IACLALS ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2019
REPORT
IACLALS Annual Conference 2019
February 6 – 8, 2019
Pondicherry University
The IACLALS Annual Conference 2019 "Literature, Culture, and Society in the Age of Post-Truth" held from the 6th to the 8th of February at the University of Pondicherry, was efficiently and warmly steered by Professor Kalpana and her team. For a large contingent of us, traveling from an unusually freezing February in the North, Puducherry's balmy, sea side beauty was just the perfect conference getaway. And yet the three conferencing days were anything but quiet retreats. Powerful papers in packed halls jostled with post truth's many hydra heads.
The keynote address by eminent writer and public intellectual G.N. Devy, had a ruminative precision, as he spoke of the current political climate and the urgency of the times and the need to desequester literature, teaching and all academic liaising from their ivory tower luxuries. Stephanos Stephanides, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Cyprus, also author, poet, translator, critic, ethnographer, and documentary film maker, read from his poems on the final day and also delivered the Valedictory address. Summing up the deliberations of the conference he spoke of Post-truth’s theoretical confrontations and impasses.
The Meenakshi Mukherjee Memorial Prize 2019, went to Avishek Parui, IIT Madras for his article, "What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true?” Agency, Fabulation and the Epistemology of the Storytelling Self in Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories" published in South Asian Review. The jury this year had Prof M. Sridhar, Prof Geetha Ganapathy-Doré, and Prof Angelie Multani who judged the entries.
The CDN Prize finalists this year were, Ritwick Bhattacharya, Sania Hashmi, Srishti Gupta and Srinjoyee Dutta. The entries in the first round, prior to the Conference were marked by our judges, Prof Jatin Nayak and Prof Srilata Krishnan, and in the final round read at the CDN Panel, the jury comprised Dr. H.. Kalpana, Prof Stephanos Stephanides and Prof Asaduddin. The winner in a closely fought contest was, Srinjoyee Dutta for her paper, "Fractious Truths and Factious Genres: Reading Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore in the Post-Truth Age".
Angelie Multani, Debaditya Bhattacharya and Arjun Ghosh had new books published this year and they were in conversation with GJV Prasad, Rina Ramdev and Subhendu Mund.
Our conference hosts organised evening trips to the Aurobindo Ashram and a post-conference trip to Chidambaram.
And then of course there is that very important conference marker - food, which we are happy to report was judged a winner all the way! At every lunch our Conference Director, Kalpana was there with her solicitous hospitality checking on everyone with that particular warmth which was appreciated by all.
At the Conference this year, IACLALS also released a statement condemning the stifling of political dissent, in light of the charges against Hiren Gohain, Anand Teltumbde, the JNU students and others.
Our thanks once again to all our members who joined us this year and our deep gratitude to Professor Kalpana for a memorable conference.
Dr Rina Ramdev
Secretary
IACLALS
IACLALS Annual Conference 2019
February 6 – 8, 2019
Pondicherry University
The IACLALS Annual Conference 2019 "Literature, Culture, and Society in the Age of Post-Truth" held from the 6th to the 8th of February at the University of Pondicherry, was efficiently and warmly steered by Professor Kalpana and her team. For a large contingent of us, traveling from an unusually freezing February in the North, Puducherry's balmy, sea side beauty was just the perfect conference getaway. And yet the three conferencing days were anything but quiet retreats. Powerful papers in packed halls jostled with post truth's many hydra heads.
The keynote address by eminent writer and public intellectual G.N. Devy, had a ruminative precision, as he spoke of the current political climate and the urgency of the times and the need to desequester literature, teaching and all academic liaising from their ivory tower luxuries. Stephanos Stephanides, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Cyprus, also author, poet, translator, critic, ethnographer, and documentary film maker, read from his poems on the final day and also delivered the Valedictory address. Summing up the deliberations of the conference he spoke of Post-truth’s theoretical confrontations and impasses.
The Meenakshi Mukherjee Memorial Prize 2019, went to Avishek Parui, IIT Madras for his article, "What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true?” Agency, Fabulation and the Epistemology of the Storytelling Self in Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories" published in South Asian Review. The jury this year had Prof M. Sridhar, Prof Geetha Ganapathy-Doré, and Prof Angelie Multani who judged the entries.
The CDN Prize finalists this year were, Ritwick Bhattacharya, Sania Hashmi, Srishti Gupta and Srinjoyee Dutta. The entries in the first round, prior to the Conference were marked by our judges, Prof Jatin Nayak and Prof Srilata Krishnan, and in the final round read at the CDN Panel, the jury comprised Dr. H.. Kalpana, Prof Stephanos Stephanides and Prof Asaduddin. The winner in a closely fought contest was, Srinjoyee Dutta for her paper, "Fractious Truths and Factious Genres: Reading Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore in the Post-Truth Age".
Angelie Multani, Debaditya Bhattacharya and Arjun Ghosh had new books published this year and they were in conversation with GJV Prasad, Rina Ramdev and Subhendu Mund.
Our conference hosts organised evening trips to the Aurobindo Ashram and a post-conference trip to Chidambaram.
And then of course there is that very important conference marker - food, which we are happy to report was judged a winner all the way! At every lunch our Conference Director, Kalpana was there with her solicitous hospitality checking on everyone with that particular warmth which was appreciated by all.
At the Conference this year, IACLALS also released a statement condemning the stifling of political dissent, in light of the charges against Hiren Gohain, Anand Teltumbde, the JNU students and others.
Our thanks once again to all our members who joined us this year and our deep gratitude to Professor Kalpana for a memorable conference.
Dr Rina Ramdev
Secretary
IACLALS
CFP-- IACLALS ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2019
Call for Papers
Co-hosted by the Department of English, Pondicherry University
February 6-8, 2019
Literature, Culture, and Society in the Age of Post-Truth
When Sri Aurobindo claimed that “knowledge” was the “reasoned acceptance of false appearances,” he was indicating an awareness of how truth is mediated by the contingencies of everyday life. The term “Post-Truth” has been recently coined to express the false appearances under which we, as citizens of a new age of global flows of peoples and capital, explore our world. Initially a term that helped lessen the embarrassment of global hegemonies of the First World, “post-truth” has increasingly been understood as a “condition” if not an aesthetic or even a new epistemology. In this brave new world, aesthetics and politics aspire to become the handmaiden of the market.
However, while the coinage is new, the condition has achieved a patina of its own. Digitally mediated realities, regimes of flexible accumulation, long-range international public policies, rapid balkanization, the increasing suppression of free speech, the rise of new democratic autocracies, and various forms of politically hybrid sub-cultures (such as Wikileaks and tabloidization) have become the dominant forms of aesthetico-politics of this new age. Our conference theme “Literature, Culture, and Society in the Age of Post-Truth” seeks to understand the cultural expressions of this new and anxious age. Such a condition is similar but not identical to that known as the post-modern where the multiplicity of texts and the mingling of high and low culture allow us to question the differences between factuality and fictionality, and bring out hidden relationships between knowledge and power. Of particular interest in this new age then is the post-modern condition of the proliferation of textualities, their constructed nature, their claims to truth, and their status as verifiable cultural utterances.
In this post-truth age, literary texts, graphic texts, oral narratives, advertising copy, journalistic texts, tourist texts –all partake of this duality almost as if this were part of a new cultural DNA. Perhaps, the new “epistemology” has made us more aware of the vulnerable nature of truth, for the circulation of any belief system and its establishment as “truth” is a legacy, for many, of nineteenth-century colonialism. Any sustained meditation on post-truth must also wonder if this new age is not carrying the epistemological burdens of the past even as it wears the Emperor’s new technological clothes.
Our conference aims to interrogate the following:
Proposals for papers may explore the above areas or any others that pertain to the theme of the conference. Papers may deal with literature as well as intersections of literature, media, and performance.
The conference is open only to members of IACLALS (visit www.iaclals.com to know how to become a member).
Abstracts (250 words) with a short bio (max 70 words) to be sent to iaclalsconferences@gmail.com by November 5th, 2018.
Acceptance will be intimated by November 20th, 2018
If you wish to be considered for the CD Narasimhaiah Prize for the Best Paper presented at the conference, please submit complete papers by December 15th, 2018.
Others must submit complete papers by December 30th.
Please note that you will have twenty minutes to read your papers.
Registration to be completed by January 5th, 2019 (details will be sent with acceptances)
IACLALS also announces the next edition of the Meenakshi Mukherjee Prize for the Best Paper published in the previous block of two years (2017-18) by a member of the IACLALS.
Please submit your published paper with all details to iaclalsconferences@gmail.com by October 15th, 2018. You must have been a member of IACLALS when you published the paper.
Past winners of the Meenakshi Mukherjee Prize can submit entries for the prize only after the completion of three years from the year they received the award.
Papers submitted for the award earlier cannot be submitted again.
About our hosts
The Department of English, one of the oldest Departments of the University, was established on 1st December, 1986, and since inception the Department has been the hub of teaching and research activity, attracting a cross-section of students and research scholars from all over the country. It has established itself as a stronghold of Comparative Literature, teaching Comparative Literary Theory and fostering Comparative Literary studies between Indian Languages and English. Please visit http://www.pondiuni.edu.in/department/department-english for details.
The Organizing Secretary is: Dr. H. Kalpana, Professor and coordinators are Dr. K. Reshmi, Associate Professor and Dr. Lakhimai Mili, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Pondicherry University (PU), Puducherry 605014.
HOD: Dr. Clement S. Lourdes, Professor, DOE, PU
Members of the host committee:
Prof. Sujatha Vijayaraghavan, Professor
Dr. T. Marx, Professor
Dr. Binu Zachariah, Associate Professor
Dr. Ujjwal Jana, Associate Professor
Dr. S. Visaka Devi, Assistant Professor
Call for Papers
Co-hosted by the Department of English, Pondicherry University
February 6-8, 2019
Literature, Culture, and Society in the Age of Post-Truth
When Sri Aurobindo claimed that “knowledge” was the “reasoned acceptance of false appearances,” he was indicating an awareness of how truth is mediated by the contingencies of everyday life. The term “Post-Truth” has been recently coined to express the false appearances under which we, as citizens of a new age of global flows of peoples and capital, explore our world. Initially a term that helped lessen the embarrassment of global hegemonies of the First World, “post-truth” has increasingly been understood as a “condition” if not an aesthetic or even a new epistemology. In this brave new world, aesthetics and politics aspire to become the handmaiden of the market.
However, while the coinage is new, the condition has achieved a patina of its own. Digitally mediated realities, regimes of flexible accumulation, long-range international public policies, rapid balkanization, the increasing suppression of free speech, the rise of new democratic autocracies, and various forms of politically hybrid sub-cultures (such as Wikileaks and tabloidization) have become the dominant forms of aesthetico-politics of this new age. Our conference theme “Literature, Culture, and Society in the Age of Post-Truth” seeks to understand the cultural expressions of this new and anxious age. Such a condition is similar but not identical to that known as the post-modern where the multiplicity of texts and the mingling of high and low culture allow us to question the differences between factuality and fictionality, and bring out hidden relationships between knowledge and power. Of particular interest in this new age then is the post-modern condition of the proliferation of textualities, their constructed nature, their claims to truth, and their status as verifiable cultural utterances.
In this post-truth age, literary texts, graphic texts, oral narratives, advertising copy, journalistic texts, tourist texts –all partake of this duality almost as if this were part of a new cultural DNA. Perhaps, the new “epistemology” has made us more aware of the vulnerable nature of truth, for the circulation of any belief system and its establishment as “truth” is a legacy, for many, of nineteenth-century colonialism. Any sustained meditation on post-truth must also wonder if this new age is not carrying the epistemological burdens of the past even as it wears the Emperor’s new technological clothes.
Our conference aims to interrogate the following:
- Post-truth as a new aesthetic and/or a new politics of culture
- Understanding post-truth phenomenon as defining the artistic and the mundane
- The constitution of cultural production with respect to the notion of post-truth
- Post-truth and history
- The relation of post-truth with propaganda
- Humanities and literature as a space for reflection and resistance
Proposals for papers may explore the above areas or any others that pertain to the theme of the conference. Papers may deal with literature as well as intersections of literature, media, and performance.
The conference is open only to members of IACLALS (visit www.iaclals.com to know how to become a member).
Abstracts (250 words) with a short bio (max 70 words) to be sent to iaclalsconferences@gmail.com by November 5th, 2018.
Acceptance will be intimated by November 20th, 2018
If you wish to be considered for the CD Narasimhaiah Prize for the Best Paper presented at the conference, please submit complete papers by December 15th, 2018.
Others must submit complete papers by December 30th.
Please note that you will have twenty minutes to read your papers.
Registration to be completed by January 5th, 2019 (details will be sent with acceptances)
IACLALS also announces the next edition of the Meenakshi Mukherjee Prize for the Best Paper published in the previous block of two years (2017-18) by a member of the IACLALS.
Please submit your published paper with all details to iaclalsconferences@gmail.com by October 15th, 2018. You must have been a member of IACLALS when you published the paper.
Past winners of the Meenakshi Mukherjee Prize can submit entries for the prize only after the completion of three years from the year they received the award.
Papers submitted for the award earlier cannot be submitted again.
About our hosts
The Department of English, one of the oldest Departments of the University, was established on 1st December, 1986, and since inception the Department has been the hub of teaching and research activity, attracting a cross-section of students and research scholars from all over the country. It has established itself as a stronghold of Comparative Literature, teaching Comparative Literary Theory and fostering Comparative Literary studies between Indian Languages and English. Please visit http://www.pondiuni.edu.in/department/department-english for details.
The Organizing Secretary is: Dr. H. Kalpana, Professor and coordinators are Dr. K. Reshmi, Associate Professor and Dr. Lakhimai Mili, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Pondicherry University (PU), Puducherry 605014.
HOD: Dr. Clement S. Lourdes, Professor, DOE, PU
Members of the host committee:
Prof. Sujatha Vijayaraghavan, Professor
Dr. T. Marx, Professor
Dr. Binu Zachariah, Associate Professor
Dr. Ujjwal Jana, Associate Professor
Dr. S. Visaka Devi, Assistant Professor
