Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Oct 21: A two-day national-level seminar on “Revisiting Literary Classics in the Postmodern Secular World” began at the University of Kashmir today.
The seminar, organized by the Department of English, was presided over by Prof G R Malik, former Head of the Department.
He deliberated upon various dimensions of the seminar theme. “The writers of Classical literature have uncanny access to ‘timeless’ and ‘universal’. This imparts to Classics a timeless quality,” he said.
In his keynote address, Professor Sridhar Rajeshwaran, Director Centre for Advanced Studies in India, Gujarat, dwelt at length on the literary forms of ‘Epic’ and ‘Tragedy.’
“The Conference has its focus on ‘profound truths about life and salvation and creative delight’, in short of being and aesthetics, as enshrined in the term Classics, and specifically identifies two forms of re-representations i.e. the literary forms of Tragedy and Epic,” he said.
In her welcome address, Head of the English Department, Prof Hameeda Nayeem said that the seminar “aims to interrogate the current understanding fostered in the name of de-canonization and ideological criticism and approaches to criticism that downplay original contexts, reception and significance of the culture of classics that has dominated the world till recently.
On the occasion, noted Kashmiri poet, Prof Rehman Rahi, read out a Kashmiri poem from his collections.
The seminar was attended by scores of students and research scholars of the department, apart from university officials and academics. Dr Mufti Muddasir conducted proceedings of the inaugural session.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel