Photographs

Photos of the 2013 Conference are available here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/myphotos

Ypu may download if you wish.

:)

MJ

Newsletter Feb 2013

Chandigarh 8-10 Feb 2013

The 12th international conference of MELOW on “Patterns of Story Telling: Traditions, Innovations, Visions and Revisions” was held at Panjab University, Chandigarh. This year it dovetailed into the Fourth Chandigarh Festival of Letters (organized by the Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi) which was inaugurated by Sh KK Sharma, Adviser to the Administrator. Presiding over the event was the Vice-Chancellor of Panjab University, Prof AK Grover.  

Prof Cheryl Johnson, from the Miami U of Ohio, gave the keynote for the MELOW Conference. Her presentation was entitled “A Simple, Awful Truth: African American Storytelling and the Pursuit of Freedom” and the subject was slave narratives. She focused on the agony, pain and fear in the writings of AfroAmerican memoirs. The keynote set the tone for the conference which focused on different aspects of story-telling, adaptations and revisions. The opening session was followed by four parallel sessions in which twelve different papers were presented by visiting delegates. 

In the evening a special programme was held for the visiting delegates. Irshad Kamil, lyricist-poet who is an alumnus of Panjab University, interacted with the audience in a late evening session. He spoke of popular and elitist literature, talked about the difference between poetry and film songs, critiquing the reasons why there is sometimes a bias against the latter. Irshad's session was greatly appreciated by the audience who wanted him to recite more and more of his poetry.

The second day began with several parallel sessions that were conducted smoothly, keeping to a strict time schedule.  By lunch time more than forty registered delegates of the conference had presented papers on different aspects of the theme. These were divided into fifteen parallel sessions that ran back-to-back through the morning. The post-lunch sessions were devoted to Conference papers again, with fifteen more scholars presenting their papers in six different sessions.  Chairing these sessions were senior scholars from Chandigarh and also from other parts of the country. Several foreign delegates also presented papers.

The highlight of the evening was another interactive CSA session with two budding creative writers who have scaled the heights of success: Vikram Sampath from Bangalore, best known for his novel My Name is Gauhar Jaan, and Siddhartha Gigoo, author of the acclaimed novel The Garden of Solitude. Listening to these two very young writers was a delightful experience.  Present at the evening session was Shri KK Sharma,  the Adviser to the Administrator, who evidently enjoyed the sessions with the writers.

On the final day of the MELUS-MELOW Conference there were more than thirty scholarly presentations in nine parallel sessions and one plenary. The highlight of the day was the special Isaac Sequeira Memorial Session in which three outstanding papers by young scholars were presented.  In memory of the late Professor Isaac Sequeira (of Osmania University) who was a leading academician and the patron of MELUS-India and MELOW, the ISM Award is given to a scholar below forty years of age for the best conference presentation. It is essential that competing scholars should meet all necessary deadlines for submission of abstracts and full papers. Thereafter, the written papers are evaluated by a panel of senior professors and three best papers are selected for presentation in the ISM Session of the conference. The award is highly prestigious and hotly coveted by younger scholars.

This year there were 27 abstracts submitted for the ISM Award, of which 10 were long-listed. The ten full papers were then evaluated and three were shortlisted for final presentation.  Navreet Sahi, PhD scholar from the English Dept of Panjab University, competed for the award with Garima Williams of Kanpur and Sangeeta Singh of Hamirpur. The competition was very close as all three presentations were outstanding and it was very difficult for the judges (senior professors: Sushila Singh of BHU, Mukesh Williams from Japan, and Meera Malik from Chandigarh) to arrive at a decision. Finally the award went to Garima Williams but the other two candidates were also highly commended by the judges. The award comprises a certificate and a cash prize of Rs. 5,000. Professor Sushila Singh delivered the special ISM Lecture. Her subject was  'Art of Self-Telling: Reading Annie Besant's An Autobiography' and it blended well with the conference theme.

The final Vote of Thanks brought to a satisfactory conclusion the three-day festival of letters. There was a glow of happiness on all faces, the sense of satisfaction that comes from an enriching experience.

A General Body Meeting was held in which several decisions were taken. The main points discussed are listed below. 

·       The GBM began with a statement of accounts by the treasurer, Anil Raina, which was passed by the General Body.  Although the society is in good financial health, it was proposed that there was a need to increase the delegate fee for future conferences. The exact amount would be decided by the host institution after working out the costs.

·       Revised papers of this conference (2013) should be submitted for possible publication to aneelraina@gmail.com by the 1^st of March 2013.

·       The venue for the next conference was discussed. There were several delegates from Jammu who volunteered to hold the conference at Jammu University.  A proposal also came in from Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar.  The house discussed the matter and it was decided that (i) the next international conference in 2014 would be held in Jammu; and (ii) LPU may think of hosting a smaller regional / local conference / seminar. Formal proposals need to be submitted, however, detailing the time schedule and the format of the proposed events.

·       The theme for the next conference has to be finalized. Tentatively, the house agreed on “In a Wired World: Literature in the Age of Information Technology”. The final title along with the concept note will be circulated soon. Meanwhile suggestions from delegates are welcome.

·       Time and date:  the host institution will decide on the date of the next conference and convey the same at the earliest. Deadlines for abstracts, etc will be announced thereafter.

·       The following Office Bearers were elected for the next two conferences:

President: Prof Sushila Singh, BHU, Varanasi.

Vice-President: Prof Anil Raina, PU, Chandigarh.

Secretary: Prof Manju Jaidka, PU, Chandigarh.

Jt. Secy: Dr Manpreet Kaur, IPU, Delhi.

Treasurer: Dr Meenu Gupta, PU, Chandigarh.

Executive Members:

§  Prof Ashis Sengupta (Darjeeling

§  Dr Vijay Sharma (Delhi)

§  Dr A. Hari Prasad (Hyderabad)

§  Dr Roshan Sharma (Solan, HP)

§  Dr RG Kulkarni (Sangli)

§  Dr Pranav Joshipura (Gujrat)

§  Dr Seema Bhupendra (Rajasthan)

§  Dr Neela Sarkar (WB)

§  Dr Ravinder Singh (Jammu)

§  Dr Jyoti Mishra (CG)

Advisory Board:

• Prof Paul Giles, Oxford University 

• Prof Mukesh Williams, Soka University, Japan
• Prof Sushi Dutta-Sandhu, U Mich, Kalamazoo, USA

• Prof E. Nageswara Rao, Hyderabad

MELOW International conference, 8-10 February 2013

8-10 Feb 2013

The 12th international conference of MELOW began this morning at the Panjab University, Chandigarh. This year it dovetailed into the  Fourth Chandigarh Festival of Letters. This year's conference and festival was inaugurated by Sh KK Sharma, Adviser to the Administrator and the Vice-Chancellor of Panjab University, Prof AK Grover.  

Prof Cheryl Johnson, from the Miami U of Ohio, gave the keynote for the MELOW Conference. Her subject was slave narratives and she focused on the agony, pain and fear in the writings of AfroAmerican memoirs. She set the tone for the conference which focuses on different aspects of story-telling, adaptations and revisions. Her session was followed by parallel sessions in which twelve different papers were presented by visiting delegates. 

In this morning's CSA event such awards were given to eight city litterateurs who have made lived a life dedicated to literature and a significant contribution to its promotion: Ms Sarjit Kalha, an exemplary teacher who has spent forty years or more teaching literature in the city and inculcated the love of literature among thousands of her students, was the first to receive the CSA Award of Recognition. Others recipients were Sultan Anjum and Shree Ram Arsh (Urdu), Renuka Nayyar, Prem Vij and Dr Paresh (Hindi), Subhash Sharma  (Punjabi), and Vandana R. Singh (translation).

Irshad Kamil, lyricist-poet who is an alumnus of Panjab University, interacted with the audience in a late evening session. He spoke of popular and elitist literature, talked about the difference between poetry and film songs, critiquing the reasons why there is sometimes a bias against the latter. Irshad's session was greatly appreciated by the audience who wanted him to recite more and more of his poetry.

Day 2: 9th Feb:

The second day began early in the morning with several parallel sessions of the 12th MELOW International conference on Story-telling Patterns.  By lunch time more than forty registered delegates of the conference had presented papers on different aspects of the theme. These were divided into fifteen parallel sessions that ran back-to-back through the morning. Chairing these sessions were senior scholars from Chandigarh and also from other parts of the country. Several foreign delegates also presented papers.

Simultaneously, the events of the Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi were held with interactive sessions between the audience and three well-known writers: Mamta Kalia who is bi-lingual and writes in Hindi and in English, Manjula Rana who writes in Hindi, and Gauri Shankar Raina who translates from Kashmiri into Hindi and English.  These are writers engaged in taking their stories out of limiting confines, into a wider world, to a larger readership. 

the post-lunch sessions were devoted to Conference papers again, with fifteen more scholars presenting their papers in six different sessions. 

The highlight of the evening was another interactive CSA session with two budding creative writers who have scaled the heights of success: Vikram Sampath from Bangalore, best known for his novel My Name is Gauhar Jaan, and Siddhartha Gigoo, author of the acclaimed novelThe Garden of Solitude. Listening to these two very young writers was a delightful experience. Vikram was in animated conversation with Aradhika Sharma while Anil Rain engaged  Gigoo in an interesting tete-a-tete.

Present at the evening session was Shri KK Sharma,  the Adviser to the Administrator, who evidently enjoyed the sessions with the writers. A versatile person, interested in the arts, literature and the finer aspects of life, Shri Sharma gave his own point of view on the relation between literature and history, between an individual's perception and a public catastrophe, as he mingled freely with the delegates after the session.

Over all, it was a rich and fruitful day at the Chandigarh festival of Letters, made even more meaningful with the participation of the hundred odd delegates of the conference who relished the experience and made the best use of the intellectual feast.  The festival clearly has an academic tinge to its activities. This, perhaps, is its USP: seriousness, purpose and direction, all aimed at sharing the spirit of humanity that one understands best through literature.

Day 3: 10 Feb:

On the final day of the MELUS-MELOW Conference there were more than thirty scholarly presentations in  nine parallel sessions and one plenary. The highlight of the day was the special Isaac Sequeira Memorial Session in which three outstanding papers by young scholars were presented.

In memory of the late Professor Isaac Sequeira (of Osmania University) who was a leading academician and the patron of MELUS-India and MELOW, the ISM Award is given to a scholar below forty years of age for the best conference presentation. It is essential that competing scholars should meet all necessary deadlines for submission of abstracts and full papers. Thereafter, the written papers are evaluated by a panel of senior professors and three best papers are selected for presentation in the ISM Session of the conference. The award is highly prestigious and  hotly coveted by younger scholars.

This year there were 27 abstracts submitted for the ISM Award, of which 10 were long-listed. The ten full papers were then evaluated and three were shortlisted for today's presentation.  Navreet Sahi, PhD scholar from the English Dept of Panjab University, competed today with Garima Williams of Kanpur and Sangeeta Singh of Hamirpur for the award. The competition was very close as all three presentations were outstanding and it was very difficult for the judges (senior professors: Sushila Singh of BHU, Mukesh Williams from Japan, and Meera Malik from Chandigarh) to arrive at a decision. Finally the award went to Garima Williams but the other two candidates were also highly commended by the judges. The award comprises a certificate and a cash prize of Rs. 5,000.

Post-lunch, the Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi's meet-the-writer sessions were also a great success.  Poet Arundhathi Subramaniam from Bombay was in interaction with Balpreet in the first session. She recited some of her poems to an appreciative audience. Meghna Pant, author of the best-selling novel One and a Half Wife, was engaged in a witty repartee by Vivek Atray. She spoke about the process of publication, marketing and promoting the novel. Her forthcoming collection of short stories, Happy Birthday, will soon be out in the market. In the final session Amandeep Sandhu was in conversation with Siddhartha Gigoo, himself a writer of note.  Amandeep's first novel, Sepia Leaves was a success and the new novel Roll of Honour, has been recently published to wide acclaim.

The concluding session of the Festival brought in a large number of young students from Chandigarh schools and colleges along with their parents. They came to receive prizes for the creative writing events that the CSA has been conducting through the year. Shri Vivek Pratap Singh, Commissioner for Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, gave away the prizes and the certificates and later congratulated them on their achievements. Altogether about forty children happily received prizes this evening.

This brought to a satisfactory conclusion the three-day festival of letters. There was a glow of happiness on all faces, the sense of satisfaction that comes from an enriching experience.

Conference and Festival

4^th CHANDIGARH FESTIVAL OF LETTERS

&

12^TH MELOW CONFERENCE

8-10 FEB 2013

CHANDIGARH SAHITYA AKADEMI has, over the last five years, tried to make an impact in the city. Regular Literary Programs have been held – poetry symposia, meet-the-writer sessions, book launches, readings, seminars and invited lectures. Publication work has been going on out like never before. Awards have been instituted for senior writers of the city. Competitions are held for youngsters. There is no doubt that CSA is now a has an unignorable presence in Chandigarh. It is on Facebook and blog, thus keeping its members informed of its activities.

This Festival of Letters began four years ago in the city as an annual three-day event in which we invite selected writers from other parts of the country to interact with our audience. Whereas this event takes place early in the year, we continue with such activity the rest of the year, too, with at least two major events taking place every month. In the past few years we have had distinguished poets, playwrights and novelists participating in our events. We cater to the interests of all age groups, the senior citizens, the middle rung, as well as young students, involving them in diverse activities.

In the present Festival of Letters there are sessions with invited speakers who will present their works and interact with the audience. There are two sessions devoted to the annual awards for 2012: in the inaugural session we present awards of recognition to senior writers and in the concluding session there are prizes for students who have been participating in competitions organized by the Akademi.

MELOW, or the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the World began in 1998 as MELUS-India, the India Chapter of MELUS, a US body devoted to the study of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the US. MELUS-India comprised a group of scholars interested in American Literature. Within a few years the organization broadened its scope and extended its concerns into World Literatures. At present it has a membership of approximately 300 from universities across the country. This is an association governed by representatives from all over India. It also has an International advisory body. The aim is to establish a global network of scholars engaged in common pursuits.  MELOW believes in academic grooming, initiating younger scholars into serious research work, writing proposals and papers, competing for awards of excellence. It has a blog and a google group so the members stay connected.

The  Society is serious about its work; it works according to deadlines. Over the years it has established a certain credibility in the country and abroad. So far it has held eleven international conferences. Whenever its conference is held in Chandigarh the Panjab University has very generously extended its support. This is the twelfth international conference. On this occasion we have about 150 delegates including about 15 from outside India. There will be more than 100 paper-presenters in parallel sessions, over a span of three days.

Prof Cheryl Johnson from the University of Ohio at Miami will deliver the keynote address and Prof Sushila Singh, President of the Society, will deliver the special Isaac Sequeira Memorial lecture in a session that awards the a prize for the best paper presented by a young scholar (below 40).

The three-day event is being jointly organized by the Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi and the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the World in collaboration with the Panjab University. An Organizing Committee of 12 members from various departments is overseeing the arrangements in the Panjab University.