Excelsior Correspondent
KATRA, Mar 10: International Conference on “Beyond Postcolonialism: Rethinking Feminist and Dalit Discourses in South Asia” began today at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Katra.
Organized by the Department of Languages and Literature, the conference aims at deliberating over the dynamics of power that have operated across various dimensions in South Asian societies and how postcolonial intervention provided a distinct ideological and institutional framework for the oppressed as reflected in various literary texts.
Prof V K Bhat, Dean, Faculty of Sciences and Registrar of the university, inaugurated the conference.
Dr Vandana Sharma, Dean, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and Department of Languages and Literature, highlighted the objective of the conference, which is to initiate discourse on the necessity to stretch beyond the classical aesthetics of post colonialism and to enter the realm of “Beyond” to explore new horizons and challenges in the field by focussing on certain issues pertaining to Dalit and feminist scholarship in South Asia.
In her keynote address, Prof Anna M Horatschek, Kiel University, Germany, remarked that the conference shall be a challenge to the highly successful branch of academic knowledge production in the ‘West’, which has been criticized for its normative implications with a political attitude, aesthetic forms of representation, and canon formation by way of capitalist commodification. Prof. Horatschek, further, emphasized upon the conception regarding what needs to be done beyond postcolonial literature.
Prominent invited speakers on the occasion, included Prof Jutta Zimmermann, University of Kiel; Prof. Radha Chakravarty, Department of Comparative and Translation Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi; Prof Sanjoy Saksena, University of Allahabad; and others.
Approximately seventy papers on various aspects of Feminism and Dalit discourse in South Asia will be discussed and deliberated during the conference. Prof Deepshikha Kotwal, Head, Department of English, Central University, Jammu, will be delivering the valedictory address tomorrow.
During the conference, students of Department of Languages and Literature made a poster presentation on their areas of dissertation, which is a part of their curriculum of MA English. Dr Anurag Kumar, Assistant Professor, Department of languages and Literature and organizing Secretary of the conference delivered the vote of thanks. Simranpreet Kaur, Assistant Professor, conducted proceedings of the inaugural session.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
