MINI-MELOW
CONFERENCE
CALL
Title: One Hundred Years of Gabriel
García Márquez
Proposed Dates: 1-2 May 2026
Proposed
Venue: SRM
University, Sikkim
Organized
by: MELOW (The
Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the World)
Gabriel
García Márquez, born in Columbia in the year 1927, is acknowledged as one of
the most influential writers of the twentieth century. As we head towards his
birth centenary, it is time to look back at this literary giant, reassess his
contribution and its impact on literary history.
Márquez’s
writings resist easy categorisation, blending the extraordinary with the
everyday to reveal deeper historical and emotional truths. His novels, short
stories, journalism, and non-fiction remain powerful commentaries on colonial
legacies, authoritarianism, violence, exile, and the fragile persistence of
hope. At a time when questions of historical erasure, political manipulation,
and narrative truth have assumed renewed urgency, Márquez’s work invites us to
reconsider the role of literature as witness, memory, and moral imagination.
MELOW: The Society for the Study of the
Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the World proposes a mini-MELOW conference that seeks
to re-examine the literary corpus of Marquez, exploring how his works represent
life, history, and society in Latin America, as well as the critical reception
and continuing relevance of his work across time, space, cultures, and
disciplines. It will explore his narrative strategies while also examining the
diverse critical responses his work has generated over the decades.
The
conference aims to bring together scholars working in literature, cultural
studies, history, philosophy, translation studies, and related fields,
encouraging interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives. In particular,
attention will be paid to how Márquez’s writing travels across languages and
cultures, shaping literary traditions beyond Latin America, including Asia,
Africa, and the postcolonial world. It
seeks to engage in a sustained reflection on his enduring legacy and assess what
his work continues to mean in an increasingly fragmented, unequal, and
uncertain world. The conference will focus on areas that include, but are not
restricted to magic realism; memory, history, and the ethics of forgetting; power,
dictatorship, and political violence; journalism, narrative truth, and literary
craft; love, solitude, ageing, and human endurance; women, matriarchy, and
domestic spaces; space, geography, and the imagination; comparative
perspectives; adaptations, afterlives, and popular culture.
The
proposed panels for the conference are:
1.
Memory, Myth, and Storytelling Traditions: (Background, inheritance, and worldview) comprising oral
traditions, memory as resistance to historical erasure, myth, folklore, and
cultural inheritance, storytelling as survival and continuity, and the politics
of remembering
2.
One Hundred Years of Solitude: Time, History, and the Making of Macondo:
This panel will
focus on circular time and repetition, Macondo as myth, nation, and archive,
family and genealogy as narrative structures, solitude as a historical and
emotional condition, violence and silence as counter-history, and the role of
women as custodians of memory.
3.
The Major Novels: Beyond Macondo: This
panel will examine García Márquez’s major novels beyond One Hundred Years of
Solitude, addressing themes such as love, aging, and endurance; power,
decay, and dictatorship; fate, foreknowledge, and social complicity; and
waiting, dignity, and moral resilience in works including Love in the Time
of Cholera, The Autumn of the Patriarch, Chronicle of a Death
Foretold, and No One Writes to the Colonel.
4.
Short Fiction and Journalism: Compression, Violence, and the Everyday: This panel will consider García
Márquez’s short fiction and journalistic writing, focusing on narrative economy
and control, sudden violence and moral shock, the rendering of the ordinary as
uncanny, ethics of brevity, the short story as witness, journalism as craft and
apprenticeship, narrative credibility, the chronicle as a literary form, and
the ethics of witnessing violence and injustice.
5.
Translation, Reception, and Global Afterlives: This panel will explore the
translation and circulation of García Márquez’s work across languages and
cultures, his relationship to postcolonial literatures, and his continuing
influence through adaptation, reinterpretation, and cultural afterlives.
These
subthemes are indicative rather than exhaustive and are intended to encourage
diverse critical and interdisciplinary engagements with García Márquez’s work.
Submission Guidelines: In a WORD document, your abstract
( in 200–250 words) along with a short bio (in about 100 words), may be sent on
one of the above themes in the format given below to minimelow2025@gmail.com
|
Panel under which the abstract may be considered
(1 to 5): |
|
Mode of presentation: online (only for foreign
delegates) or in-person? |
|
Do you need hotel accommodation? Yes or No: (If yes) Shared or Single: (If shared) State your gender, please. M/F: |
|
Is ppt required? Yes or No: |
|
Name of the participant: Designation and Affiliation: Email id: |
|
Title of the abstract: |
|
Abstract in 200-250 words |
|
Keywords (4-5): |
|
Brief Bio: (200 words. Please mention your
expertise–if any-in this area.) |
The Subject of your email should read:
ABSTRACT FOR MINI-MELOW 2026.
Important dates
Last date for
submission of abstract:
1 March 2026
Notification of
acceptance: 15 March
2026
Full papers: to be submitted by 15 April 2026
Participation
Details
·
The
conference will be in-person for Indian Delegates.
·
It
is a self-supporting event: participants will bear their travel and
accommodation costs and also pay a Membership and Delegate Fee. Subsidized arrangements for food and stay
will be facilitated by the organizers.
·
Details
regarding Registration fee/accommodation will be sent along with the acceptance
letters.
· Participants from outside India may present online. They
will not be charged any Membership or Delegate Fee.
·
Selected
papers will be considered for publication in a peer-reviewed volume to
be published by a reputed international press.
Organizers
·
MELOW: The Society for the Study of the
Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the World
URLs: https://melow.in/,
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003036474708,
https://melusmelow.blogspot.com/
·
Local Host: Department of English, SRM University
Sikkim, https://srmus.ac.in/
RSVP: minimelow2025@gmail.com
ABOUT THE
ORGANIZATION
MELOW: The Society for the Study of
the Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the World has been in existence since 1997 and
organizes an international Conference every year. To date, it has held twenty-six
such conferences. Alongside the annual main conference, MELOW also conducts
other activities from time to time, including mini-conferences like the
proposed one now, which bring together smaller groups of delegates to focus on
specific thematic concerns.
KEY ORGANIZERS
MELOW
President: Manju
Jaidka, former Prof of English, Panjab University, Chandigarh
Vice-President:
Debarati Bandyopadhyay, Prof, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, WB
Secretary:
Manpreet Kaur Kang, Prof, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi
Jt.
Secretary: Roshan Lal Sharma, Prof, C.U. of Himachal Pradesh, Dharamshala
Treasurer: Hem Raj
Bansal, CUHP, Dharamshala
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, SRM UNIVERSITY SIKKIM
Tanushree Sarkar
Sumnima Parajuli
Anant Ashish
Sharma
THE HOST
UNIVERSITY: SRM
University Sikkim provides world-class education with unmatched infrastructure
and a well-qualified, outstanding faculty. Located in the mountain state of
Sikkim in the north-eastern region of India, it is perfectly placed to ensure
the all-round development of the student population of not only the region but
also India’s next-door neighbours including Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.
THE VENUE:
Nestled in the Eastern
Himalayas, Sikkim offers a serene and intellectually stimulating environment,
marked by its natural beauty, cultural diversity, and ecological consciousness.
As a conference venue, it provides a unique setting that encourages reflective
dialogue, cross-cultural engagement, and meaningful academic exchange.
