MELOW 2020 PROGRAMME

PROGRAMME IN DETAIL

CONNECTIONS/DISCONNECTIONS

LITERARY TRADITIONS, CONTINUITIES & DISRUPTIONS

PROGRAMME

19^th INTERNATIONAL MELOW CONFERENCE

21 FEB 2020

10.00 to 11.00 AM: Inaugural Session

11.00 AM to 12 noon: High Tea and Group Photo

12 noon to 1.00 PM: Keynote Address by Prof Mukesh Williams

                        Chair: Prof M.L. Raina

1.00 to 2.00 PM: Lunch break

2.00 to 3.30 PM : Parallel Sessions I  A-E

Session IA: Main Hall

Chair: Tej Nath Dhar

Speakers:

Rajul Bhargava: Remainders in the Production of the Social: The Problematic of ‘Post’ in the Postmodern
Kalpana Purohit: Timelessness through the Lens of Literary Traditions

Neepa Sarkar: Seeing and Being: Discontinuity and Viewing in John Berger

Vaishali Gahlot: Contesting Claims of Canon: Broad Theoretical Frameworks for the Study of Literary Traditions

Session IB: Language Lab, 1^st Floor

Chair: Deepti Gupta

Speakers:

Barnali Saha: The Dawn of the Times: A Study of English Newspaper Cartoons, 1946-47

Pradipta Shyam Chowdhury: Kali for Women: De-canonizing the Publishing Ideology of India

Ankita Kaushik: New Forms of Urban Representation: Space and Denial in Narratives of Delhi

Shimi Doley: The Autobiographical "I" In Zami and the (Un) Making of A Canon

Session IC: Smart Classroom, 2^nd Floor

Chair: Manpreet Kang

Speakers:

Ahmed Ahsanuzzaman: Challenging the Canon of European Modernism: Bengali Poet Jasim Uddin’s The Field of the Embroidered Quilt

Limayangla Pongener: History as the Defining Characteristic of Emerging Literature from Nagaland

Khagendra Acharya and Tirtha Ghimire Literature after the Maoist War: Divergent Themes and yet Identical Trajectory

Namrata Nistandra: Being Human: Metamorphosis in Han Kang’s The Vegetarian

Session I D: Ground Floor, Room No. 1

Chair: Harpreet Pruthi

Speakers:

Ravinder Kumar: Orient and Occident: From Interrogated Republican Historiography to Anticipated Ottoman Legacy in Orhan Pamuk’s The White Castle

Sumita Kumari: Disruption of Conventional Narration in Orhan Pamuk's A Strangeness in My Mind

Prerana P. Doley: The New Dawn of Afrofuturist Science Fiction: Encountering the Posthuman Companion Species in Octavia Butler's Adulthood Rites

Kavita Dhillon: Human Rights Crisis and Power Politics in John Oliver Killens’ Sippi (1967)

Session I E: Ground Floor, Room no. 2

Chair: Neela Sarkar

Speakers:

Praveen Kumar: Critical Insights and Value Judgement: Then and Now

Malini: Paradigm of Exclusivity and Alternative Discourses: A Literary Canon of Value Judgements

Javid Ahmad Reshi: Literary Classics in the Age of 280 Characters: A Shift from the Age of Typography to TV and Twitter

Manish Kumar: Interrogating the Politics of Canon Formation: A Theoretical Purview

3.30 PM to 3.45 PM: Tea Break

3.45 PM to 5.15 PM: Parallel Sessions II, A-E

Session II A Main Hall

3.45 to 4.10

Chair: Debarati Bandyopadhyay

Speakers:

Eric Chinje: Understanding Literature in Africa: Sight, Sounds and Technology

4.10 to 5.15

Chair: M.L. Raina

Sohana Manzoor: Rizia Rahman’s Rokter Okshor: A Shout from the Marginalized

 Nadia Rahman: Dilruba Z. Ara's A List of Offences: A Study on Allegorical Commitment in Literature

Arifa Rahman: Translation Matters: Shaheen Akhtar’s Short Stories

Session II B: Language Lab, 1^st Floor

Chair: Dipankar Purkayastha

Speakers:

Arunabha Ghosh: Romantic Nature or Endangered Environment: Spatiality in Gary Snyder’s Ecopoetry

Smriti Thakur: The Shift in Trends of Visual Arts: Jeff Vande Zande’s Landscape with Fragmented Figures

Daniel Kalinowski: From Madmen to Total Artist: Witkacy's Way to Fame

Adela Kalinowski: A Polish Romantic: Cyprian Norwid in the Eyes of a "Late Grandson"

Session II C: Smart Classroom, 2^nd Floor

Chair: Khagendra Acharya

Speakers:

Ranjith Krishnan and Rajalekshmi: The Multicultural in The Ramayana: A Reading of Vanara by Anand Neelakantan

Geetanjali: Reconstructing Sita: A Critical Study of theVisual Representations of the Ramayana

Kriti Kalia: A Tale of Two Sitas: Sita Recycled in Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues

Subham Amin: A Pamphlet or a Performance: A Critical Introspection of theAdaptation of The Ramayana in Sagar’s Ramayan

Session II D: Ground Floor, Room No. 1

Chair: Rajul Bhargava

Speakers:

Somrita: "The story is not quite as you were told": An Analysis of the Adaptations of Fairy Tales and Folk Tales by Disney

Bashabi Gogoi: “This Story I Am Telling is all Imagination”: Adapting a Postmodern Novel on Screen with Reference to John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman

Siddhartha Chakraborti: Understanding the Colonizer's Heart of Darkness: A Trans-historic/spatial Study through Adaptations across various Media

Anita Kumari: Contesting Racial Stereotypes: Acting as Resistance in Caryl Phillips’s Dancing in the Dark

Session II E: Ground Floor, Room no. 2

Chair: Anil Raina

Speakers:

Amit Narula: Revisiting History: The Past and the Present in Vijay Tendulkar's Ghasiram Kotwal

Vibha Bhoot: Phantasmagorical Ensemble Clasping the Indian Legacy: Ghetto of Discrimination for the Queer

Sakshi Sundaram: Can “Indian Women’s Writing(s)” Truly Exist?: Revisiting the Challenges of Canon-Making and Canon-Breaking in Indian Literature

Vandana Sukheeja” Home and Identity in Pico Iyer’s The Global Soul

22 FEBRUARY 2020

9.30 to 11.00 AM: Parallel Sessions III A-E

Session III A: Main Hall

Chair: Nilakshi Roy

Speakers:

Satnam Sngh and Jashanpreet: Gay or Queer Canon: Disrupting the Heterosexist Predominance of Mainstream Canon Formation

Ishita Sareen and Nitika Gulati: Graphic Narratives and Narrative of Graphics: Invading the Literary Canon

Sujata Thakur and Meenakshi Thakur: From Feminism to Womanism- Extending beyond Gender

Shruti Gaur: Politics of the Best Seller and the Temporality of Tradition

Session III B: Language Lab, 1^st Floor

Chair: Senath Walter Perera

Speakers:

Nipun Kalia: The Gendered Myth: Queering of Mythology in Devdutt Pattanaik’s Shikhandi and Other Tales They Don’t Tell you

Sangeeta Singh: The Palace of Illusions: Subverting the Canon of Patriarchy in the Mahabharata

Rashmi Sharma: The Digital Mythologies of Mahabharata: A Study of Epic’s Memetic Adaptations.

Shikha Pawar: The Shift in Narration: Centralization of Draupadi’s Perspective in Chitra Banerjee’s The Palace of Illusion

Session III C: Smart Classroom, 2^nd Floor

Chair: Rimika Singhvi

Speakers:

Komil Tyagi: Narrative, Norms and Nation: Re-presentation of India’s oldest text as Sita- Ramayana

Manjinder Wratch: Making Heard the 'Tree-speech' and 'Animal-speech': A Reading of Sumana Roy's Writings

Tanvi Garg: Beyond Boundaries: A Study of Githa Hariharan’s Selected Texts

Shubh Lata: Reworking on Mughal History: A Critical Analysis of Indu Sundaresan’s The Twentieth Wife

Session III D: Ground Floor, Room No. 1

Chair: Manpreet Kaur Kang

Speakers:

Mary Mohanty: Six Acres and a Third: A Timeless Novel of Thematic and Stylistic Innovations

Ranjita Barik: Tagore’s Gitanjali: Timeless Devotional Lyrics yoking Mysticism and Humanism

Sayar Singh Chopra: The Tribal Worldview: Community in Gopinath Mohanty’s The Paraja and Narayan’s Kocharethi

Session III E: Ground Floor, Room no. 2

Chair: Meenu Gupta

Speakers:

Bipasha Som: Locating Indian Literature

Neha Arora: Contextualizing Dalit Literature: Defying the Existing, Anticipating New

Amandeep DES: The Dark Rock of Indian History: Neglected Ex-Untouchables

Jaishree Kapur: Response to the Reception of Samskara: A Critical Journey

11.00 AM to 11.30 AM: Tea Break

11.30 AM to 1.00 PM: Parallel Sessions IV A-E

Session IV A Main Hall

Chair: Eric Chinje

Speakers: Japanese Panel I

(Koharu Ogawa and 8 panelists): Adaptations, Revisions, and Reworking of Landmark Texts: Japanese Adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland

Session IV B : Language Lab, 1^st Floor

Chair: Roshanlal Sharma

Speakers:

Ravneet Gill Singh: Rumi 2.0: Revamped and Rewired

Amandeep Kour: Lal Ded and her Vaakhs: Revisiting the Mystic's Perspective

Kuldeep Singh and JapPreet Bhangu: Narrating Disruption: Selected Short Stories of Saadat Hasan Manto

Kanika Bhalla: Literature of a War-zone: Tracing the Evolution of Literary Traditions in Kashmiri Literature

Session IV C: Smart Classroom, 2^nd Floor

Chair: Krishnan Unni

Speakers:

Neela Sarkar: Tintin in Academia

Kusumika: Syncretic Continuities between Bengali Hindus and Muslims: Historicizing Narratives Associated with the Worship of Bon Bibi and Asan Bibi

Somdatta Bhattacharya: The Poetics of Murder: The Genealogies of Detective Fiction

Iqbal Baba: Writing/Adapting Ghazal in English: A Select Study of Agha Shahid Ali’s Call Me Ismael Tonight

Session IV D: Ground Floor, Room No. 1

Chair: Mukesh Williams

Speakers:

Debarati Bandyopahdyay: Horizon of Expectations, Horizon of Change: Exploring the Canonical Place of Sally Morgan's My Place

Anita Sharma: Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook: Transcending Golden Genders

Rachit Verma: Reading Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed (2016) as a Trans-textual Narrative 

Aleena Achamma Paul: Censorship, Sexuality, and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening

Session IV E: Ground Floor, Room no. 2

Chair: Harpreet Vohra

Speakers:

Sango Bidani: A History of the Cinematic Adaptations of Devdas in Hindi Language

Aparna Pathak: A Canon is Drawn: An Enquiry into Canon Formation in Comic Books

Arun DM: Open-Reading of Myth-Based Literatures as a Sign of Present Times

Anirban Guha Thakurta: May some useful Lesson Teach: A Study of the Continuities and Reversals of Traditions in The Anti-Slavery Alphabet (1846)

1.00 to 2.00 PM: Lunch Break

2.00 to 4.30 PM: PLENARY SESSION II

2.00 TO 2.45: ISAAC SEQUEIRA MEMORIAL LECTURE

Chair: Tej Nath Dhar

Speaker: Senath Walter Perera: Sri Lankan Writing in English: The Search for an Elusive Canon

2.45 TO 4.15: ISM AWARD SESSION

Chair: Manju Jaidka

Speakers:

Ashita Thakur: Canon as Curriculum

Pia Bakshi: Reimaginings: Hyphenated identities and Canons

Semanti Nandi: George Egerton: Reclaiming the Subdued Voice of the Fin de Siècle

23 February 2020

9.30 to 11.00 AM: Parallel Sessions V A-E

Session V A: Main Hall

Chair: Praveen Kumar

Speakers:

Sunaina Jain: Chicano/Latino literature: Contesting and Confronting the American Literary Canon

Subhayu Bhattacharjee and Averi Mukhopadhyay: Tracing Postcolonial Power-Knowledge Conundrum in Artificial Intelligence Fiction: Making a Case for the 'Postcolonial Condition in Isaac Asimov's The Naked Sun

Sriparna Chakraborty: Rethinking Working Class Fiction: A Revision of Bessie Head’s Life-Writing

Himanshi Chandervanshi: Redefining the Canon: Privileging Feminine Sensibility in Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street

Session V B: Language Lab, 1^st Floor

Chair: Sohana Manzoor

Speakers:

Harpreet Vohra: Standing the Test of Time: Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth

Shreyashi Mukherjee: Whose Story is it? Complicity and Resistance in My Son’s Story

Rhythm: Appropriation over Innovation: The Art of Being Unoriginal

Anibal Goth: What is a Classic?

Session V C: Smart Classroom, 2^nd Floor

Chair: Kalpana Purohit

Speakers:

Nilakshi Roy: Pride and Prejudice Revisited

Navdeep Kahol: Deconstructing Harem in Western Fantasy: Arab Feminists Write Back

Swati Sharma: The Verses That Breathed: Emily Dickinson as an Existentialist in an Era of Transcendentalism

Tanuja Sharma: Transcending Temporal Boundaries: A Study of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale

Session V D: Ground Floor, Room No. 1

Chair: Anita Sharma

Speakers:

Debjani Dutta: Castaway, Craftsman, Convert: The Protean Afterlives of Robinson Crusoe in the Late Twentieth Century

Baishali Mondal: A Metamorphosis of Desire: From Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis to Haruki Murakami’s Samsa in Love

Balbir Singh: Pastiche as a form of Revision and Recreation in Variations on a Theme by William Carlos William by Kenneth Koch

Session V E: Ground Floor, Room no. 2

Chair: Vijay Sharma

Speakers:

Rimika Singhvi: From Disrupted Narratives to Dialogic Continuities: Reading for Counter-Voices from Interstitial Spaces

Ranjita Pati: Imagined Reality: The Lord of the Rings as Travel Literature

Sayan Aich Bhowmik: Our Captain, Their Captain: The Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Construction of a New World Order

Apoorva Sharma: Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild and its Film Adaptation: An Eco-Critical Odyssey

11.00 AM to 11.15 AM: TEA BREAK

11.15 TO 12.45 PM: Parallel Sessions VI A-E

Session VI A Main Hall

Chair: Roshanlal Sharma

Speakers: Japanese Panel II

(Parveen Begum+7 panelists)

The Interaction between Aliens and Earthlings: A Comparison of the Story with Gibli Animation

Session VI B: Language Lab, 1^st Floor

Chair: Vijay Sharma

Speakers:

Hem Raj Kafle: Uncovering New Canons in Oral Histories

Kuldeep Raj Sharma: Revisiting the Timeless Folklore of Chamba

Parminder Singh: Revisiting Panjabi Qissa in Digital Age: A Study of Canonical and Non-Canonical Qissa in the Cyberspace

Ann Susan Aleyas: Disputing the Written: Literature and Folkloristics

Session VI C: Smart Classroom, 2^nd Floor

Chair: Krishnan Unni

Speakers:

Hem Raj Bansal: Motherhood, Suicide and Survival: Exploring the Canonical in Richard Flanagan’s The Sound of One Hand Clapping

Subhash Verma: Family Dynamics and Trans-national Themes in Hannie Rayson’s Hotel Sorrento and Inheritance: an Indian Reading

Maya Devi: Transcending Temporality beyond Genre: Examining Adaptation Misfit in Martin Scorsese’s Adaptation of Freedom in Exile into Kundun

Bindiya Rani: The Banality of Evil Revisited: Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem and Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader

Session VI D: Ground Floor, Room No. 1

Chair: Siddhartha Chakraborty

Speakers:

Abin Chakraborty: Travelling with Quichotte: Reading Rushdie’s Quixotic Reinvention of Cervantes’ Don Quixote

Saumya Sharma: Narrating Cultures Narrating Resistance: A Look at Cinematic Adaptations of Shakespeare

Niyanta Sangal: Questioning the Heteronormative Voice of the Canon: Uncovering a Gay Shakespeare

Pallavi and Mridu: From Print to Screen: An Analysis of the trope of ‘Unrequited Love’ in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Goliyon ki Raasleela: Ram Leela

Session VI E: Ground Floor, Room no. 2

Chair: Dipankar Purkayastha

Speakers:

Ui Teramoto: Changing Literary Canons in Japanese Literature

Lekha Roy: The Emergence of the Post-Black as Resistance

Syed Sumaira Gilani: [Re]thinking Nigerian Literary Canon: Rise of Women Writers and the New Nigerian Novel

Takbir Salati: Dualism of Mourning: Manto and Women

 12.45 to 1.15 PM: Valedictory

1.15 PM to 2.00 PM: General Body Meeting