her research in the area of postcolonial studies at Sathyabama Institute of science and Technology, Chennai and works as an assistant professor in the Department of English in the same institution. Her research interests focus on the concepts deliberated through postcolonial narratives and theories with specific emphasis on the use of food narratives as effective models to understand the strands of post-colonialism. She has also published articles in the same area of study. She teaches post-colonial literature, women’s studies and Indian translation studies at the undergraduate and postgraduate level and also has language-teaching and curriculum-design experience for engineering students at university level.
Presentation 2
The Politics of Gendered Spatializations: A Study of Cityscapes in Serious Men and The Illicit Happiness of Other People
Parvathi M.S.
PhD Research Scholar, Department of English Literature, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad
Abstract
Burton Pike terms the cityscapes represented in literature as word-cities whose depiction captures the spatial significance evoked by the city-image and simultaneously, articulates the social psychology of its inhabitants (Pike 1981:243). This intertwining of the social and the spatial animates the concept of spatiality, which informs the positionality of urban subjects, (be it “the verticality of the city” or the horizonality of the landscape) and determines their standpoint (Keith and Pile 1993:6). The spatial politics underlying cityscapes, thus, determine the modes of social production of sexed corporeality. In turn, the body as a cultural product modifies and reinscribes the urban landscape according to its changing demographic needs. The dialectic relationship between the city and the bodies embedded in them orient familial, social, and sexual relations and inform the discursive practices underlying the division of urban spaces into public and private domains. The geographical and social positioning of the bodies within the paradigm of the public/private binary regulates the process of individuation of the bodies into subjects. The distinction between the public and the private is deeply rooted in spatial practices that isolate a private sphere of domestic, embodied activity from the putatively disembodied political, public sphere. Historically, women have been treated as private and embodied and the politics of the demarcated spaces are employed to control and limit women’s mobility. This gendered politics underlying the situating practices apropos public and private spaces inform the representations of space in literary texts. Manu Joseph’s novels, Serious Men (2010) and The Illicit Happiness of Other People (2012), are situated in the word-cities of Mumbai and Chennai respectively whose urban spaces are structured by such spatial practices underlying the politics of location. The paper attempts to problematize the nature of gendered spatialities informing the location of characters in Serious Men and The Illicit Happiness of Other People.
Keywords: spatiality, space, gender, positionality, representations of space, public/private binary
Presentation 3
Mahesh Dattani’s Dance Like a Man: A Depiction of the Trials and Tribulations of an Androgynous Personality
Name Chhavi Choudhary
Email choudharychhavi06@gmail.com
Affiliation National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur
Name Rajiv Bhushan
Email rbhushan.hum@nitjsr.ac.in
Affiliation National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur
Description Mahesh Dattani is one of the leading Indian dramatists who responded to the problems of sexuality on the canvass of Indian theatre. He examined various facets of subjugation and marginalization rampant in Indian society. His plays focus on the sub-urban Hindu family and their trifle with gender and alternate sexuality. His plot revolves around the damaging implications of patriarchal constructs and his characters strive for liberty and self-satisfaction beneath hegemonic masculinity, compulsive heteronormativity and prejudiced cultural domain. With reference to his famous play Dance Like a Man, this paper critically examines the existing socio-cultural domain which practices politics of exclusion of androgynous identities behind the façade of peacefully cohabiting heterosexual Indian family and shows how Dattani, has remarkably countered the presentation of the polarized association of gender roles through performance of his protagonist. Set against the backdrop of patriarchal mindset, this paper delineates that the victim of patriarchal norms is not a woman but a man, who has traits of androgyny. It gives a brief account to highlight the significance of androgyny and portrays how androgyny is directly proportional to creativity. It elucidates how androgynous men undergo searing experiences of stigma and social untouchability in a traditional set up and how patriarchal norms reinforce dominant powers of society to stunt the growth of an androgynous personality. Key Words: Androgyny, Creativity, Exclusion, Hegemonic masculinity, Patriarchal norms.
Presentation 4
An Analysis of ‘Emotions’ in Transgender through Facial Action Coding System
Sugyanta Priyadarshini
Research Scholar, KIIT Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India
Email: riro231110@gmail.com ORCID: 0000-0001-7660-6162
ABSTRACT: Transgender is a blanket term wrapping individuals whose gender identity, expression or behavior transgresses their biological sex. They are often put on the periphery in terms of finances and the social inclusion. The varying stereotypes of sexual binary recognize the transgenders as socially misfit and economically unaccepted. Emotionally, the transgenders face hardships and lack of social support that push them at the social cross-roads in terms of denial and rejection. Nevertheless, this emotional distress is generally aggravated by the family, friends and acquaintances. This paper examines the emotional binary of Transgenders and parents after their detachment by using an automatically based system on facial gestures called Facial Action Coding system (FACS). Further, their affirmative emotions, such as, Happiness, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, Contempt, Surprise, and Fear is rated with an intensity rate justifying the strength of the respective emotion. The FACS analysis of emotion of sadness resulting in depression is evaluated by using 20-item measure of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D). The paper also explores the facilitative coping experiences after the recognition of the sexual identity by noting down the broad scale of emotional bandwidth. However, facial expressions of transgender respondents and their parents are recorded and are selected based on snow ball sampling. The research work has done a detailed case study on emotions of transgender respondents and their parents to know the ground reality of real troubles they come across standing on periphery of the society.
Keywords: Transgender, Parents, FACS, Emotions, Facial expressions, CES-D.
Presentation 5
Title: Redefined Families and Subsystems: Reading Intersections of Caste, Class and Kinship Structures in Select Hijra Autobiographies
Author:
Dr. Tanupriya
Assistant Professor, Department of Languages, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Christ (Deemed to be University) Delhi NCR
Abstract
Hijras or trans woman in India are gendered identities, but their identities cannot be reduced to the conceptual framework and analysis of ‘sex’, ‘gender’ and ‘sexuality’. Being the minority in India, transgender lives intersect with caste, class, kinship and hierarchy. The study focuses to locate and identify these intersections within the scope of the select hijra autobiographies; The Truth About Me: A Hijra Life Story by A. Revathi and I am Vidya by Vidya. The study looks at the notions of ‘family’ which are traditionally woven in heteronormative and patriarchal setups. It examines the gharanas system or subsystems in hijra communities that redefines the structures and hierarchies of the family, and designating the fellow elder hijras with the relation of mata (mother) and cela (disciple), thus forming a kinship which is located beyond the caste, class and religious structures. The emphasis is to study how families are inserted in heteronormative perspectives and argues a redefining of the notion of ‘family’, and to establish and recognize the newer perspectives on ‘family’ which lies outside the traditional setup.
Keywords: Caste, Class, Family, Subsystems
Bio note: Dr. Tanupriya is an Assistant Professor of English at Department of Languages, School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Christ (Deemed to be University), Delhi NCR. Her PhD is from National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK), Surathkal in Gender and Sexuality Studies. She did her MPhil from Central University of Haryana, and Masters and B.A. Hons. English from The English and Foreign Languages University, Lucknow Campus. She has presented papers in various national and international conferences in India and Abroad and published articles in national and international journals. She specializes in Gender, Sexuality and Body studies.
Presentation 6
Queer Identities and Conflicts in Family relationships: A Depiction and Analysis of a few Indian Films
- Geetha
Research Scholar, Dept of English,National Institute of Technology Puducherry, Karaikal-609609
Smrutisikta Mishra
Assistant Professor, Dept of English, National Institute of Technology Puducherry, Karaikal-609609
Abstract
Queer figures have crowded the world cinema, and of late Indian cinema is joining the race for proving its contribution by narrating the global, hackneyed characters such as sexually vulnerable Other, the outcast covert case, the transgender exile, the revealed woman and the bisexual refugee. Indian society is a heterosexual one, and contradictory sexual identities do not gain social recognition and acceptance. This rigidity makes people with alternative sexuality not only to struggle for their rightful place in society but also yearn for acceptance within their families. The affirmation of one’s sexual identity, going against the family values, is always branded/pigeonholed as Western. This paper attempts to shed light on how queer identities create conflicts in family relationships by taking up three movies for analysis. In Fire, the repressed feelings of two married women come to the fore in the form of their physical relationship. Shonali Bose’s Margarita with a Straw narrates the tale of a cerebral palsy afflicted woman who discovers her sexual identity and in the process becoming a woman of her own. Sridhar Rangayan’s Evening Shadows highlights the tribulations faced by a mother in South India who is trapped between conservative cultural dogmas on one hand and her son’s queer identity on the other hand. The movie showcases the conflicts in the perception of sexual identities of two different generations. The three chosen movies share a common thread of having homosexual protagonists who lead closeted lives and how their alternative sexuality dents relationships. This paper seeks to discuss how assertion of queer identities leads to strains in family ties.
Keywords: queer identities, yearning for acceptance, conflicts, cultural dogmas, closeted lives.
Bionote: S. Geetha is currently pursuing her Part-time Ph.D in English at National Institute of Technology Puducherry, Karaikal. Since 2008, she has been working as Assistant Professor in Dept of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) in Pondicherry Engineering College. Her research interest lies in Queer literature, especially Queer Indian fiction. She has published papers in International Journal of English Language Literature in Humanities (IJELLH), International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences (IJHSS) and Research Journal of English and Literature (RJEL). She has presented three papers in conferences, and three papers have been published as part of conference proceedings.
Smrutisikta Mishra, after completing her M. Phil and Ph.D in Language and Linguistics, is currently working as Assistant Professor in English at National Institute of Technology Puducherry, Karaikal. Formerly, she served as a Lecturer in the Department of Higher Education, Odisha. Apart from possessing a bright academic career, she is a dedicated researcher, a soft skills trainer and a Cambridge University Examiner. She has worked with the Government of USA in various consultancy projects. She has published books and has paper publications to her credit. She is an active participant in conferences, and organizes workshops and symposiums in the field of ELT and Management.
Session 13
Time: 12:10 PM—:1:10 PM (Indian Time)
Presentation 1
Title: Women in Popular Korean Dramas: In Need of Embracing ‘Cyborg’ Feminism
Author 1: Dr. Kamna Singh
Designation and affiliation: Punjab Engineering College
Abstract
Women in Korean television dramas are depicted as modern, multifaceted, feminine and feminist. However, while rich, varied and complex on the surface; the female characters reveal their identities as remaining bound by traditional notions of what it means to be female, albeit a feminist female. Previous studies in this area are few and far between and do not focus on recently aired shows. As Korean dramas play a vital, conscious and subconscious role in shaping the individual and society, such research is the need of the hour; more so as the global popularity of these dramas has made them the unofficial cultural ambassadors of Korea in particular and Asia in general. Through the lens of Donna Haraway’s feminist theory, this paper applies qualitative textual analysis to Korean dramas aired in the summer of the year 2020. It finds that female characters in these shows need to embrace what Haraway calls ‘cybernetic identity’ in both plot and character development. Using the symbol of the cyborg which is gender-neutral, these characters need to embrace ‘multigenderism’ or the freedom to choose aspects of their identity and even change these aspects as and when they please, without concern for what gender ‘category’ this will put them in, thus allowing their self-expression without the binary constraints of being ‘male’ or ‘female’ or the fear of being ‘something in between genders’. This research aims to further Gender Studies and inspire depictions of characters devoid of any preconceived notions of gender identity in Korean dramas.
Keywords: Postmodern Feminism, Haraway, Korean Drama, Qualitative Textual analysis.
Bionote: Dr. Kamna Singh is an Assistant Professor of English at Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh. She is a Ph.D. and an M.Phil. (Gold Medalist) in English from Panjab University, India. Her areas of interest include Literary Theory, Cultural Studies and English Literature. She has several publications in highly reputed international and national journals, including Scopus indexed and UGC listed journals.
Presentation 2
Title: Beyond Postcoloniality: Female Subjectivity and Travel in Jamaica Kincaid’s Among Flowers
Name Dr. Subarna Bhattacharya
Email subarna.bhattacharya@live.com
Affiliation Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce, Pune
Description In feminist studies, the relation between gender and travel has been addressed in many important critical discourses. Feminist critics have pointed out that travel writing had for long remained oblivious about women’s travel, one reason being that travel was, forever, a masculinist exercise. Underlining the gendered aesthetics of travel writing, feminist criticism has read women’s travelogues as interesting sites of struggle between repeating the normative patterns of male travelling and casting an ‘alternative’ gaze. However, reading women’s travel writing simply as feminist narratives against their masculinist counterparts can be an oversimplification, as it may mean overlooking the deeper complexities underlying the texts. Being an autobiographical form, travel writing creates textual spaces where the formation of a selfhood happens through a constant negotiation of the ‘self’ with the ‘world’, not only in terms of gender, but also other subject identities like race, class and culture,. In this context, my paper proposes to read Jamaica Kincaid’s Among Flowers. A Walk in the Himalaya (2005), as a female travel writing where the question of gender intertwines with her non-white, ex-colonial, diasporic identity during her travel in Himalayan Nepal. My focus would be on examining the writer’s narratorial self as a female agency, influencing and negotiating her postcolonial identity. The paper will try to address how the travelogue functions as a register of female experiences, while Kincaid, as a post-colonial black traveller, negotiates her position within the existing imperialist paradigm of white travelling.
Presentation 3
Title: Gender, Religion and Nationalism: Locating Muslim women in Indian Nationalist Discourse in Momtaz Shah Nawaz’s The Heart Divided
Author: SUMA CHISTI
Designation and affiliation: PhD Research Scholar, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Abstract:
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century colonial India, with the dramatic changes in socio-political scenario the nationalist discourse in India was significantly reshaped. And with the rise of the new nationalist discourse in India, the position and representation of women in Indian nationalist discourse was rethought and redefined – first, because of the rise of Goddess-centric nationalist rhetoric and secondly, the nationalist leaders’ promotion of and call for women participation in the freedom movement. Historian, critics and social scientists find women liberation movement, social reform and cultivation of feminist discourse in India intertwined with the rise of nationalism or national movement in the country. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century India witnessed the emergence of nationalist concepts of “New Women”, “Modern Indian Women” or “Mother India”. And the rise of these ideas substantiates both the subjective and objective position of women in Indian nationalist discourse. But so far as the position or representation of Indian Muslim women in Indian nationalist discourse is concerned, it has always been difficult to address the issue. While addressing this problem of the position of Indian Muslim women in Indian nationalist discourse some more points and facts need to be taken into account– first, the rise of Two Nation Theory which demanded a separate country for the Muslims of undivided India; secondly, the emergence of the secularist trend of Indian nationalism; thirdly, the significant rise of Hindu nationalism and fourthly, Muslims’ exceptional adherence to the practice of women seclusion due to their religious sentiment. In her novel The Heart Divided (1947) Momtaz Shah Nawaz, a Muslim woman writer of the undivided India, addresses all these concerns. In the novel she tries to figure out a definite role and position of Indian Muslim women in the nationalist discourse of colonial India during anti-colonial movement. My paper tries to explore the position of Muslim women in Indian nationalist discourse through a critical reading of the said novel. It attempts to find out how Muslim women had both the subjective and objective position in Indian nationalism during the freedom struggle. It also tries to address whether the nationalist terms like “New Women”, “Mother India” or “Modern Indian Women” are applicable for the Indian Muslim women.
Keywords: Nationalism, New Women, Muslim Women, Gender, Religion
Bionote: Suma Chisti is a Ph.D research scholar at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Kharagpur. She has been working on education and identity formation of Muslim women in colonial Bengal. She has completed her M.Phil from the Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University. The title of the dissertation she submitted for her M.Phil was Tradition vs. Modernity: Muslim Women in and out of Purdah. Her areas of interest are Third world feminism, Postcolonial literature, Islamic feminism, Ethnicity and Race and Partition literature.
Presentation 4
Food, Women and Wellness: Overlaps of Gender Discrimination and Alterity in Urmila Pawar’s The Weave of my Life and Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke
Dr Abhisarika Prajapati
Assistant Professor. School of Arts & Humanities, REVA University, Bengaluru-64. India
Abstract
Our world has travelled a lot with the spin of time, and we have come from ‘what’ to ‘so what’. The present pandemic situation is teaching us numerous lessons and we tend to unlearn before we learn and envisage the future of humankind. Ironically, the rich upper class is getting bored, financially secure middle class is busy in cooking and in trying new recipes and the lower section of people in Indian society who are dependent on hand to mouth wages, are struggling hard for bare survival. Food is the first necessity of any kind of life on the earth and to keep oneself alive biologically. Urmila Pawar’s The Weave of My Life and Baby Kamble’s The Prison We broke offer a new dimension to explore and to scrutinize the space of alterity in the subaltern socio-cultural periphery and to investigate the intersection and overlaps of gender discrimination and alterity in the historical context of caste hierarchy in Indian society. The two writers debunk layers of discrimination and position of Dalit women on the margin of margin,
interesting though excruciating ‘plurality of difference’ felt by women jostling for survival and
thrown in the chagrin, deprived of enough food, taught, and conditioned to internalize the
patriarchal prescription and ‘perform’ their duties in Butler’s term and demonstrate ‘M(other)-
Maternal Subjectivity, the Ready-Made Mother monster-Ethics of Respecting in Bracha
Ettinger’s phrase. This paper aspires and aims to study the space of alterity and issues of gender
discrimination in the autobiographical narratives of the two women writers, challenging
patriarchal machinery, gender, class, and caste overlaps and raising the issue of food and its
accessibility to women to determine their wellness and sustainable development. Theoretical
framework of Simone De Beauvoir, Butler, Sharmila Rege, Ettinger for gender discrimination
and Spivak, Castoriadis and Joshua Wexler can be instrumental in examining the gender issues
from a different perspective and in bringing the concern pertaining to women and wellness
from the background to the foreground of the debating table.
Keywords: Gender, alterity, food, women, wellness, Urmila Pawar, Baby Kamble.
Bio-note: Dr Abhisarika Prajapati is an Assistant Professor of English in the School of Arts & Humanities at REVA University, Bengaluru. She obtained her M.A & PhD in English from University of Allahabad (A central University) in the year 2002 & 2009, respectively. She has also passed the UGC-NET examination in English. She is passionately involved in research and strongly believe in the power of literature which can be instrumental in bringing a change and reforming our environment and society at large. She has published more than 45 research papers in numerous reputed International, National, Scopus & Web of Science indexed journals. In addition to this, she also presented her papers and attended more than 20 conferences and seminars. Her enthusiasm was recognized, and she was invited for delivering guest lectures and was appreciated as a resource person in webinars. For her research cannot be separated from academics and education and she believes that an academician is supposed to teach researched subjects and explored areas in higher education for a sustainable development. She has worked as a question-paper setter in Bangalore University and St Joseph’s College, Bangalore as well. Further, she qualified renowned examination of Public Service Commission and had served UP Government for a span of 7 years. With a teaching and research experience of more than 12 years, presently she is guiding PhD program on various topics of human well beings and education. In the year 2019, she was awarded BEST RESEARCHER’s AWARD at REVA University for her academic excellence and contribution in research in the field of humanities and social sciences. She holds expertise in the field of Indian Writings in English, Film Studies, Russian Literature and Gender Studies. Many online courses as “Camera Never Lies” from University of London and Courses on Communication and Professional Conversation have been completed by her from Georgia Institute of Technology to instill and develop new pedagogy to teach students and to prepare them for all the challenges of life. For her research is an integral part of human life so as the life of an academician.
Presentation 5
Reconceptualising Anorexia Nervosa: A Gynocentric Trajectory on Disordered Eating
Depriving the body from eating and developing a phobia about food is a vital attribute of the neurotic ailment, Anorexia Nervosa. Conspicuously, this is labeled as a female disorder. Various studies have examined that the germination point of this disorder is substantially based on the social presumptions such as, “Thin is beautiful.” In the psychoanalytical sense, this can be a response to ‘lack’ or ‘deficiency’ communicated through Lacanian Symbolic Order. This ‘lack’ unconsciously drives the female to look or become ‘thin.’ As proven in the various studies, this disciplinary project is bound to fail owing to the unattainable norms. Hence, the female desire to be ‘thin’ only ensues in dejection and shame in the female; further, it also restores her ‘deficiency.’ Nevertheless, in the last decade, digitization of the communication medium may have transformed the dynamics of female bodily presumptions. Various body-positive blogs and instagram accounts have initiated to overturn the idea of Lacanian ‘lack.’ Further, it may have also deposed the ‘Symbolic Order’ only to replace it with an unrestrained, authentic, democratic feminine language. This paper attempts to reconceptualise the trajectory of Anorexia Nervosa and the female body images as portrayed in the fictional accounts from the twentieth century as well as in the various digital-media devices from the last decade. In this lieu, the paper critically examines the Lacanian notions of female ‘Lack’ in the digital communication medium.
Keywords: Anorexia Nervosa, female body, female disorder, Lack, new-media
Author’s Bio:
Deepali Mallya M is an assistant professor at Christ (Deemed to be) University, Bangalore, Karnataka, INDIA. Her areas of research interest include, gender and cultural studies, marginalized literature, and Second Language Writing. Her doctoral thesis explored the identity-fragmentation and neurotic mental health in fictional female characters through a feminist psychoanalytical lens.
Presentation 6
Feminisation of Multidimensional Poverty in Rural Odisha
Surya Narayan Biswal,
Doctoral Research Scholar in Economics, Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (Deemed to be University),
Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India, Email: suryabiswal100@gmail.com
S K Mishra, Associate Professor in Economics, Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (Deemed to be University),
Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India, Email: santoshmishra@soa.ac.in / skmtite@gmail.com
M K Sarangi, Associate Professor in Economics, Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (Deemed to be University),
Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India, Email: minaketansarangi@soa.ac.in / sarangimk@gmail.com
Abstract
Gender equality augments human capital and helps in poverty alleviation and is, therefore, emphasized in UNDP’s 2030 agenda of SDGs. For eradication of extreme poverty and building resilience for persons who are vulnerable to poverty, SDGs calls for a pro-poor and gender-sensitive policy framework. In this context, a gender-based study on multi-dimensional aspects of poverty is highly significant. Extant literature reveals that females are more deprived in different dimensions of poverty such as education, health, living standard, empowerment, environment, autonomy and social relationship. The present study is conducted with the basic objective of examining feminization of poverty in rural areas of Jagatsinghapur district of Odisha. Seven socio-economic dimensions comprising sixteen indicators have been taken into consideration to construct the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) using the Alkire-Foster Method at the individual level. The novelty of the study lies in analyzing MPI at the individual level for rural Odisha. The study reveals that the vulnerability of poverty for female increases with the increase in MPI. Higher female deprivation is observed across social groups and all occupation categories except services. Dummy variable regression analysis also supports the major findings of the study. Complementary Cumulative Distribution Function satisfies strict first-order stochastic dominance condition and substantiates the feminisation of poverty at each level of poverty cut-off across all social groups and all occupational categories except for services. The findings of the study have significant implications for developing suitable policies for gender equalization and poverty alleviation.
Keywords: Feminisation, Multidimensional Poverty, MPI, Odisha
Bio-note:
Surya Narayan Biswal is currently Doctoral Research Scholar in Economics in the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (Deemed to be University), Odisha, India. He has to his credit more than 04 years of research experience in ICAR. He has presented more than 5 research papers in national and international level conferences. He is a life member of OEA.
S K Mishra, Ph.D. is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (Deemed to be University), Odisha, India. He has more than 15 years of teaching and 05 years of research experiences. He has to his credit more than 35 research papers published in various journals and edited books of national and international in repute. He has presented more than 20 research papers in national and international level conferences. His areas of specialization include development and quantitative economics. He is a life member of the WEA, TIES, ISTE and OEA.
M K Sarangi, Ph.D. is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (Deemed to be University), Odisha, India. He has more than 15 years of teaching and 22 years of research experiences. He has to his credit more than 15 research papers published in various journals and edited books of national and international in repute. He has presented more than 14 research papers in national and international level conferences. His areas of specialization include development and public economics. He is a life member of the WEA, and OEA.
Session 14
Time: 1.15 PM—:2:15 PM (Indian Time)
Presentation 1
Title: Language, Representation and Construction of Femininity: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Indian Matrimonial Advertisements.
Author: Sohela Mukherjee
Designation and affiliation: Ph.D. Research Scholar, Department of Linguistics and Contemporary English, The English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Lucknow
Abstract
In the post-feminist 21st century that we are living in, gender equality should be a given. However, gender is no longer a bifurcated monolithic norm. There are still certain socially constructed notions of what it means to be masculine and feminine. These norms limit and dictate the choices and behaviour of both men and women but especially women in a patriarchal societal setup like India’s. This becomes particularly notable in the discourse of marriage. As Beauvoir (1989) points out that a woman is gendered to become a bride long before she actually gets married so the matrimonial advertisements in the Indian newspapers and various websites become a fertile site for ‘performativity of gender’ and ideological mapping of norms of hegemonic femininity. The present study makes use of tools of Critical Discourse Analysis like vocabulary, speech acts, modality, intertextuality etc. to highlight how within these advertisements are covertly hidden the ideologies of socially sanctioned femininity and power structures that create and sustain the ‘phenomenon of the bride’. It also looks at how through these advertisements women are explicitly and implicitly expected to be a certain brand of feminine. And finally evaluates the amount of agency (if any) that young Indian women have over the dominant bridal discourse or if they are just puppets in the hands patriarchal ideological norms.
Keywords: gender, femininity, representation, CDA, matrimonial, advertisement.
Bionote: The author completed her undergraduate studies with Honours in English from Lady Brabourne College, Calcutta University. After which she received her postgraduate degree from The English and Foreign Languages University, Lucknow. Her M.Phil. research on ‘Critical Discourse Analysis of Articles Reporting Rape in the Print Media’ was done at the University of Hyderabad. Currently she is enrolled as a full-time research scholar at EFLU (Lucknow). Her main areas of interest and enquiry are Critical Discourse Analysis, Media Studies, Discourse Analysis, and Feminist Studies.
Presentation 2
Title: Resisting Sexual Colonisation, Reclaiming Denied Spaces: A Reading of Tattooed with Taboos: An Anthology of Poetry by Three Women from Northeast India
Name Anindya Syam Choudhury
Assam University, Silchar
Name Amrita Bhattacharyya
Affiliation Amity University, Kolkata
Description In the pervasiveness of the dominant male voices in literature, the resistant female voices have traditionally got drowned. This has made the act of identification and foregrounding of the works of women an important political act by focusing attention on the silences and taboos on their bodies, sexualities, desires and pleasures thereby disrupting the hegemonic patriarchal establishment. It is in this context that this paper attempts to read Tattooed with Taboos: An Anthology of Poetry by Three Women from Northeast India, a collection of seventy-seven poems which tries to understand what it means to be a woman in a society fettered with the shackles of patriarchy. The paper endeavours to explore how a vilified piece of dress, the ‘phanek’ (a traditional sarong-like dress worn by Manipuri women), symbolising the social control of women’s bodies, becomes in the hands of these women poets potent cultural capital as they go about resisting in/through their poetry the sexual colonisation of their bodies and the smothering of their desires by a patriarchal society. In this context, the paper attempts to look at how the poets in this anthology try to re-historicise the pain, sufferings and trauma inscribed on the ‘abject’ bodies of women by questioning the existing discourse and trying to find a new way of viewing/writing their bodies. This endeavour on the part of the poets, as this paper tries to show, leads them to express a desire to trespass into spaces usually denied to women in the personal and the public.
Presentation 3
Title: Negotiating Alienation and Marginality in the Selected Verses of Indo-Guyanese Poetess Mahadai Das
Dr. Renuka L.Roy, Assistant Professor of English,
S.K.Porwal College, Kamptee. Affiliated to R.T.M. Nagpur University, Nagpur
Abstract
The Indo-Caribbean literature opens a new vista of study of successful female poets and writers who have contested a literary space for themselves in the arena of West Indian literary discourse. These female writers have boldly denounced any legacy of Eurocentric literature and established their independent school of writing. The emancipation from ‘colonial possessiveness’, (p.80) a term used by Ramabai Espinet, in her writing and a frantic effort to find new roots in the land of exile is a unique feature of the Indo-Caribbean literature. A rich cultural heritage, ancestral art, exotic cuisine, customs and costumes are the marks of the exclusive oriental culture distinctly imprinted in their literature. Indo-Guyanese poetess, Mahadai Das (1954-2003), a prolific poetess of South- Asian descent in her collection of poetry ‘I want to be a Poetess of my People’ (1977) presents an unparallel account of the Guyanese people’s journey from immigration to independence. The episodes of violence, mutilation and physical abuse gave Indo-Caribbean female writers a new ability to articulate their woes of immigration and annihilation. The images like sailing back to India, the torments of indentureship and exile as well as racial and political turmoil in the land interweave together to form the prime content of Indo-Caribbean female writer’s work. These female writers battle the fear of female authorship which was long suppressed owing to the monopoly of male literary artists of the mainstream West Indian literature. The present paper proposes to study the theme of alienation and marginality as reflected in the selected verses of Indo-Guyanese writer Mahadai Das.
Keywords: Indo-Guyanese literature, immigration, racial and cultural conflict.
Bio-note: Dr. Renuka L. Roy is currently working as an assistant professor of English in S.K.Porwal College, Kamptee. She has 14 years of teaching experience at undergraduate level. In addition to this, she has 9years of research experience including her Ph.D. work. Her area of specialization is Diaspora Studies, Feminist Literature and Caribbean Studies etc. She has published a number of scholarly research articles in reputed peer-reviewed journals. Her articles have also been published as chapters in the books by national publisher. She has contributed in number of E-journals. Her presentation in this conference will be based on her paper, “Negotiating Alienation and Marginality in the Selected Verses of Indo-Guyanese Poetess Mahadai Das”
Presentation 4
Writing the New Woman or Evolving Newer Stereotypes? A Feminist Reading of Select Indian Women Poets Writing in English
Ms. Clarinda Dias
Assistant Professor, DCT’s Dhempe College of Arts and Science, Miramar, Panaji-Goa
Abstract
The term ‘empowerment’, when used in tandem with stories of real women, gives off a see-saw like vibe. At some junctures, debunking the rigid patriarchy and creating an easier milieu for women seem to be the order of the day and at others, the vortex of suffocation seems inescapable. Demystifying myths that try to fit women into compartments has been the attempt of feminists over the years. This has met with success in umpteen ways in the global scenario as well as in a country like India; which is an extremely high-context culture. Indian women poets, in their rendition of female sagas, have chosen to shape new protagonists quite different from the women of yore who fitted very snugly in boxes labelled ‘ideal’or ‘wanton’; leaving no room for other shades. The modern variant is endowed with the strength of conviction, the prowess to articulate and live those convictions. She is Superwoman, the many-handed goddess- handling work-life balance with precision. This is the new woman; etched in literature with a place of pride. Is literature going to be responsible for creating fresh stereotypes; where the woman is stretched too thin, poised for a thunderously loud snap? Is too much freedom not freedom anymore? Does Superwoman feel stifled with so much power that she cannot enjoy being ordinary?
There is a need to write a new woman; one who reflects the multiple layers of what it means to be human above everything else.
Keywords: Feminism, gynocriticism, gender, gender studies, feminine writing
Presentation 5
Becoming Goddesses: Challenging History, Erasures and Betrayals in the Works of Babitha Marina Justin
Jerin Jacob
PhD Research Scholar, TISSm Tata Institute of Social Sciences
Abstract
Through the course of my research in identifying retellings of biblical narratives that happen in individual capacities in India, which have engaged with and adopted a variety of art forms and means, however often lacking documentation and thus representation in Indian literature, I stumbled upon the works of poet, academician, painter and writer Babitha Marina Justin’s works. Her artistic retellings considerably challenge the age old representation of women characters in the archaic biblical text, their lack of agency and the problematics of language, semantics and semiotics amidst several other issues.
My paper focuses on identifying, analysing and disseminating contemporary versions or retellings of feminist biblical narratives aka she-tellings whilst emphasising on the need for herstories to be socially in alignment with histories. I aim to explore how women characters are portrayed in traditional biblical narratives, and then compare them to Babitha’s local feminist revisionist retellings of these stories.
While refuting and responding to age old perceptions of women characters in biblical stories, as either figures of female rage or female naivete, Babitha Marina Justin’s works, when analysed, build on principles of the second wave feminism and mobilise essentialist ideas of womanhood while also attempting to carve out a space for women’s voices within the institution of the church, within the phallocentric literary and critical traditions of Indian writing. According to Helen Cixous, women’s writing must be grounded in their female bodies, uncensored and unashamed, in order to be able to really count and make a difference. While women’s writing has the inherent potential to puncture the existing status quo of patriarchy and tweak old institutions of power and structures, Babitha’s poems and stories embody and precisely perform an unique ecriture feminine.
Keywords: retellings, herstory, feminist, women, patriarchy
Presentation 6
Title: “Everything is Fine”: Portrayal of Women’s Resistance to Kyriarchal Systems in Hindi Short Films
Author 1: Dr Preeti Bhatt
Designation and affiliation: Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur.
Author 2: Mr Rajneesh Kumar
Designation and affiliation: Research Scholar, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur.
Abstract
A wide array of contemporary short films in Hindi reflect a gynocentric approach and focus on women in the pivotal roles. These films sensitively capture the suffering of women as mothers, wives, sisters and daughters as they allow the male members in their families to dominate them. However, these passive, hapless women are gradually portrayed to awaken from their state of unquestioning obedience and assert their independence and demand their rights when the situation becomes very oppressive. Hindi short films like Everything is fine (2020), Chutney (2016), Devi (2020), The Relationship Manager (2020), Listen to Her (2020), Churi (2017), and Juice (2017) present women in the lead roles and trapped in the mire of a demanding or exploitative family or husband and gradually coming to terms with their reality. Each of these short films juxtaposes the point of view of men, or society as a whole, with that of women’s point of view and subtly points to, in the words of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, the oppressive kyriarchal systems in society. The situation of the women becomes more traumatic due their lack of education and due to the privileges enjoyed by the menfolk in their families.
In this paper, the authors attempt to prove that these short films are powerful reminders of the rights and power of women and through meticulous shots bring out the trauma experienced by them, as well as the strong will of these women. They serve a dual purpose – to sensitize both men and women regarding women’s innate strength, and their right to live life according to their own terms.
Keywords: Resistance, Hindi Short Films, Kyriarchy, Gynocentrism, Oppression, Trauma
Bionote:
Dr Preeti Bhatt, Associate Professor in English, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur, India, teaches and researches in Twentieth Century Fiction, Indian Writing in English, Narrative Theory, Diaspora Studies and Communication Skills. She has authored Experiments in Narrative Technique in the Novels of Muriel Spark (Edwin Mellen: 2011) and has co-edited two books. Dr Bhatt has published several research papers in national and international journals and has organized an International Conference, a National Conference and several Faculty Development Programs at MNIT Jaipur. She has also presented papers in International Conferences at Nanyang Technological University, La Trobe University, Oxford University, Feng Chia University, Taichung and Dubai with travel grants by the UGC and the concerned universities. Dr Bhatt has successfully supervised several PhD scholars and has worked on research projects funded by the UGC and by the British Council. Dr Bhatt is currently working on a year-long research project, “Developing English Skills for Employability: Empowering Engineering Students of Rajasthan in a Globalized World” in collaboration with faculty from CTAE Udaipur under the TEQIP III Collaborative Research Scheme with a grant of Rs 16 lakhs from MHRD.
Mr Rajneesh Kumar is a part-time Research Scholar in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur, India, and is working on film adaptations for his PhD. He is currently working as Assistant Professor of English at Government Engineering College Jagdalpur, Bastar, Chhattisgarh. He has qualified the UGC NET exam for Lecturership and worked for two years at Jayoti Vidhyapeeth Women’s University, Jaipur, before joining GEC Jagdalpur.
Session 15
Time: 2:30 PM—3:30 PM (Indian Time)
Presentation 1
Title: Voicing Out Through Silence: A Study of Selected Writings of Selina Hossain
Author: Pritilata Devi
Designation and affiliation:
- Research Scholar (Ph.D.) of Centre for English Studies (SLL&CS), Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
- Faculty of ENH Department, BRAC University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Abstract:
The paper attempts a feminist interpretation of the selected writings, mostly short stories and novels of Selina Hossain to identify how the women issues have been addressed silently in her narratives. Especially a famous short story writer, Selina Hossain is a distinguished contemporary female writer of Bangladesh. Her works mostly reflect the extensive women’s struggle in the patriarchal society of Bangladesh.
Here in this paper, I have selected Hangor, Nodi, Grenade (English, 1987), Neel Mayurer
Joubon (English, 1983), Tanaporen (English, 2000), etc. from her popular literary works to express the vision of feminism in her works and would sketch down how effectively she portrays the issue without using bold language and statements. Bangladesh is a Muslim dominated country. The rights of women, observation of women suppression, etc are not widely welcomed as a topic of discussion. In accordance with the norms of feminism, the significance of women’s immeasurable sufferings, gender issues as portrayed in the selected literary works, is also examined and described in the research.
Unlike the other feminist writers how Selina Hossain pen downs the issues of women in depth through her characters and narratives are the main focus of my paper. Her way of addressing feminist views in the characters of her narratives by not being vocal about the particular genre is the key concern of this research
Presentation 2
Title: Identity Crisis Suffered by the Women Protagonists in the Novels of Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai: A Comparative Study
Author: Rajneesh Kumar
Designation and affiliation: Ph.D. Research Scholar, DAV University, Jalandhar/ Sr. Asst. Professor and Head, Deptt. of English, Govt. Arts & Sports College, Jalandhar, 144001, Punjab, India.
Abstract:
This paper attempts to explore identity crisis suffered by the women protagonists in the novels of Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai within the comparative literature study framework by focusing on the method of thematology. Identity crisis has emerged as one of the most conspicuous thematic concerns in the works under study. Ranging from the ascribed to the achieved status of identity, the characters portrayed by Roy and Desai keep on struggling hard to assert their individuality. Roy has posed the burning question of identity and discussed it on several platforms, be it on the page or stage. She has given new dimensions to comprehend the complex issue called identity crisis. On the other hand, Desai’s multiculturalism and dislocation in families present a veiled threat to identity. Roy mulls over the significance of women in families and the society. There is no dispute regarding their inevitable role, but their status is definitely a matter of debate. In her debut novel, Roy speaks freely about the concerns of women, but the issue of identity crisis outdoes in her second novel due to the polyphonic sounds of her female characters. Desai, to the contrary, presents a highly idealistic picture of Indian women. Hence a critical analysis of the novels of Roy and Desai unearths the multiple dimensions of womanhood in general and wifehood in particular in the crisis of identity.
Keywords: Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai, Identity crisis, Woman, Wife, Theme.
Bionote: Rajneesh Kumar is a Ph.D. research scholar pursuing his doctorate from DAV University, Punjab. Currently, he is working as a Sr. Asst. Professor and Head of English Deptt. at Govt. Arts & Sports College, Jalandhar, Punjab. He is a well-known educationist, having a long teaching experience of twenty-one years to his credit. Additionally, he has authored two books and also edited a book. He has published nine research papers in the journals of repute, including Scopus indexed and UGC CARE listed journals. Chairing two sessions in the international conferences is another feather in his cap. He has presented fourteen papers in international and national level conferences. He has delivered a considerable number of extension lectures in various universities, colleges and schools. He is a recipient of the ‘Best Teacher Award’ in 2016 by CT Group of Institutions, Punjab.
Presentation 3
An Existential Crutch?: Interrogating Women’s Silence in Select Plays of Mahesh Dattani
Manisha Sinha
Ph.D. Research Scholar, Amity Institute of English Studies and Research, Amity University, Noida
Abstract
Silence can stem from myriad stimuli, including but not limited to quietude, speechlessness, secretiveness or repression. The oppressed and marginalised women often resort to the ‘act’ of silence to survive in a patriarchal society. Indian playwright Mahesh Dattani has raised the social problem of misogyny in several of his plays. This paper explores the interplay of existentialism and silence in Mahesh Dattani’s Final Solutions (1993) and Where Did I Leave My Purdah?(2012), and attempts to analyse as to whether women use silence as a survival mechanism to continue being respected or accepted by her family and society. The women in these plays are neither timid nor shy. Yet, despite being quite vocal about various aspects, they keep parts of their lives buried in deep secrecy. It is noteworthy that both plays are based on Hindu-Muslim riots, depicting the intersection of religion and gender. Silence as a survival mechanism by women also raises pertinent questions regarding gender-based power equations and the repercussions of such silent sufferings. This paper seeks answers to those questions through a close textual study of these plays using feminist theories.
Presentation 4
Title: Predominant women voices of Mahabharata: Depiction through Devdutt Pattnaik’s ‘Jaya’: an illustrated retelling of the Mahabharata
Prachishri Mishra,
Asst Professor, SOA Deemed to be University
Abstract
Neither feminism nor mythology is a modern construct. Strong feminist characters have long been the hallmark of Indian mythology. If we look at the Mahabharata, the women characters are strong, independent and rebellious as opposed to the characters present in the Ramayana. Devdutt Pattnaik, an eminent mythologist of present time, retold the epic in his illustrated novel ‘Jaya’ with clarity and simplicity. Mahabharata one of the greatest Indian epics is often referred to as an example of righteousness and what happens between good and evil and consequences. Mahabharata as an epic and a philosophical cornerstone of Indian culture brilliantly opened to multiple interpretations. It is timeless in its approach. Irawati Kanve in her book ‘Yuganta’, a reading of Mahabharata says: “the Mahabharata is an exhaustible mine. There are various ways of thinking it yield riches”. As none can encompass and explore the many facets of the epic in a single work, authors, in recent times have attempted to position the story in the current context. Others have tried to lend their voice to characters to the backburner in the original. This paper aims at highlighting attributes of women characters in Mahabharata. They are not weak. Rather they command respect and are sought after for advice on the art of statecraft and matters related to war. Often they actually catalyse, control and guide the events that unfold. Though Mahabharata contains strong attributes of patriarchy, the women narrated here are modern in their thinking and approach but did not flinch once before raising their voice against patriarchy. In the present research paper I have made an attempt to reflect on the timelessness of the women voices of the Epic as represented by Pattnaik in ‘Jaya’. There are many strong female characters. But I have focused only on five main characters (Ganga, Satyavati, Gandhari, Kunti and Draupadi). The paper discusses how these characters are intense and vital to the narrative.
Keywords: female characters, patriarchy, attitude, modern
Bionote: Prachishri Mishra presently works as assistant professor in the department of Humanities and Social sciences at SOA Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar. She has obtained her Master’s degree in English from Utkal University with specialization in Linguistics and ELT. She has another master’s degree in Culture Studies from the University of Culture. She completed MPhil from Utkal University with specialization on Twentieth Century Literature and Criticism. Currently she is continuing PhD in Discourse Analysis from the PG Department of English, Utkal University.
Presentation 5
A Study of the Novel The Black Hill through Ecofeminist lens
Richa Xalxo
Research Scholar, National Institute of Technology, Raipur.
Dr Anoop Kumar Tiwari
Assistant Professor, National Institute of Technology, Raipur.
Abstract
The position of women in different societies varies from age to age and culture to culture. It cannot be said that their stature in the society has always been that of an oppressed. There are sufficient evidences in the history that indicates the acceptability of the contribution of females in the society. The indigenous societies of North East region of India stands distinguished in their cultural values. Their lives and concerns have still not been acknowledged by the rest of the country. The women have a strong position in these ethnic communities. They hold equally important positions in the family as men. Mamang Dai’s novel “The Black Hill” is a tale of zeal, mirthfulness and the struggles of natives. The fear of the natives to be encroached and then ruled by the unfamiliar white authority with regulations thrusted upon them, is lucidly described in the novel. The novel being set in the nineteenth century north east region of India, is full of description of picturesque landscapes and the inner tribal connection with their land. Among the various rustic characters there is female protagonist Gimur. Her frolicsome yet courageous attributes, entwined together with the other incidents in the novel is a treat to read. Her aspirations and bold steps definitely provide us with enticing female viewpoint.
This paper is an attempt to study the novel from the perspective of ecofeminism and to highlight the bond of women and nature. It analyses the spectrum of femininity and its correspondence to the natural world.
Keywords: Ecofeminism, women, natives, north east India.
Bio note – Richa Xalxo is a Research Scholar of Humanities and Social Sciences department in National Institute of Technology, Raipur. She has completed her graduation and post-graduation from Rajiv Gandhi Govt. Post Graduate College Ambikapur, Chhattisgarh and has attained an MPhil from Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur. She has a deep interest in the field of diaspora studies, ecocriticism, ecofeminism and cultural studies. Her current area of study surrounds indigenous literature, ethnoliterature and tribal studies. She is enthusiastic to extend the compass of her knowledge and then produce some worthy research papers. Apart from this she takes great delight in teaching, learning from the exponents and other scholars and sharing her experience of analysis.
Session 16
Time: 3:35 PM—4:35 PM (Indian Time)
Presentation 1
Title: Culinary Feminism: Analyzing Food in Select Novels of Kalpana Swaminathan and Madhumita Bhattacharyya
Somjeeta Pandey
Designation and affiliation: Assistant Professor of English at Gobardanga Hindu College and part-time Research Scholar at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Kharagpur
Dr. Somdatta Bhattacharya
Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Kharagpur
Abstract
Food studies, a new addition to the family of humanities, has experienced a rapid rise in the last twenty years and a number of scholars have devoted their time and energy in studying food culture as well as the patterns of eating (Albala, 2013). Food writing has slowly spread its branches into all literary genres including into crime fiction. In more recent crime mysteries, the main plot is supplemented by authentic recipes and descriptions of food and cooking and “gumshoes not only track killers” but also “grill sherry-flavoured tuna” or “bake” chocolate cookies (Carvajal, 1997). The sub-genre of crime fiction that brings together food and crime, has been termed as ‘culinary mystery’ and with the more recent academic interest in food in literature, it has received the critical attention it deserves. The present paper will analyze the role of food in the Reema Ray mysteries of Madhumita Bhattacharyya, The Masala Murder (2012) and Dead in a Mumbai Minute (2014) and the Lalli mysteries of Kalpana Swaminathan, The Secret Gardener (2013) and Page 3 Murders (2006). While for Lalli and her niece Sita, food becomes a luxury, an indulgence after a hard day’s grim investigative work; for Reema, baking is her sleuthing tool and stands for her intelligence and autonomy. This paper will thus argue how these novels, with female sleuths who use food/cooking as tools of detection, pose a challenge to the patriarchal roles assigned to women as caregivers and providers of nutrition, and attempt to show how “food mysteries are ultimately about female independence and sustaining the self” (Kalikoff, 2006, p. 75). In doing this, it will also focus on how women bridge the gap between the public and private spheres.
Keywords: Culinary mystery, detective fiction, food, feminism
Bionote: Somjeeta Pandey is an Assistant Professor of English at Gobardanga Hindu College situated in West Bengal, India. She is also a part-time Research scholar at the dEpartment of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Kharagpur.
Co-author: Dr. Somdatta Bhattacharya is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Kharagpur.
Presentation 2
Title: Laila: The Emerging Voice Breaking the Veil of Feudalism, Patriarchy and Purdah in Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column
Dr. Padmalaya Sarangi
Designation and affiliation: Lecturer, JIRAL College, Jiral, Dhenkanal
Dr. Sisir Ranjan Dash
Designation and affiliation: Assistant Professor, Centurion University of Technology and Management, Odisha
Abstract
Attia Hosain’s approach regarding women’s marginalisation is much ahead of her time. The feminist experiences of Laila in the novel, are not the characteristic features of any western feminist theory, rather these are the real and true experiences witnessed by Attia during her stay in India. Here i draw and focus on the only novel Sunlight on a Broken Column(1961) by Attia Hosain in which through the main character of Laila, she scrutinizes the institutions of feudalism and patriarchy, the representative male world and carves the space and identity of the women world. My focus is on how Laila, the protagonist and narrator of women’s underneath story, dares, revolts and breaks the enclosed and the captive world of zenana, a world claimed to be protective for women’s security but enslaves the women’s minds with their silences and inherent Muslim orthodoxy. Laila is portrayed not mere as an actor or heroine of the novel; instead she is just like a living existence with flesh and blood, a witness to the changing feudal order of the pre-Partition Luckhnow who puts a figure on the double standard morality of the patriarchal world where the izzat/honour and sharam/modesty are defined in relation to a woman’s body and a man’s authority. Her own struggle for independence was a struggle against the rigid traditions of family life and in her path of seeking truth, light and identity in the long passage of life she finally broke and succeeded to have the glimpse of the sunlight but on the broken column in ‘Ashiana’ at the cost of passing glory and honour.
Keywords: Feudalism, Patriarchy, Veil, Break, Sunlight, Zenana, Ashiana, Security, Gender ,Marginalisation, Honour, Modesty and Independence
Dr. Padmalaya Sarangi, MA (English), Ph. D (English)
Dr. Sisir Ranjan Dash, MA(Economics), MBA, UGCNET, Ph. D (Management)
Presentation 3
Women at Crossroads: Reconfiguring the Gender Roles in Select Indian Genre Fiction
Puja Chakraborty
Designation and affiliation: Lecturer at Malda Women’s College
Author 2: Krishanu Adhikari
Designation and affiliation: Assistant Professor at Kandra Radhakanta Kundu Mahavidyalaya.
Abstract
The inherent discursivity, entailing the composite category of ‘The third world women’, hinges on many contentious contours of female subjectivity, its genealogical and teleological subservience and submission to patriarchy, and the subsequent re-assertion (through subversion vis-à-vis negotiation) of their identities and different female roles, within the given rubric of patriarchal-capitalist social order of the former colonies. Indian genre fiction in English which emerged as a distinct literary type since globalization, dialectically engages with the multifarious social problems, crisscrossing the ever-shifting paradigms of the New India. The representative types of Indian genre fiction, such as Indian Campus Novels and Indian Chick-lit, fictionally engage with the diversified issues, encountered by the third world women, which encompass the two extremes, i.e. confined peripheries of domesticity and women’s representation in the outside world.
The select novels, i.e. Anuradha Marwah Roy’s The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta(1993) and Advaita Kala’s Almost Single (2007); from this discursive category of genre fiction, narrate two intersecting stories of two middle class Indian women, who have migrated to Delhi in pursuit of an emancipated female identity and to transcend the circumscribed trajectories of parochialism and stereotypical tropes of patriarchal order. Despite having spatio-temporal and cultural contradistinctions, a ‘symptomatic’ reading of these select texts would rather divulge some heretical questions, concerning the contested notion of ‘women empowerment’ in post-independence India, located within the span of some twenty years; from 1980s to early post-millennial era. Drawing references from these texts, the paper would like to ‘problematize’the relative status of women’s liberation and the ‘palimpsestic’ assertion of female subjectivity, while dialectically locating the seemingly divergent experiences of the two protagonists, within the volatile contexts of a postcolonial nation. Thus, an attempt would be made to address the churning question of what it means to be an empowered woman in such ‘post-national’ and ‘post-globalization’ Indian milieu and the multifaceted impediments, faced by women to bridge the two extremes; personal and professional affairs. Last but not least, the paper would also seek to shed some light on the equivocality, with regard to the generic classification of such fictional sub-genres and their concomitant peripheral status, compared to the canonical works of Indian English fiction.
Keywords: Third-world women, Performativity, Postfeminism, Neoliberalism, Postcoloniality, Indian genre fiction.
Authors’ Bionotes:
Puja Chakraborty is a Lecturer in the department of English at Malda Women’s College, West Bengal, India. Her areas of interest include Contemporary Indian Genre Fiction, Gender Studies, Postcolonial Literature, Diaspora Literature and Urban English Fiction. She can be reached at: puja6014@gmail.com
Krishanu Adhikari is an Assistant Professor of English at Kandra Radhakanta Kundu Mahavidyalaya, West Bengal, India. He is also pursuing Ph.D. in English, from the University of Hyderabad. His area of research is Indian Campus Novels in English. He did his M.Phil. on Rohinton Mistry, from The EFL University. He has been published in a number of National and International Journals like Muse India and in edited volumes, published by publishers like Authorspress, India. His areas of interest include Indian English Literature, Western Campus Fiction, Indian Campus Novels in English, Diaspora Literature, and Literary Theory and Criticism.
Presentation 4
Title: Understanding the Dynamics of Woman-Nature Relationship through Selected Texts from Assam
Author: Paloma Chaterji
Designation and affiliation: Research Coordinator in Organic Studies, M.G. Gramudyog.
ORCID ID 345382637
Email: chaterjipaloma@yahoo.in
Abstract
My paper will explore the constantly changing dynamics of women-nature relationship through social and cultural history of Assam. I will gradually explore the eco-consciousness and the changing principles of my subjects as I shift my focus from the Shakti cult, to the Vaishnavite, to the modern urbanised subjects of the texts. The women characters in these texts will be the primary focus of this study as I begin to explore how they struggle to recognize their individual identity and how their association with nature comes as a response to accommodate what has been rendered passive by patriarchy. As I analyse the characters from a diverse socio-economic background in the chosen texts that present ecology as the central component, my objective will be to highlight the status of both women and nature through the interaction between nature and culture. As I move from the colonial to the postcolonial times, I will address the limitation of the singular homogenized identity of the ‘third world women’ as a monolithic subject which has been pointed out by critics like Chandra Mohanty. I will reflect on how the ever ideal and nurturing image of nature is problematic and how the amalgamation of the chaos and the cosmos could offer a better understanding of nature as an independent entity. The place-specific behavior of the characters in my study will offer a better vision of how women combat the ever presence patriarchal horrors through interaction with nature. Finally, I will look for an approach that dilutes the ‘feminine’ and the ‘masculine’ principles and which will look beyond the gynocentric essentialism of both nature and women.
Keywords: Nature, Gynocentrism, Eco Consciousness, Patriarchy, Postcolonialism, Ecofeminism.
Bionote: I am an early research scholar in English and human-environmentalism is my area of research. Being a Research Coordinator in Organic Studies at a Kolkata based NGO, I have developed an interdisciplinary attitude towards research. Spending a considerable amount of my childhood in Northeastern India has made me familiar with their geography and culture. Growing up in a toxic free environment has also helped me develop a better environmental consciousness. I am a recipient of ‘Microsoft Create to Inspire’ fellowship 2015 that campaigned against electronic waste through performing arts. Besides academics I spend a substantial amount of time in music, reading and travelling.
Session 17
Time: 4:40 PM—5:50 PM (Indian Time)
Presentation 1
Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s ‘ The Final Question’: Locating the anathema towards Sexual Liberty in the Bengali Society of early 20 th Century:
Ria Basu
Research Scholar
Department of English & other European Languages, Dr. H.s Gour Vishwavidyalaya (Central University of Sagar)
Abstract
Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s works were successful in exposing the hypocrisy and exploitation prevalent in the socio- cultural set up of the Indian society. His woman characters play a pivotal role in breaking the shackles of the society created for them and presenting themselves as ‘ New’ and ‘ Modern’ women. Their sexual desire, behavior and expression stand out of the general standards of the society around. The Final Question ( Shesh Prashna in Bengali) through its bold, outspoken and unconventional protagonist, Kamal and other women characters- Nilima and Manorama portray man- woman relationships that are distasteful, abjected and refuted in terms of the then Bengali Bhadralok society. Questioning the social norms related to sexual associations, this novel advocates scientific and cultural evolution.
This paper would discuss these concerns using the concepts of ‘ Streeswabhava’ posited against ‘ Streedharma’ and ‘ Byabhichara’. The socio- sexual displacement, ostracisation and rejection arouses the need to study these women as both victims and connoisseurs of sexual freedom. While the world had already experienced the 1st International Congress for Sexual Reform(1921), the ideas of change and identity formation were gradually reaching the Indian society with its ardent wish to give birth to ‘ New Woman’ for a ‘ New Nation’ alongwith transforming ideas of Sexual fulfillment and pleasure. This paper would therefore strive to question ideas about sex generated by the ‘ Bengali Bhadralok community’ and it’s tendency of creating a social anathema towards sexually iconoclastic ideas and people.
Keywords: Bhadralok, Streeswabhava, Streedharma, Byabhichara, New woman, Anathema
Research scholar
Presentation 2
Title: Unraveling the Social Position of Women in Late-Medieval Bengal: A Critical Analysis of Narrative Art on Baranagar Temple Facades
Author 1: Bikas Karmakar
Designation and affiliation: Assistant Professor, Government College of Art & Craft Calcutta
Author 2: Ila Gupta
Designation and affiliation: Former Professor, Department of Architecture & Planning, IIT Roorkee
Abstract
The genesis of the present study can be traced to an aspiration to work on the narratives of religious architecture. The Terracotta Temples of Baranagar in Murshidabad, West Bengal offer a very insightful vantage point in this regard. The elaborate works of terracotta on the facades of these temples patronized by Rani Bhabani during the mid-eighteenth century possess immense narrative potential to reconstruct the history of the area in the given time period. The portrayals on various facets of society, environment, culture, religion, mythology, and space and communication systems make these temples exemplary representatives for studying narrative art. While a significant portion of the temple facades depicts gods, goddesses, and mythological stories, the on-spot study also found a substantial number of plaques observed mainly on the base friezes representing the engagement of women in various mundane activities. This study explores the narrative intentions of such portrayals. The depictions incorporated are validated with various types of archival evidence facilitating cross-corroboration of the sources. The study sheds light on the crucial role played by women in domestic spheres and their engagement in social activities. The portrayals act as indispensable visual evidence for a holistic understanding of the life of women in Late Medieval Bengal. However, with the passage of time, the temples have been susceptible to the processes of decay necessitating the need for conservation and urgent restoration of this invaluable heritage site.
Keywords: Terracotta temples, Baranagar temple facades, women of Late Medieval Bengal, narrative art, Murshidabad temple architecture
Bionote: Author 1: Bikas Karmakar, Assistant Professor, Department of Drawing & Painting (Western Style), Government College of Art and Craft Calcutta, Kolkata. He has received his graduate and post-graduate degrees in Painting from Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati, Santiniketan. He has recently submitted his thesis at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Roorkee. His area of research interests includes Art and Architecture of Bengal. He has been a recipient of the AIFACS Award (2014), National Award of Camel Art Foundation (2015), and has also received the Euro Art Award (2015). He has participated in several exhibitions, workshops, seminars, and conferences. He has published a few research papers in reputed journals.
Author 2: Dr. Ila Gupta has recently retired as a senior Professor from the Department of Architecture & Planning, IIT Roorkee, India. She did B.A. (Hons.) in 1974, M.A. (Fine Arts) in 1976 & awarded Chancellor’s Medal for First Position in University, Ph.D. in 1985, all from Meerut University, UP, India. Her research interests are Aesthetic in Architecture, Visual Communication and Design, Architectural and Cultural History of Monuments, Colour Applications, Public Signage System, Folk Art, Terracotta Narratives, Woodcraft, Public Art, Applied Art, Visual Art, and Design. She has widely published in reputed journals and has undertaken several important research projects. She has guided several Ph.D. on the issues related to Art and Architecture.
Presentation 3
Title: “Colonize and Cholerize”: an attempt to decipher the ambiguity of the literary representation of the cholera epidemics in Nineteenth Century India.
Author 1: Arijit Goswami
Designation and affiliation: Assistant Professor (WBES) Department of English Gorubathan Government College Lower Fagu, Gorubathan,
Abstract
The modus operandi of categorising European and especially British authors as representative of the hegemonic colonial enterprise that subjugated the Indian sub-continent for nearly two hundred years is an easy one while dealing with the colonial era. The seemingly simplistic dialogic is problematised when a British author, closely related to the ruling administrative set-up has a voice of dissent even when the colonised intelligentsia fails to register minimal protest in their literary works.
“ The interference with the Company’s charter, that people in England may drink their tea cheaper, which result, however, appears doubtful, and that the surplus population may come out to colonize, and cholerize, has done the Service no benefit. “ (Wanderings of a pilgrim in search of the picturesque , 1850). The proposed paper would try to decipher the anti- orientalist discourse in Fanny Parkes’s Wanderings of a pilgrim in search of the picturesque (1850), during the patriarchal colonising enterprise in vogue. The paper would try to rationalise Fanny Parkes’s critical approach towards the rule of the then East India Company in times of repeated cholera epidemics, when Indian writers like Lal Behari Dey, while representing the lore of the land in Folktales of Bengal (1883), chose not to express the reality of an epidemic-devastated land and displeasure of the commoners towards the ruling class and their inept handling of the epidemics.
Keywords: Colonization, Cholerize, Dissent, Anti-orientalism
Bionote: Shri Arijit Goswami is an Assistant Professor in the West Bengal Education Service (WBES) and presently posted at Gorubathan Government College which is affiliated to the University of North Bengal. He graduated from Hooghly Mohsin College (affiliated to Burdwan University) and was awarded National Scholarship for outstanding performance in graduation by MHRD, Government of India in 2001. He completed post-graduation from Jadavpur University in 2003. He joined as Lecturer in English in the Department of Humanities and Applied Sciences at Dr. B. C. Roy Engineering College in February, 2004. He later joined Polba Mahavidyalaya (under recommendation of WBCSC), a government-aided college as Assistant Professor in English in August, 2006. He joined WBES as Assistant Professor in English in March, 2009 and has served three other government colleges (on transfer) in the state of West Bengal till date. His areas of interest include nation and nationality, colonialism and de-colonization, colonial masculinity and the rise of nationalist identity in erstwhile colonies and their literature.
Presentation 4
Women and Agency in Bankim’s Rajmohan’s Wife and Tagore’s The Home and The World
Manju Dhariwal
Professor (Department of Humanities and Social Sciences) Dean (Alumni Association and Resource Generation)
The LNM Institute of Information Technology
(Deemed to be University)
Written almost half a century apart, Rajmohan’s Wife (1864) and The Home and the World (1916) can be read as women centric texts written in colonial India. In the backdrop of national imaginary, the women protagonists become embodiments of social conditions and ideological configurations. The plot of both the texts is set in Bengal, the cultural and political centre of colonial India. Rajmohan’s Wife, arguably the first Indian English novel, is one of the first novels to realistically represent ‘Woman’ in the nineteenth century. The title establishes relationality as an important construct in creating gender identity. Set in a newly emerging society of Modern India, it provides an insight into the status of women, their vulnerability and dependence on men. The Home and the World, written at the height of Swadeshi movement in Bengal, presents its women characters in a much progressive space. On one hand is Matangini, strong and spirited, the protagonist of Rajmohan’s Wife, yet is confined to the boundary designated for her and once she crosses it, can never come back; on the other is Bimla, passionate and restless, liberated enough to make her own choices and free to cross the threshold of her aristocratic household, though a bit hesitatingly. She rather willingly tries to live up to the image of mother India built up by her admiring nationalists. Though both the characters embody the desires of women in an emerging new India, their journey to emancipation is a gradual one, symbolic of the journey of the nation to independence. Through these two women characters, the paper will trace women’s journey from mid nineteenth to early twentieth century India. The paper will analyse how their agency became progressively active keeping pace with the independence movement.
Presentation 5
Title: Positioning the Gendered Subaltern: Body, Speech and Resistance in Mahasweta Devi’s Narratives
Author 1: Joe Philip
Designation and affiliation: Research Scholar , Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
National Institute of Technology, Uttarakhand, Srinagar, Garhwal, Uttarakhand-246174
Author 2: Renu Bhadola Dangwal
Designation and affiliation: Assistant Professor, English Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
National Institute of Technology, Uttarakhand Srinagar, Garhwal, Uttarakhand-246174
Author 3: Vinod Balakrishnan
Designation and affiliation: Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli Tamil Nadu-620015
Abstract
The postcolonial theory locates subaltern women as ‘doubly effaced’ and distanced from achieving agency to speak and participate in resistance. Due to her diversified colonized identity, much of the critical thought does not see any possibility for subaltern women participating in resistance. This line of argument implies a critical space in which the engagement with problematics inevitably leaves out subaltern women in the emergent resistance discourse. Moreover, such a position is suggestive of perceiving human activity and experience in closed terms and an intent to preserve subalternity. The present paper argues that, if perceived through a wider understanding of the concept of resistance, subaltern women may be seen to achieve agency as they communicate their plight vocally or silently and participate in resistance. Taking inferences from the literary narratives of Mahasweta Devi like Imaginary Maps, Breast Stories, the paper examines the strategies Devi employs to bring marginalized women into resistance and establishes that the ‘body’ emerges not only as a site of oppression but also as an important trope of power and resistance in her stories.
Key words: gendered subaltern, doubly colonized, agency, hegemony, resistance
Bionote:
Joe Philip is a Research Scholar of English at the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Uttarakhand. He has published two of his papers in international journals. He has presented five papers in national and international conferences held in India. He has done his masters in English from Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna, Central University, Srinagar, Uttarakhand.
Renu Bhadola Dangwal is Assistant Professor in the department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Uttarakhand. She has published in several national and international journals and books. Her research pursuits explore central issues in postcolonial and eco-cultural studies including her reading of eco-cultural threat in Mahasweta Devi’s narratives. She has also worked on indigenous experiences in the light of multiculturalism and human rights and has presented her studies in prestigious conferences and seminars.
Vinod Balakrishnan is Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli where he teaches Creative Writing and Communication Skills. He is a practising poet, motivational speaker, reviewer of books and a yoga enthusiast. He reads on Life Writing, Somaesthetics, Film Studies and Representations of India. He has published in a/b autobiography studies, Partial Answers, HUMOUR, Journal of Dharma.
Session 18
Time: 6:05 PM—7:20 PM (Indian Time)
Presentation 1
Identity, Indigeneity and Excluded Region: In the Quest for an Intellectual History of Modern Assam
Dr. Suranjana Barua*
Dr. L David Lal**
Abstract
If Indian intellectual history focussed on the nature of the colonial and post-colonial state, its interaction with everyday politics, its emerging society and operation of its economy, then how much did/ does North-east appear in this process of doing intellectual history? North-east history in general and north-east’s intellectual history in particular is an unpeopled place. North-east history in Indian social science literature for last seventy years has mostly revolved around separatist movements, insurgencies, borderland issue and trans-national migration. However, it seldom focussed on the intellectuals who have articulated the voice of this place and constructed an intellectual history of this region. This paper attempts to explore the intellectual history of Assam through understanding the life history of three key socio-political figures – Gopinath Bordoloi, Bishnu Prasad Rabha and Chandra Prabha Saikiani. Their engagement at the turn of the twentieth century with ideas for the future north-east region is parallel to the experiences of Indian nation state. Bordoloi, as a key architect of North-East Frontier (Assam) Tribal and Excluded Areas and later as Premier of Assam scripts an inclusion of excluded areas in the political history of India. Bishnu Prasad Rabha, a humanist artist philosopher from a tribal community, composed revolutionary songs on utopian humanism that reflected ‘dawn of a new age’ for this excluded region and Chandra Prabha Saikiani, a feminist thinker questioned gender hierarchy that was morally justified and socially legitimate – what role does gender have in the political and social order, what kind of society it should be and what role did women have in nation building. While she worked for the education of women, for her, knowledge alone can bring transformation. Research on the writings and works of these socio-political figures is analysed to address, what North-east history can contribute to the intellectual history of India and how essential is it in the field of indigenous studies? What are the socio-cultural and political institutions established by them for modern Assam? This paper employs an interdisciplinary framework and it is based on both archival research and field narratives.
Key words: Intellectual History; Indigenous Studies; North-east India; Assam; Gopinath Bordoloi, Bishnu Prasad Rabha, Chandra Prabha Saikiani
*Assistant Professor in Linguistics, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Information Technology Guwahati, Assam, India. (suranjana.barua@gmail.com)
**Assistant Professor in Political Science, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Information Technology Guwahati, Assam, India. (davidkani21@gmail.com)
Presentation 2
Title: Examining the Emergence of Feminist Consciousness in the Select Fiction of Contemporary North East Women Writers
Author: Adenuo Shirat Luikham
Designation and affiliation: Assistant Professor, Department of English, Don Bosco College Kohima, Nagaland, India.
Abstract
An interesting development in the literary world in India in the last few decades is the emergence of writings in English from the North East. This development is simultaneously accompanied with a growing interest in the region’s writings and its people especially from mainland India. It is also noteworthy that many of the contemporary writers contributing to this nascent literary tradition are women. While the quality of any writing cannot be overshadowed or judged by gender, it is irrefutable that women write from a position where their gender often dictates their experiences. For contemporary women writers of the North East, their narratives, seated in the vehicle of fiction, become a revelation on the gendered experiences of women from the region whose issues, concerns and problems are often shrouded in a cloud of mystery and exoticized by the outside world. The paper seeks to examine the select fiction of women writers from the region and state that there is a discernible feminist consciousness that is emerging; identifying these feminist markers in their fiction allows the silenced voices of women to be heard and their growing boldness to claim a dignified existence in the midst of convoluted geo-politics that have irrevocably scarred the region.
Keywords: North East, Feminist Consciousness, Contemporary Women Writers, Fiction from the North East
Bionote: Adenuo Shirat Luikham is an educator from Kohima. She holds a PhD in English Literature from The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. She is the author of a collection of poems titled Luna. Bisous. Poesy. which was published in 2019. She is also a painter and an illustrator who derives inspiration from the natural beauty of her home state, Nagaland, India. Her research interests include women narratives and writings in English from the North East.
Presentation 3
Title: “There is no home, Pig”: Examining Northeast Queer dilemma in time of Covid-19
Author 1: Lede E Miki Pohshna
Designation and affiliation: Research Scholar, English Department, North-Eastern Hill University
Abstract
While Covid-19 has unleashed waves of reverse-migration from the cities back to the hometowns due to economic and physical uncertainties that accompanied the pandemic, queer people from the North-Eastern Region of India choose to stay in the cities. Defying the reverse-migration trend, they choose the freedom that the city gives them over the prejudice of their hometown toward their sexuality. This paper will theorize how pandemic affects and at the same time affirms queer sexualities This paper will re-interpret metronormativity in the context of North-East queer people and will co-opt Judith Halberstam’s theory while at the same time reworking it to fit the local context of queer North-East. Unlike Halberstam’s theory that the metro offers a continuum of free existence to the queer people, this paper will examine certain queer narratives both online and through interviews in order to understand how the city offers not a “freer” existence ( in the sense that freedom is given and implied upon) but rather a relatively anonymous existence which allows them to live freely in anonymity but never silent. It will problematize the concept of home and space and how queer subjectivities are (un)formed depending upon certain variables that the home offers which eventually affects queer existence. This existence will then juxtapose with Kosofsky’s “gesture of silence” of the home and the closet and in doing so, it will attempt to understand North East queer’s preference for the danger of Covid and the “insecurities” of the city over the “security” of home.
Keywords: Northeastern, Queer, Metronormativity, Reverse-Migration, Covid 19
Bionote: The Author is a research scholar in the English Department of North-Eastern Hill University. His area of research interest includes queer studies, migration, diaspora, cyberculture, South Asian fictions, Diaspora literature, Post-colonialism, and Northeast Studies.
Presentation 4
Title: Language Recognition and Identity Formation in the Khasi Hills
Author: Mereleen Lily Lyngdoh Y. Blah
Designation and affiliation: Assistant Professor, Dyal Singh College, University of Delhi. Ph.D Scholar, University of Delhi.
Abstract
The official use of any language by the administration and employment of the said language by the state whether through educational institutions and administrators as a standard literary dialect, gives it recognition. The Education policy adopted by the British and the choice of English being made the language of instruction throughout the country is made evident in Macaulay’s Minute of 1835 and is reiterated time and again more than a decade later in the Minute of 1847. From the very beginning English was associated with the administration and the benefits that it would bring. The categorization and later association of languages with religion, caste, community, tribe and class is evident in the various census undertakings as the official recognition became a determination of its status. In the Census of 1891, the Khasis and Garos are relegated as “two groups statistically insignificant”, considering the population and the number of people who spoke the languages associated with the communities. The use of the Roman script had by this time been, “thoroughly established” by the missionaries. The first few census data and later writings by indigenous writers helped cement the association of language with the community.
The use of the vernacular in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills in Meghalaya, by the earliest missionaries, arose more out of necessity rather than by official decree. The choice and standardization of dialect and script in print however, helped solidify a Khasi identity. This paper seeks to look at the link between recognition of the standard language used in print and identity formation in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills and the relevance of language as a marker of identity today.
Keywords: Standardization, Print language, Language and Identity Formation, Khasi Identity.
Bionote: Mereleen Lily Lyngdoh Y. Blah, is an Assistant Professor in Dyal Singh College, University of Delhi. She is also a research scholar pursuing her Ph.D from the Department of Modern Indian Languages and Literary Studies, University of Delhi. Her area of interest and specialization is on, Print and Documentation in the Khasi Hills.
Presentation 5
Title: Retracing Deep Ecology in the reorientation of Naga identity with special reference to the select works by Easterine Kire Iralu
Subhra Roy
Research Scholar Department of English Tripura University
Abstract
The Naga myth of origin underscores the co-existence of and the interconnectivity between the human and the natural world. It is believed that the Nagas once lived in Makhel and a tree stands there as the witness and symbol of Naga origin and unity. The Angami Nagas used to believe that before their dispersal to different parts of the world, three monoliths were erected at Makhrai-Rabu, and these structures represent the Tiger, the Man and the Spirit which stand for the flora and fauna, the human society and the spirit world. With the fall of the first monolith the destruction of the world is initiated and with the fall of the last one the earth witnesses complete doom. It has been reported that only one of these monoliths is standing erect, and it would not be too naive to say that it reminds us of the impending doom that perhaps has already been previewed in the form of natural disasters and other life threatening diseases. In the Naga cultural milieu, nature existed as an independent entity that breathed life into Naga myths, folklores and way of life. In short, it used to define the identity of the primordial Nagas, until their animist world view was replaced by that of Christianity. It was followed by the Indo-Naga conflict, and the Nagas were soon left with confused identities and crises that ran deep into their psyche. Easterine Kire Iralu, the author from Nagaland, tries to reorient the Naga identity by reclaiming the age-old myths and rituals. She tries to retrace the inherent Naga faith in deep ecology that gives equal importance to the distinct parts of the ecosystem that function as a whole.
Key Words: co-existence, monoliths, ecosystem, Christianity, identity, deep ecology
Bionote: Subhra Roy is working on the English literature from the Northeastern part of India. She has successfully defended her thesis in the final Viva Voce exam and is awaiting the awarding of the doctoral degree. Her articles have been published in various e-journals like the Muse India, the Language in India, the Criterion and the Langlit.
Presentation 6
Digitalization & Glocalization of Cuisines: A Study on the Hybridization of Food Culture with Special Reference to Tripura
Gitanjali Roy
Affiliation Assistant Professor Department of English Faculty of Liberal Arts ICFAI University, Tripura. & Research Scholar Department of English Tripura University.
Description Food habit articulates the local culture of a region. Tripura, a land-locked state of varied communities (the tribes and Bengalis of the soil) negotiates the countercultural exchange of cuisines. Traditional ethnic foods are markers of shared cultural values and identity. Preparation of traditional food involves the role of memory which involves passing down culinary skills, techniques, and ingredients from one generation to the next. The marketing industry and the restaurant culture have changed the taste of the consumers but again the ‘losses’ and the ‘need’ to preserve the traditional cuisines are archived in digital platforms. With the rise in YouTube food channels, Facebook pages, food delivery companies like Swiggy and Zomato; the local food met with the global consumer culture. On one hand, lost ethnic food habits are preserved by documenting the procedures of cooking traditional dishes. On the other, restaurants and bloggers are experimenting to prepare local food using global spices and techniques, resulting in a hybridized food identified by their hybridized name. This paper shall focus on how a new taste for food has developed in Tripura with the rise in digital participatory culture. The focus shall also be on the marketing signs and signifiers used in digital platforms to attract digital food readership. As e-readers, a survey of digital menu cards shall try to identify how the local food has evolved as glocalized cuisines. Keywords: Local, Global, Glocal, Hybrid, Food, Tripura, Bengalis, Tribes, Cuisine, Digital, Culture.
Presentation 7
Title: Negotiating Representation: The Self and Community in The Story of a Tribal, an Autobiography
Author: Badakynti Nylla Iangngap
Designation and affiliation: Ph.D. Research Scholar, Dept. of English, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong and Asst. Professor, Dept. of English, Synod College, Shillong
Abstract
Literature as a means of representation and understanding selfhood and identity was oral based for the Khasis prior to colonialism but the coming of education via the proselytising efforts of the Welsh Mission led to the development of Khasi literature by the end of the 19th century. As mode of representation, literature for Khasis became a space of negotiation and of adaption of foreign modes of expression and representation to reclaim an identity which has been suppressed by the colonial rulers via their discursive practices. This is clearly seen in the trend of the literary production of the community. The 20th century saw a mushrooming of literary production by Khasi writers, with most of them preferring to write in their own language and about their oral tradition. Interestingly, despite this trend, the first autobiography by a Khasi, B. M. Pugh’s The Story of a Tribal (1976), was written in English. The title of the text itself alerts the readers of the highly politicized term ‘tribal’ as Pugh himself points out in his Preface and along with the fact that it is an autobiography the implication of issues of representation in terms of identity and selfhood cannot be missed. The text is also historically significant because of the author’s articulation of his understanding of identity making in the midst of the cultural and political forces of colonialism and later Indian nationalism especially because it provides a glimpse of the hill state movement that surged in the Northeast immediately after Independence. This text thus gives an eye-witness account of the struggle that the hill tribes of Northeast faced to maintain their political and cultural identity.
Keywords: postcolonialsm, literature, representation, self, identity, autobiography
Bionote: Badakynti Nylla Iangngap gained interest in postcolonial studies in her M. A. and M.Phil days in University of Delhi with specific interest in the literature of her own community. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. from the Department of English, North-Eastern Hill University. She has also taught in Kalindi College, University of Delhi before moving to Shillong to teach in Synod College.
Session 19
Time: 7:25 PM—8:15 PM (Indian Time)
Presentation 1
Title: Donyi-Polo and Deep Ecology: A Select Reading of Mamang Dai’s Midsummer Survival Lyrics.
Author: Ms. Sukla Singha
Designation and affiliation: Research Scholar, Dept. of English, Tripura University, Tripura, India.
Abstract
The Adis of Arunachal Pradesh consider everything coming from nature as sacred and living. As opposed to the Christian theological teachings that regard humans as the conqueror of everything else on earth, in the Adi worldview, human beings do not occupy the center stage. Instead, the Adis believe in the intrinsic worth of all beings – both human and nonhuman, which exist on earth, as reflected in the Adi philosophy of ‘Donyi-Polo.’
This paper attempts to study select poems from Mamang Dai’s book of poems Midsummer Survival Lyrics (2014) in the light of the philosophy of Donyi Polo. It also attempts to link this Adi worldview to the ecosophy of Arne Naess popularly known as ‘Deep Ecology.’
Keywords: Donyi-Polo, Deep Ecology, Ecosophy, Arunachal Pradesh
Bionote: Sukla Singha is a Research Scholar in the Department of English, Tripura University.
Presenter 2
Title: Narrative Strategies of Decolonization: Autoethnography in Mamang Dai’s The Legends of Pensam
Author 1: Samrita Sinha
Designation and affiliation: Assistant Professor, Dept. of English, Sophia College for Women (Autonomous), Mumbai, India
Abstract
According to John Quintero, “The decolonization agenda championed by the United Nations is not based exclusively on independence. It is the exercise of the human right of self-determination, rather than independence per se, that the United Nations has continued to push for.” Situated within ontologies of the human right of self-determination, this paper will focus on an analysis of “The Legends of Pensam” by Mamang Dai, a writer hailing from the Adi tribe of Arunachal Pradesh, to explore the strategies of decolonization by which she revitalizes her tribal cultural hermeneutics. The project of decolonization is predicated on the understanding that colonialism has not only displaced communities but also brought about an erasure of their epistemologies. Consequently, one of its major agenda is to recuperate displaced epistemic positions of such communities. In the Indian context, the polyethnic, socio-cultural fabric of the Northeast borderlands foregrounds it as an evolving post-colonial geopolitical imaginary. The emergent literatures from the Northeast India significantly establish the shifting flux of these margins not as oppositional epistemes but as modalities of ethnic difference and dissenting tribal subjectivities. In the light of this, the objective of this paper is to explore how Mamang Dai decolonizes the history of homogenisation of the Northeast India by adopting unique narrative strategies by which she reaffirms a community’s epistemic agency and reclaims the human right towards a cultural self-determination. Dai’s employment of autoethnography as a tool to decolonize the colonialist construction of the Northeast India and as an identity reclamation project will be the focus of this paper.
Keywords: Decolonization, Northeast, Autoethnography, identity reclamation
Bionote: Samrita Sinha is currently Assistant Professor in the Dept. of English at Sophia College for Women, Mumbai. She is also a visiting professor in the PG Dept. of English at S.N.D.T Women’s University, Mumbai. Her Doctoral research is in the domain of Northeast Anglophone Literatures.
Presenter 3
Title: Settler Colonialism and the Ecology of the Adis in Mamang Dai’s The Legends of Pensam
Author 1: Panchali Bhattacharya
Designation and affiliation: Research Scholar, School of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Management, IIT Bhubaneswar
Author 2: Amrita Satapathy
Designation and affiliation: Assistant Professor, School of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Management, IIT Bhubaneswar
Abstract
Mamang Dai’s The Legends of Pensam (2006) undertakes an ecologically investigative journey through the vibrantly verdant world of the Adi tribe of Arunachal Pradesh. Traditional legends blend with figments of collective memory and elements of history in this fictional tale to showcase their unique “animistic faith that is woven around forest ecology and co-existence with the natural world”[1]. Despite their geo-cultural isolation, the Adis have not escaped the onslaughts of settler colonialism perpetuated by British officials in the past and by the urbanizing policies of the present. This distinct type of colonialism leads to a violent disruption between the Indigenous communities and their immediate environment. Dai’s novel presents a vivid picture of such ecological domination and consequent environmental injustice inflicted by the migluns during the colonial period on the grounds of ‘development’. The vast restructuring of natural environment has affected the Adis because they have lost their cultural roots as well as their traditional livelihood. A kind of cultural hegemony has induced a sense of identity crises, alienation and loss amongst them. In such a context, the only way in which the native Adis can assert their resistance to the ravages of modernization, is by turning their gaze towards nature or by straddling the world of Pensam or ‘in-betweenness’ that is at once particular and universal. The paper thus aims to identify the various ways in which the “anti-Indigenous settler colonialism and environmental injustice”[2] has affected the Adi life, and also explore the eco-mystical knowledge that has helped them to restore the primal bond between the human and natural world in an age of rapid globalization.
Keywords: Adi Tribe, Ecological Injustice, Indigeneity, North East India, Pensam, Settler Colonialism
Bionote:
Author 1: Panchali Bhattacharya is pursuing her doctoral research in the School of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Management at Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar. She is a Masters of Arts in English Literature, and holds a Bachelor of Education degree from The University of Burdwan, West Bengal. She has a wide range of publications in national and international journals of repute. Her research interests include Indian English literature, North-East Indian Fictions, Eco-critical studies, Indigenous literature, and Popular Culture. She can be reached at- panchalibhattacharya1990@gmail.com.
Author 2: Amrita Satapathy is a faculty in School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Management, Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar. Since her joining in 2009 she has been involved with classroom teaching in various topics like Communication Skills, Technical Writing, Indian Writing in English and World Literature. Her area of research is Travel Writing and Life Writings. She has contributed academically in the form of journal papers, book chapters and reviews nationally and internationally. She has published two books- ‘Shifting Images’, Lambert Academic Publishing, Germany (2011) and ‘Limning London’, Authors Press, New Delhi (2016). She has also interests in Film Studies and Creative Writing. She can be reached at- asatapathy@iitbbs.ac.in
Presentation 4
Topic: The Lioness Defending Her Clan in the North East: A Study of Ecospiritual Elements in Mamang Dai’s Fiction
Meghamala Satapathy &
Dr. Ipsita Nayak
(Assistant Professor in English, KIIT Deemed to be University)
Abstract:
Mamang Dai is a powerful tribal voice from the North East India. Enchanting topography, mystical encounters, vivid ethnography, legends, folklore and myths of the North East region together constitute her world of fiction. The present study examines the elements of Ecospirituality in her works of fiction. The article excludes various other facets of the theoretical framework of Ecocriticism and focuses solely on the theme of Ecospiritualism explored in Dai’s tales. In other words, the article concentrates on those attributes of Nature manifested in Dai’s works which form an integral part in the spiritual journey of her characters. In an attempt to define the term ‘Ecospiritualism,’ a review of existing literature has been placed at the very beginning. It is followed by a content analysis of five works of fiction which Dai has to her credit. All the arguments put forth in the article are substantiated by textual evidence from her books. The article ends with a conclusion based on the analysis of the said texts.
Keywords: North East, Ecospiritualism, Ecocriticism, Ecospirituality, mystic, Mamang Dai, belief system, ethnography, tribal myth, legend, folklore
Session 20
Time: 8:20 PM—9:10 PM (Indian Time)
Presentation 1
Title: CoVID-19 Pandemic as a Factor Revolutionizing the Industry of Higher Education
Author 1: Melnyk Yuriy Borysovych
Designation and affiliation: PhD in Pedagogy, Associate Professor, Professor of the Department of Psychology and Pedagogy, National Academy of the National Guard of Ukraine
Author 2: Pypenko Iryna Sergiivna
Designation and affiliation: PhD in Economics, Associate Professor, Department of Economic Theory and Economic Policy, Simon Kuznets Kharkiv National University of Economics, Ukraine
Author 3: Maslov Yuri Vsevolodovich
Designation and affiliation: PhD in Pedagogy, Associate Professor, Department of International Business Communication, Belarusian State Economic University, Belarus
Abstract
Due to the CoVID-19 pandemic, the world has changed dramatically, and it will never be the same. Under the circumstances, a new type of specialist is in demand that possesses competency in information technologies and communication means, as well as in health culture. The problem of corporate health culture is becoming a serious issue in scientific discourse. The present paper deals with the results of the study aimed at the assessment of the higher education systems’ preparedness for an emergency such as the CoVID-19 pandemic that affects the health of the participants in the educational process. The results were obtained through expert evaluations. The paper contains the analysis of the anonymous questionnaire answers obtained from the participants of the International Academic Conference “Psychological and Pedagogical Problems of Modern Specialist Formation” held online in June 2020 (Zoom Video Communications platform). The conference hosted over 200 researchers and practitioners in the field of education, psychology, and medicine representing 78 institutions from 20 countries located on five continents. The conference framework included a roundtable discussion accompanied by a questionnaire related to the organizational problems university education faced during the CoVID-19 pandemic. The analysis of the answers and expert opinions was conducted using the Pearson method χ2, which produced statistically relevant results. The analysis revealed marked differences in the attitudes of faculty (including gender differences) to the pandemic in terms of the organization of teaching at universities, the effect of social distancing measures on health (both physical and mental), and the value systems.
Keywords: University, Education, Culture, Health, CoVID-19
Bionotes:
Melnyk Yuriy Borysovych – Doctor of Philosophy in Pedagogy, Associate Professor, Professor of the Department of Psychology and Pedagogy, National Academy of the National Guard of Ukraine; Editor-in-Chief of IJSA/IJES; Founder/Chairman, Kharkiv Regional Public Organization “Culture of Health” (KRPOCH) Board; Director, Scientific Research Institute KRPOCH; Director, KRPOCH Publishing, Ukraine.
Author of over 150 academic works. Research interests: Health Culture, Education, Pedagogy, Pedagogical Logistics, Psychology, Psychotechnology; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8527-4638.
Pypenko Iryna Sergiivna – Doctor of Philosophy in Economics, Associate Professor, Associate Professor of the Department of Economic Theory and Economic Policy, Simon Kuznets Kharkiv National University of Economics; Co-Director, Scientific Research Institute KRPOCH; Director, Educational Center KRPOCH; Ukraine.
Author of over 60 academic works. Research interests: Higher Education, Personality Potential, Marketing Possibilities, Marketing Interaction, Management, Digital Economy; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5083-540X.
Maslov Yuri Vsevolodovich – Doctor of Philosophy in Pedagogy, Associate Professor, Associate Professor of the Department of International Business Communication, Belarusian State Economic University, Belarus.
Author of over 200 academic works. Research interests: Foreign-Language Teaching Methodology, Translation Theory/Practice, Literary Translation; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5715-6546.
Presentation 2
Incorporation of “Human Values” in all Higher Education Curriculums
(Technical & Non-Technical) – An inevitable action to eradicate discriminations
Author 1 : G.S.Suresh
Asst.Professor, Dept.of English, Mepco Schlenk Engineering College, Tamilnadu. Sivakasi.
Author 2: Dr.C.Ganga Lakshmi,
Senior Asst.Professor, Dept.of English, Mepco Schlenk Engineering College, Tamilnadu. Sivakasi.
Abstract
This paper argues that the current education system needs a rational and radical change from the objective of materialistic education to humanistic education. Hence, incorporation of human values education (AICTE, 2017) in the modern education system particularly in the higher education including both technical and non-technical streams becomes the fulcrum point of this paper. A critical analysis on the Gen Z learners’ aversive mindset towards the current learning routines and education system is presented for discussion. As a remedial approach , a bunch of refreshing rough and ready but pragmatic learning strategies are advocated to nurture them both with human values and employability skills. Even in the scientific / digital era, it is noted with big concern that this civilized nation irrationally exercises discrimination and disparity across the globe. As a remedial act, the teaching fraternity should impart human values education without any compromises because creation of a better world is only in the hands of rational teachers and compassionate Gen Z students. Finally, this paper calls the whole academia to answer following question, “Which is essential to prepare the Gen Z to stand against all types of discrimination and live a harmonious life : a balanced curriculum inclusive of human values/moral values along competitive skills or a restricted curriculum imparting only technical knowledge and competitive skills excluding human values/ moral values ?”.
Key words : human values education curriculums in technical and non-technical streams, Gen Z learners’ mindset, pros and cons of exams and grades, rough and ready strategies for teaching human values, discrimination and disparity, rational teachers , compassionate learners.
Bio Note: Mr.Suresh.G.S is based at Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu and has been happily serving as Assistant Professor of English at MEPCO Schlenk Engineering since 2010. His service as a faculty of English spans around 15 years. He has presented and published a few interesting research papers in national / international conferences and Scopus journals. He holds a few professional certification courses to his credit viz., BEC Higher (B2), Career Development course, Trainers Mastery Certification and Effective Public Speaking Skill Course. He is an alumnus of Loyola Arts and Science College, Chennai, and St.Joseph’s Arts and Science College, Trichy. He is widely celebrated among college students for his extra-curricular activities particularly for his public speaking and singing. He was born on 7.11.1978 in Tamil Nadu, India. His vision is to build Gen Z learners with human values.
Dr.C.GangaLakshmi is serving as the Assistant Professor of English at MEPCO Schlenk Engineering College, Sivakasi, Tamilnadu. She has got 13 years of teaching experience. She has completed BEC Higher at C1 level and in addition has completed TESOL Courses. She has published research papers in Scopus and other International Journals. She has conducted various workshops and conferences. She acts as the reviewer in various journals.
Presentation 3
Title: “Effect of Visual Motor Behavior Rehearsal on enhancing Mental Toughness of Soccer Players”
Author 1: Dr. Sorokhaibam Premananda Singh
Designation and affiliation: Assistant Professor, National Sports University (A Central University), Govt. of India.
Author 2: Dr. Sanjib Kumar Bhowmik
Designation and affiliation: Assistant Professor, Department of Physical Education, Tripura University (A Central University), Suryamaninagar, 799022, Tripura, India
Abstract
The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of six weeks of Visuomotor Behavior Rehearsal on Enhancing Mental Toughness of Soccer Players. For the purpose of study forty (n=40) soccer players in the age groups of 17 to 21 years belong to Th. Birchandra Singh Football Academy (TBSFA), Imphal West, Manipur were selected. Subjects were divided into Treatment and controlled group (20 players in each group). The data was collected through the administration of the Psychological Performance Inventory (PPI) by James E. Loehr (1996) containing 42 items. To find out the significant effect of the Psychological Skills Training Program on Selected Psychological Variables of Soccer Players, MANOVA for psychological variables was used and the level of significance was set at 0.05. The findings of the study revealed that there was a significant effect of soccer players on those who underwent the PST program as compared to the players in the controlled group.
Keywords: Visuo Motor Behavioural Rehearsal, Mental Toughness, self-confidence, negative energy control, attention control, Visual & imagery control, motivational level, positive energy control and attitude control.
Bionote:
I, Dr. Sorokhaibam Premananda Singh, presently working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Education at National Sports University, Imphal, Manipur. Previously, I worked as an Assistant Professor at Lakshmibai National Institute of Physical Education, NERC, Guwahati (2017-2018) and worked as a Guest Lecturer at Department of Physical Education, Tripura University (A Central University) and also Life member of Sports Psychology Association of India (SPAI).
Awarded Doctor of Philosophy in accordance with UGC regulation-2009 under the Department of Physical Education, Tripura University.
Completed my graduation (B.P.Ed) and post-graduation (M.P.Ed) with a specialization in Sports Psychology from Lakshmibai National Institute of Physical Education, Gwalior.
Qualified UGC-National Eligibility Test with JRF which was held in June 2012.
[1] Dai, M. (2006). “Author’s Note”. The Legends of Pensam. Penguin Books India.
[2] Whyte, Kyle. (2018). Settler Colonialism, Ecology, and Environmental Injustice. Environment and Society: Advances in Research, Vol. 9, pp. 125–144. DOI:10.3167/ares.2018.090109