A Seminar..................

CALL FOR PAPERS
Tenth CLAI Biennial International Conference
To be organized under the auspices of
Central University of Gujarat, Sector-30, Gandhinagar, Gujarat
3 - 6 March, 2011
Central University of Gujarat and Comparative Literature Association of India
cordially invite you to an International Conference on
Social Imagination in Comparative Perspective:
Languages, Cultures and Literatures
Co-sponsored by
Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi,
Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore
Indian Council for Cultural Relations, New Delhi
The conference spread over to three and a half days (3-6 March 2011) aims to focus on the role and function of social imagination within a comparative framework. The creative act, in any medium, is performed and received within a specific historical location, but that milieu results from contact and exchange between diverse cultures. Major shifts in the domain of cultures are directed by the collective imagination of entire societies. This is true of transformation of genres, styles and also of traffic of ideas between cultures and societies. The idea of the literary is deeply implicated in extra-literary factors and need to be taken beyond the individualist perspectives of literary production. The dialogic nature of literature and culture derives from the participation of communities and their imaginative faculty. There has been greater awareness of indigenous communities and first nations and their cultural productions in recent decades. We are committed to exploring the mode in which social imagination informs cultural productions at various stages in the history. This will help us figure out the relations between the past and the present, the canonical and the non-canonical and the national and the trans-national. An inclusive idea of society can only be generated by a clear understanding of the other. Our attempt is also to recover such texts and traditions which will enable us generate a critique of exclusivist social and cultural practices and help us imagine new social harmonies. Our contention is that ‘social imagination’ cuts across fields of knowledge as diverse as social sciences, media studies, women’s studies and translation studies. This international conference aims to understand the working of social imagination from multiple perspectives to redefine its productive role in the service of a vibrant, just society. Such an exploration would contribute towards the vision of Comparative Literature as an interdisciplinary domain in a fast changing global context.
Cont. page 2
** 2 **
Sub-themes:
Changing Contexts of Comparative Literature; Comparative Literature in India: Beyond Canons and Conventions; Linguistic Interfaces and Literary Inter-relationships; Redefining ‘Culture’, Re-inventing ‘Literature’; Minor Languages and Mainstream Cultures; Gender and Literature; Caste/Race and Literature; Translation: Echoes and Equivalence; Translation: Aesthetics and Ethics; Travel Writing as Cultural Translation; Literacy and Literature; Literature and Orature; Literature and Public Sphere; Genres in Transition/Translation; Literature as History and History as Literature; Interface between Literature and Social Sciences; Literature as Resistance; Verbal Text into Visual Text: Problems and Possibilities; Migrations and Diasporas; Media, Mediation and Literature, Ecology and Literature.
Deadline (Submission of Abstracts) : 10th January, 2011
Submission of Full Papers : 31st January, 2011
Abstracts, approximately 300 words, be sent through email: claiconf2011@gmail.com or by post to Prof. E.V. Ramakrishnan, Conference Coordinator (address given below). Papers may be between 3000 to 4000 words. Later an edited volume based on the presentations made in the Conference will be brought out.
Conference Coordinator : Dr. E.V. Ramakrishnan, Professor and Dean, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies Central University of Gujarat, Sector- 30, Gandhinagar – 382030 (Ahmedabad) Email: claiconf2011@gmail.com Phone: 079-23260209
Registration Fee : Rs. 1200 (outstation)
: Rs. 600 (local)
: Rs. 500 (research scholars / students)
: Cdn $ 200 (international)
Please pay your registration fees by only DD in the name of “CUG CLAI CONF 2011” payable at Gandhinagar.
For any related information, you are welcome to contact:
Prof. Chandra Mohan, General Secretary, CLAI, C-93 (GF), Inder Puri, New Delhi-110012, Email: c.mohan.7@hotmail.com , Phone: 09810683143 (mobile)
Dr. Sayantan Dasgupta, Secretary, CLAI, Dept. of Comp. Lit., Jadavpur University, Kolkata-700033, Email: dasgupta.sayantan@gmail.com, phone: 09831191181 (mobile)