National Conference on THE ENGLISH TEXT IN A NORTH EAST CLASSROOM: PEDAGOGY, POLITICS AND SOCIOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE TEACHING November 2-3, 2017 Dept. of English, Tripura University

Call For Papers

The Department of English, Tripura University has decided to organize a 2 –day National Conference on “The English Text in a North East Classroom” during 2-3 November 2017.The Conference will be organized around Plenary Sessions, Paper Presentations and

Panel Discussions. Proposals for presentation at the Conference are welcome from academicians, scholars and teachers engaged in teaching of English Literature in the North East.

Concept Note

India’s North East is the language historian’s minefield, not only by virtue of its multiethnic and hence multilingual polyphony, but also its hospitality to English, the colonial master’s left over share of cake, which when distributed, soaked up a variety of distinctive flavors of the region. Under the watchful eyes of William Carey and the Serampore missionary project, English gradually became the second language of the household and the first language of school education in many parts of India’s North East, ranging from Assam, Arunachal, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur and certain regions of Tripura. 

The North Eastern region in the erstwhile Empire era was known as the North Eastern Frontier Agency(NEFA) with its capital at Shillong. Shillong, the Scotland of the East, naturally imbibed the fruits of Anglicisation to the hilt, leaving the rest of the region at the mercy of local kingships, politics and ethnicity. With Independence, the region was subsequently divided into eight federal states, but each state had its own unique socio-cultural and political exigencies to attend to The missionary influence had been a powerful proselytising force since early nineteenth century on many a tribes, gradually anglicising and alienating them from their indigenous traditions. In such states, English had been made the state language, while in others, it became the second language. Notwithstanding local politics, English language and literature over ages acquired an enviable position in the region as a tool of social mobility and marker of social status.But in spite of decades of the language learning and training, the state of English education in the region, leaving apart a few select cities, is not at all a happy one. Lack of good study materials and properly trained teachers, fear of the Text and the language, cultural distanciation between the two contexts, exam-centric Teaching and Learning, lack of research to investigate classroom apathy and encourage Textual Teaching etc. are some of the several factors inhibiting Teaching of English Literature in most of the Northeastern states. A student in an Indian University is traditionally encouraged to approach English literature from an Anglocentric, universalist perspective and not in relation to his/her own socio-cultural context, consequently alienating the student from his/her immediate cultural context, while putting high stakes on imitation and imbibing Westernised cultural values. 

A good majority of students in an English class in the North East hesitate to take part in teacher-student interactions; coming from a rural agrarian background, they feel intimidated and often suffer from an inferiority complex vis a vis their urbanized counterparts. Not surprisingly, often English teachers themselves are to be blamed for drilling this sense of inferiority in those rural students. Though it has been observed that with a gradual loosening of Anglophonic rigour inside the classroom, such small town students tend to be at ease and develop confidence over time. With seven decades into postcoloniality, it is time we asked ourselves, as English teachers in the North East, what should be our role? How should we teach English texts in the class rooms? Do we want our children to be Westernised educated apes and cultural “others”? Should we neglect some students just because they lack an anglicized sophistication? Or should we teach them to interpret their own literary and cultural traditions in the light of the western ratiocinative texts and thought? 

This Conference will attempt to address these questions and related issues in the field of Teaching of the English Literary Text in an urban/suburban Classroom in the North East and try to theorize the different approaches to Textuality, and evolve a student-centric teaching methodology for facilitating creative and meaningful reception of the English Text. 

Broad Themes

Possible themes on which submissions are sought, but are not limited to,include:

• Crisis in the Classroom
• Pedagogy and the Curriculum
• Politics of the Canonical Text
• Sociology of English Literature Teaching
• Teaching the Translated Texts
• Ethnicity, Identity and the English Text
• Partition and the English Text
• Morality and English Literature
• Missionary impact and the Study of English Literature

Abstract Submission Guidelines

Abstract template:

The English Text in a Northeast Classroom

F. Author * and S. Author ^

*Department of English,

^Department of Linguistics, Tripura University

*Email: F. Author @gmail.com

Kindly copy and use the MS Word template above for your abstract preparation and submission.

Use the Times New Roman font everywhere.

The title (preferably of not more than 10 words) should be in 12pt bold; the name(s) of

author(s) should be in 11pt bold; the affiliation(s) should be in 11pt italic.

In case of there being two authors, the corresponding author should be indicated by a “*” and the email address should be given (please remove the hyperlink). Until here the document should be centred.

Leave a line between the title and the author affiliation, and another before the abstract.

The abstract body (one paragraph, 12pt, left and right aligned) should be of 300 words or less.

The abstract must be followed by 4-5 keywords.

Biographical information of the author(s) in the third person must be included at the end. The maximum number of words is 60.

Font: Times New Roman; Font size: 10; Spacing: Single space; Alignment: left and right aligned

Sample: Dr. Smith is a professor of Language Acquisition Research at the University of Hawaii.

He holds a PhD in Swahili. He is the author of Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Swahili and previously taught at the University of California. 

The last date for submission of abstract is August 31st, 2017.

Kindly send in your abstract as an email attachment to tuengcon@gmail.com mentioning in the subject line “Abstract Submission”. Acceptance of your paper and details regarding the process of registration will be communicated to you by email (after August 31st, 2017). Only one submission per presenter is allowed. A maximum of two presenters per submission is allowed.

The date of submission of full paper is November 2nd 2017. Submission of full paper before presentation is mandatory. All submissions (abstract and full paper), and presentation are to be in

English.

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Registration Guidelines:

All participants (including paper presenters) will have to register for the seminar by submitting online a filled-in Registration Form (which will be sent to them along with the letter of acceptance of

their proposal wherever applicable) after August 31st , 2017, along with a non-refundable Registration Fee as per the details given below.There will be no on-site Registration for paper presenters.

Registration Fee for: 

Participants with Presentations (other than Students and Research Scholars): Rs. 1500/-

Participants with Presentations (Research Scholars and Students): Rs. 1000/-

Participants without Presentations: Rs 300/-

The mode of payment of the Registration Fee will be communicated to all participants by the organizers in due course of time. Paper presenters whose proposals, in the form of abstracts, are accepted for presentation will be issued additional letters of intimation regarding the acceptance of their proposals.

The Registration Fee includes lunch and refreshments for the days of the seminar, seminar kit and the certificate of participation.

The participants will have to bear their own travel expenses. Limited Free Accommodations for selected paper presenters will be arranged by the Organizers on first come first serve basis.

Important Dates:

Conference dates: November 2-3, 2017

Last date for submission of Abstracts: August 31, 2017

Last date of Registration: October 10, 2017

Last date of submission of full paper: November 2, 2017

Organising Secretary:

Somdev Banik, 

Faculty, Department of English, Tripura University

(Mobile: 9436531090, email: somdev@tripurauniv.in)

Joint Secretary

Parthasarathi Gupta, 

Department of English, Tripura University

(Mobile:8575024944, email: parthsarathi@tripurauniv.in)

Third Annual Seminar on Research in Social Sciences-November 26, 2017, Mumbai.

Call For Papers: 

What is the Seminar about?

This day-long seminar will showcase undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral research in the social sciences in India. It will engage with wide-ranging contemporary topics in the social sciences and provide a forum for students from various institutions to engage in exchange of academic knowledge. Research topics in past seminars have ranged from social exclusion in cemeteries, to use of psychedelic therapy in treating substance abuse, among others.

To know more, click here.

Objectives of the Seminar

• Encouraging high quality research as an important part of the undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral curricula in India.
• Providing an opportunity to students from various disciplines within the social sciences to present their research.
• Engaging with topics of contemporary relevance and rigorous methods employed in social sciences research.
• Establishing an academic forum for students of the social sciences to receive a critical review of their work.

Keynote Address

Keynote speaker to be announced shortly. Past keynote speakers include Danielle Pereira (IIT Bombay, Mumbai) and Ketaki Chowkhani (Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai).

What can Presenters expect to receive from the Seminar?

Presenters can expect to gain first-hand exposure to academia, by communicating their research with peers in the social sciences. They will present their research for 20 min (through an oral presentation format), followed by a 20 min discussion for each paper. They can expect to gain feedback on their work by experienced researchers in their area and/or allied areas in the social sciences. Those papers accepted for presentation will also be published online as part of the output from the seminar. Presenters can also vie for the Best Paper Award at the Seminar.

What can Participants expect to receive from the Seminar?

Participants can expect to hear about a wide variety of contemporary applied and empirical research in the social sciences. The papers presented at the seminar will reflect rigorous and high-quality student research in India, and this is expected to enable participants to learn more about planning and executing such research for their own theses or research projects and assignments.

Proposed Themes and Topics

There is no overarching theme or topic that the seminar will pursue. Instead, we encourage submission of high-quality research in the fields of psychology, economics, sociology, anthropology, gender studies, and public policy. We are particularly interested in presenting research that is multi- or inter-disciplinary in nature.

Submission Guidelines and Details

Depending on the area of research, we invite full text research papers and articles that adhere to editorial guidelines and word limits as mentioned below. All papers submitted will be rigorously evaluated by a scientific committee of subject matter experts at Monk® Prayogshala®. Papers that are part of Master’s or Doctoral theses are also welcome, conditional on their non-publication in any other form. Any instances of plagiarism will lead to immediate disqualification of the paper, without further notice.

All papers must be sent in MS Word format, after the Seminar Application form (see link at bottom of page) has been successfully submitted. All papers must be sent to lok@monkprayogshala.in with the subject “Monk Prayogshala Seminar 2017.”

Article Format:

Psychology, Quantitative Gender Studies - 7,000 words - American Psychological Association (APA)

Qualitative Gender Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, Economics and Public Policy - 10,000 words - APA, MLA, Harvard

Important Dates for Presenters

Submission deadline: 3rd October, 2017 (12 am IST)

Presenters (a maximum of ten) shall be informed of the committee’s decision latest by 27th October, 2017. Presenters will also receive guidelines for the oral paper presentation.

Pre-registration by presenters is mandatory by 31st October, 2017. 

The schedule of the seminar will be communicated to presenters by 13th November, 2017.

Important Dates for Participants

Registration deadline (Early): 3rd October, 2017

Registration deadline (Late): 31st October, 2017

Eligibility

• Undergraduate students
• Postgraduate students
• MPhil students
• PhD students
• Recent graduates (within one year) are also welcome to apply

Venue  

The seminar will be held  at 4116, 4th Floor, Oberoi Garden Estates, C Wing, Off Saki Vihar Road, near Chandivali Studios, Powai, Mumbai – 400072.

Nearest stations: Kanjurmarg (Central); Andheri (Western) Saki Naka (Metro Station)

Bus routes: 319, 335.

https://www.monkprayogshala.in/workshops/seminar-2017

National Conference- Thoreau and the Transcendentalists: Their Philosophy and Related Concerns March 15-17, 2018, Delhi.

Department of English, Bharati College 

and

India International Centre

mark the bi-centenary of the birth of

Henry David Thoreau

Call For Abstracts:

The year 2017 marks the bi-centenary of the birth of Henry David Thoreau (12 July 1817) whose writings -- especially his essay on civil disobedience -- changed the course of history through its powerful advocacy of passive resistance, a form of nonviolent protest later adopted in India by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, in the USA by Martin Luther King, and in South Africa by Nelson Mandela, among other national leaders. Gandhi declared that he never spent a night in jail without opening his trunk and re-reading the essay. Further, as an economist promulgating in the opening chapter of 'Walden' the doctrine of a radically different value system. Thoreau laid stress on a life of simplicity. This provided a blueprint for Gandhi's famous image of himself in a khadi (home spun) loin cloth at his charkha (spinning wheel) that broke the backbone of England's economy. Thus, quite apart from Thoreau's international reputation as a writer, India is indebted to him for his profound influence on Gandhi, resulting in the freedom movement led by him.

The three day conference is a salute to Thoreau for this, as well as for his awareness expressed of the close links between the current of his thought and the philosophy of India, as may be seen in the satisfaction he felt in the symbolic (as well as literal) confluence of "the pure Walden water" "with the sacred water of the Ganges" in the form of ice exported to "Madras and Bombay and Calcutta," affording relief to the "sweltering inhabitants" of these cities ('Walden', "The Pond in Winter").

A defender of individual liberty, an ecologist and environmentalist who saw the steam locomotive as a "devilish Iron Horse," a naturalist, a professional land surveyor, a maker of pencils that equaled the best imported from England, a philosopher, thinker, an explorer of the New England area, and, above all, an outstanding writer, Thoreau's life and work as well as the Transcendental movement that he, Emerson, Channing, and Margaret Fuller, among others, pioneered, needs our critical scrutiny, more so today than ever before when political, social, cultural and ideological pressures are becoming increasingly importunate. Not that such pressures were unknown to Thoreau: strongly opposed as he was to the institution of slavery and to the execution of John Brown the abolitionist, Thoreau described him as "a man of rare common sense and directness of speech and of action" ("A Plea for Captain John Brown"). When Thoreau was jailed for refusing to pay the tax for the Mexican War, Emerson asked him, "Henry, why are you here?". Thoreau replied, "Waldo, why are you NOT here?"

Research Papers are invited, largely upon, but not limited to the following sub themes:

Thoreau and Gandhi 

Thoreau the Revolutionary 

Forever Changed by Thoreau 

Thoreau the Transcendentalist 

Influences on Thoreau 

Thoreau, social justice and environmental justice 

Individualism, Idealism and Thoreau 

Thoreau and Solitude 

Relevance of Thoreau in the Anthropocene 

Thoreau and Walden 

Thoreau the Intellectual 

Reading Thoreau 

Research papers should not exceed 5000 words in length. They should be in 12 point size, font- Times New Roman, with 1.5 line spacing.

Research paper submission dates extend from September 16, 2017 to October 31, 2017. 

Acceptance of papers shall be notified on November 15, 2017.

The papers will be circulated in advance among all the paper readers, whose actual participation in the conference will be limited to a 15-minute summary of his/her paper, followed by a panel discussion.

Certificates for paper presentation/participation would be handed over in the valedictory function of the conference. The selected and peer-reviewed complete papers will be published as an edited volume with an ISBN number.

Papers should be sent at: englishdept@bharati.du.ac.in

Conference Director

Dr Mukti Sanyal

Officiating Principal,

Bharati College(University of Delhi),

New Delhi 110058,

India

Conference Convenor 

Dr Naila Anjum

Department of English,

Bharati College (University of Delhi),

New Delhi 110058,

India.

Contact Info: 

Bharati College, University of Delhi, C-4 Vidya Marg Janakputi New Delhi - 110058, India

Contact Email: englishdept@bharati.du.ac.in

URL: http://www.bharaticollege.com

International conference Dalit studies: Human Dignity, Equality and Democracy,22-24 January 2018 CSDS Delhi

Call For Abstracts: 

The rise of Dalit studies has provided the necessary platform for a new set of scholarly enquiries in the social sciences and humanities. The Dalit Studies International conference (2008) was an attempt to bring together academics and intellectuals for a productive conversation on new research agendas. This initiative resulted in the publication of an edited volume Dalit Studies (2016). We plan to continue to explore caste inequality, human dignity, democracy and similar concerns to further reflect on the possibilities and challenges of Dalit Studies in the proposed conference.

Dalit Studies may be thought of as a new academic practice rooted in resistance to the dominant epistemologies. It has enabled academia to engage with the grounded knowledge creation by the Dalit communities. Innovative approaches have been devised to read the colonial and missionary archives and to analyse social memories, oral narratives, and cultural practices of the Dalit communities. Such novel research initiatives have resulted in a new set of studies that foreground Dalit subjects as active agents of social change and action. As a location for the study of marginality, Dalit Studies has enabled a sustained critical attention to the anti-caste social movements, religious traditions, literary and performative cultures and the everyday lives and practices of Dalit communities. Another important aspect of Dalit studies is that it opened up the possibility of a global conversation on caste, race, and similar forms of inequality.

The last two decades have witnessed a serious engagement with Dalit struggles, experiences and perspectives. New histories of caste subalterns such as the new histories of Chamars in northern India or the slave castes of southern India particularly Kerala began to be explored. These studies have tried to develop substantial research questions that were either absent or only marginally dealt with in social science research in India. These studies offered new ways of reading slavery and untouchability by re-interpreting colonial and missionary archives. Given the limited historical records left by the Dalit people, the colonial and missionary records have proved valuable sources to recover the lives of the untouchables as human beings with a sense of their body and self. In contemporary India, the Dalit literary and cultural thought is constituted by a number of anthologies as well as analytical studies.

The powerful Dalit narratives represented the subjective experience of caste oppression and everyday life. For example, the recent studies on Dalit literatures in Marathi, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, and Hindi languages have engaged with Dalit experience and aesthetics to demonstrate its valuable role in shaping a distinct Dalit identity. The explorations into the print and literary cultures have further revealed the gendered forms of caste and class domination. Caste is studied as sites of hegemony and power than simply reading it as an objective and homogeneous cultural system. Another set of studies documented and analyzed the significance of Dalit mobilizations, counter narratives of Dalit feminism, caste discrimination in labour market, inter-social group inequalities, subaltern religious movements and electoral success of Dalit parties. To sum up, questions of human dignity, citizenship, gender and caste inequalities, cultural identity, internal hierarchy of the lower castes, welfare, social justice, minority rights, political power and democratization are freshly posed and investigated in the field of Dalit Studies.

We propose to hold a three day international conference (22-24 January 2018) that would serve as a platform for intense and productive debates on the prospects of Dalit Studies. Given that the objective of this conference is to promote Dalit Studies and stimulate a constructive dialogue among scholars, we are keen to disseminate the new research through publications. We intend to publish the conference proceedings.

We invite proposals from independent scholars, research students, and those working within and outside of formal academic institutions on any theme which would broadly fall under the rubric of Dalit Studies. A committee will select the abstracts and its decision is final.

The Conference organizers will provide economy class airfare and local hospitality to all participants from within India, and local hospitality to participants from abroad.

Coordinators:

K. Satyanarayana, P. Sanal Mohan (Dalit Studies Collective)

Aditya Nigam, Prathama Banerjee (CSDS)

Deadline for paper proposals: September 15, 2017

Applications should include: (1) a two-page description of the research to be presented at the conference and its place within your larger work and goals (2) a two-page C.V.

Deadline for full papers: December 10, 2017

Please email your proposals to dalitstudies2018@gmail.com

http://www.dalitcamera.com/call-papers-dalit-studies-human-dignity-equality-democracy/

International Conference on "Sustainable Futures for the Caribbean: Critical Interventions and the 2030 Agenda" April 25-27, 2018, Jamaica.

Call For Papers: 

In celebrating the UWI’s 70th Anniversary, the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies is pleased to issue this call for papers for its 19th Annual Conference with the theme:

Sustainable Futures for the Caribbean: Critical Interventions and the 2030 Agenda

In a global environment characterized by significant political, social, economic, technological and environmental turbulence, the Caribbean region which forms the backbone of American Archipelagic space, faces revolutionary times. Thus, as our global geopolitical environment is subject to pressures of dissolution, fragmentation and transformation in the post-Brexit and Trump era, regional and island economies are faced with radical new opportunities to either sink separately or swim together. Yet the current choice to “sink or swim” represents simultaneously a déjá vu moment given the prescience of the 1947 conference for the Closer Association of the British West Indian Colonies that was held in Montego Bay, Jamaica. The conference was attended by country and colonial representatives. One of the most important activities of the conference was the establishment of a committee to examine the political and economic need for closer association of the Caribbean territories and to make recommendations in the form of draft resolutions which were later approved by the conference. Are these historical concerns still salient in a shift to a global 2030 sustainable development agenda? 

As history has taught us, attempts at political federation failed in large measure and were replaced by a push for functional and economic cooperation by independent and somewhat insular nation states. The 19th Annual SALISES Conference seeks then to re-examine the questions raised at that historic conference in Montego Bay, in the light of our current moment, and to revisit some of the issues (e.g. Caribbean fiscal problems, labour rights and structural inequality) discussed in that conference. Scholars, practitioners, policy makers and students alongside the general public, will also

Sustainable Futures for the Caribbean International Conference April 25-27, 2018 Holiday Inn Resort MONTEGO BAY, JAMAICA

SALISES 19TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE Page 2

seek to provide analyses of the multiple political challenges and prospects for sustainable social and economic growth by 2030 and beyond. 

Papers are invited on the following sub-themes/topics:

1. Caribbean Regional Inequality, Structural Adjustment and a new Growth Agenda 

2. Latin America and Caribbean integration: Strategies for Sustainable Development 

3. Constitutional Reform and Local Governance for Democracy and Development 

4. Gender, Sexuality, Class, Racial Power and the Politics of Inclusion/Exclusion 

5. Caribbean Ecosystems: Social Growth, Environment and Financing for Development 

6. Reparatory Justice, Criminal Justice, Labour Justice and Sustainable Development 

7. Migration, Diaspora, Cultural Investment and Development 

8. Global Governance and Public Policy for Sustainable Trade, Investment and Growth. 

9. Educational Philosophy- Training, Teaching and Learning 

10. Community and Social Enterprise Development as sustainable new growth models 

11. The 4th Industrial Revolution- The Future of Work and Competitiveness 

12. The Medical Cannabis Industry, Health and Development 

13. Sustainable Cities, Tourism and the Green Economy 

14. Poverty, Social Exclusion, Marginalization and the crises of Modern Power 

15. Sport, Development and the ‘spirit’ of Caribbean people’s ‘to di world’ agenda 

16. Climate Change, SIDS and Sustainable Rural Futures for Health and Wealth 

17. Child Development ,Youth Futures and Ageing Populations 

18. Measuring the Sustainable Development goals, risks and well-being in the region 

19. Language, Livity, The Arts, Creative Lives and the Future of Cultural Industries 

20. The Internet of Things (IoT) for global problems – Climate Change, Education, Poverty & Terrorism 

21. Globalization, Violence, Debt and Development

Deadline for submission of abstracts: December 15, 2017 

Date for Notification of acceptance of abstract: January 19, 2018 Deadline for submission of full conference papers in WORD format: March 26, 2018 Deadline for submission of paper for consideration for publication is August 30, 2018

Registration Fees: Early Bird (up to February 28, 2018)

THREE DAY REGISTRATION ONLY *Overseas Participants: US$250 *Local Participants: US$200 *Students: US$75

Contact Info: 

Rachel Folkes (876) 927 1020 or 927 1234 or rachel.folkes02@uwimona.edu.jm

Patricia Northover, Programme Chair: patricia.northover@uwimona.edu.jm

Contact Email: 

rachel.folkes02@uwimona.edu.jm

URL: 

http://www.uwi.edu/salises/SALISES19thAnnual-Conference.php

International Research Fellowships 2018-19 at Humboldt University Berlin, Germany

Call for Applications

The International Research Center "Work and Human Lifecycle in Global History" at Humboldt University in Berlin, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) invites scholars to apply for international research fellowships (senior scholars and postdoctoral candidates) for the 2018-2019 academic year.

Eight to twelve fellowships will be awarded. Applications are due in Berlin on 10 September 2017.

Candidates:

We welcome candidates from various disciplines including history, anthropology, law, sociology, political sciences, geography, economics, and area studies. Applicants should be at the postdoctoral level or senior scholars. We would like the proposed projects to employ a historical and transregional perspective. Applications should ideally focus on work / labour in relation to changing patterns of life course. Possible topic areas are, among others, the household, loss of work, the relationship between work and non-work, work and gender, free and unfree labour. We welcome proposals about all regions of the world and especially those that look at comparisons, conflicts, relations between different regions. A global history perspective is not required; keeping an open mind to such ideas, however, is highly desirable.

The fellowships will begin on 1 October 2018 and end on 31 July 2019.

Shorter fellowship terms will be possible.

Fellows will receive a monthly stipend to be determined. This is a residential fellowship. Fellows are obliged to work at the research center in Berlin. A fully equipped office will be provided as well as organizational help for visa, housing, etc. During the fellowship, we also encourage fellows to introduce their work to wider audiences within Berlin’s scientific community.

Application procedure:Please use the electronic form on our website (https://rework.hu-berlin.de/de/call-for-appl.html). 

You will be asked to provide information regarding your biography, the research project you intend to work on during your fellowship as well as details on your current research. Applicants should provide the names of two referees in addition to that.

Please note that we can only accept electronically submitted applications!

Application deadline: 10 September 2017

For further information, please contact: 

Dr. Felicitas Hentschke

T: +49 (0)30 / 2093-70206; F: -70210

Email: felicitas.hentschke@asa.hu-berlin.de or visit the center’s website http://rework.hu-berlin.de/

Contact Info: 

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin IGK Arbeit und Lebenslauf in globalgeschichtlicher Perspektive 

Dr. Felicitas Hentschke Unter den Linden, D - 10099 Berlin

 Phone +49 30 2093 702 06 

Fax +49 30 2093 702 10  

felicitas.hentschke@asa.hu-berlin.de

 http://rework.hu-berlin.de/ 

Contact Email: 

felicitas.hentschke@asa.hu-berlin.de

URL: 

http://rework.hu-berlin.de/

International Conference on Endangered & Lesser Known Languages, 21 – 23 February 2018 CIIL, Manasagangotri, Mysuru,

CALL FOR PAPERS

About SPPEL

The Scheme for Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages (SPPEL) was instituted by Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India in 2013. The primary objectives of this Scheme are to document and archive the endangered languages of India. The scheme is monitored by Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL). The CIIL has collaborated with several academic institutions across the country for accomplishing this mission. Initially SPPEL has identified 117 languages to document and archive.

ELKL Conference Series 

The Endangered and Lesser Known Languages conference was begun to serve as a platform for academicians, researchers and members of speech communities to deliberate issues relevant to

language endangerment and share their latest findings. This annual conference aims to create interest and awareness in lesser known languages and train young scholars in documenting endangered

languages. The first ELKL conference took place at the University of Lucknow in 2012. The Scheme for Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages, CIIL, Mysore is happy to announce that the sixth ELKL conference will take place at the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore from 21-23 February 2018.

The Scheme for Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages (SPPEL), CIIL and several other like-minded institutions across the globe are also working towards the sustenance of "angerment and language revitalization:policies, planning and practices”minor and lesser known languages. Scholars, policy makers and community members have often expressed anguish for the dwindling future of the endangered languages. Arguably and unfortunately the issue of language revitalization has not attracted the attention it deserves from the researchers and policy makers. Efforts towards language revitalization are inevitable for numerous languages that are on the verge of extinction. Therefore, the theme of the 6th ELKL-2018 is “Language Endangerment and Language Revitalization: Policies, Planning and Practices”. Abstracts are invited for oral and poster presentations on original, unpublished and substantial research relevant to the theme of the conference.

Sub-Themes

We invite submissions on the following and related sub-themes:

• Documentation of endangered and lesser-known languages
• Language ecology
• Language endangerment scenario
• Language policy and language planning
• Language revitalization
• Community’s participation in language revitalization process
• Development of script and orthography
• Mother tongue based multilingual education
• Technologies for documenting endangered and lesser-known languages
• Field ethics and case studies
• Language archiving
• Language contact, maintenance and shift
• Linguistic human rights

Abstract Submission guidelines:

Abstracts of 750-1000 words (excluding references and data) in PDF format is to be uploaded by 15th September, 2017 using the EasyChair system at:https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=elkl6

Abstracts should be completely anonymous for consideration.

Note: One author can submit a maximum of one single-authored and one co-authored abstract.

Please send your queries if any to: elkl6.2018@gmail.com

Important Dates

Abstract submission deadline : 15 September 2017 (Friday)

Notification of acceptance : 1 November 2017 (Wednesday)

Submission of full paper : 15 January 2018 (Monday)

Publication

An edited volume of the papers, key note address and plenary sessions of the conference will be published by CIIL. The concerned authors will have to modify their papers by incorporating the feedback, observations, comments and suggestions that come out during the presentation.

Travel & accommodation

Travel allowances may be provided for out-station and invited speakers from India. Participants from other countries and those located within the city of Mysore may kindly arrange travel on their own. TAto eligible outstation participants will be considered as per CIIL guidelines and is subject to the availability of funds. Modest accommodation will be arranged in the CIIL premises, only for outstation participants.

For further information on the conference, please visit www.sppel.org

Contact Info:

Sujoy Sarkar

SPPEL Coordinator

Phone Number: 091 - 9717225610

Email: elkl6.2018@gmail.com 

National Young Researchers’ Conference On Victoriana . 14-15 September 2017, The University Of Burdwan

Organized by  

The Department Of English & Culture Studies (UGC-SAP-DRS-PHASE-II), 

Call For Papers:

The Department of English and Culture Studies, The University of Burdwan is going to organize its annual Young Researchers’ Conference on 14-15 September, 2017 on the focal area of Victoriana.

Queen Victoria’s regime in Britain, unlike any other preceding it, stood for paradigm shifts in what constituted Englishness within and without, in the world at large. With imperial Britain ruling the waves, scientific-technological innovations abounding, and exponential industrial growth rate, Britain became something it had never been before and after this moment — a politico-economic superpower and the cultural capital of the world.

The cultural capital generated by long narrative poems, novels, polemical essays, children’s fiction, crime narratives, life writings, women’s writing, writings reproducing alternate sexualities, workers’ narratives, mutiny novels, spiritual narratives, pornography, anthropological writings, juridical writings went hand in hand with extraordinary developments in material cultures. These ranged from printing, publishing, archiving, painting, photography and restoration of art to postal reforms and development of postal material such as pens, writing pads, desks, police reforms, development of technology to detect the criminal, and use of technology to map worlds beyond logic.

The reverberations of these changes were felt around the world that Britain had colonized and had not colonized. We are all, in a certain sense, post-Victorian.

The Conference uses the term ‘Victoriana’ in its broadest possible sense, inviting papers from areas not only from that period but also from our times that consciously recycle and recast Victorian tropes, looking back and beyond at the same time.

Some of the focal areas could be:

• Queen Victoria: Myth and Reality
• Condition of England Question novel
• Christian Socialism and the Victorian novel
• Representations in Art, Restoration and Victoriana
• Crime, Criminology, the Rise of Detective Fiction.
• Uncanny, the Rise of Spiritualism, Ghost Clubs, Spirit Societies, Parapsychology, Spiritual Narratives
• Narrative Poetry, Browning, Tennyson and so forth
• The Narrativized Play, Shaw, Galsworthy, etc
• Print Victoriana
• Neo-Victorianism
• Photography and Victoriana
• Victoriana and Translation
• Victoriana and Pedagogy
• Victoriana and Pornography
• Victoriana and India
• Victoriana and Food
• Victoriana and dress/sartorial specificities
• The Mutiny Novel
• Victoriana and Travel Narrative.
• Children’s Writing
• Women in Victoriana
• Alternative Sexuality and Victoriana
• Postal Reforms and Victoriana
• Colonial Modernity

We welcome young researchers (students, research scholars and young teachers) from different universities and institutions to the conference. They should send their abstracts (not more than 250 words) to the organizers, and, if selected, they will get 15 minutes for their presentations and 5 minutes for questions on their papers. 

Last date for receipt of abstracts is 24 July 2017. 

The abstracts will pass through a rigorous peer review process. Acceptance will be conveyed by 15 August 2017.

Abstracts should be sent to the following email id: yrcenglishbu@gmail.com.

 The names, contact numbers, email ids, and affiliations of those sending abstracts should be clearly mentioned in the abstracts.

There will be no registration fee.

Venue: The University of Burdwan, Golapbag, East Burdwan – 713104. West Bengal.

Special attraction:

The participants may be taken to the Museum and Art Gallery in the premises of Rajbati, the palace of the Burdwan Raj donated to the University of Burdwan in 1960. The Victorian art objects, sculptures, architecture, and other such cultural documents related to the Burdwan Raj, whose history dates back to the 17th century, would be of interest to the researchers in the field of Victorian Studies and also those interested in exploring India’s colonial modernity. To know more about the Museum and Art Gallery, please visit the website: http://www.buruniv.ac.in/campus/museum

Conference Conveners:

Dr Arnab Kumar Sinha 

Assistant Professor

Department of English and Culture Studies

The University of Burdwan

Dr Anway Mukhopadhyay

 Assistant Professor

Department of English and Culture Studies

The University of Burdwan 

International Conference on PRECARITY, POPULISM AND POST-TRUTH POLITICS 1-3 February 2018, Spain

In collaboration with Shri Ramswaroop Memorial University, Lucknow, India

Call For Papers:

This three-day event—a two-day conference followed by a workshop on the third day— aims to interrogate the multiple and overlapping global processes underlying three emergent relational fields or modes of enquiry: precarity, populism and post-truth politics. As a network, we are committed to the pursuit of arguments and ideas that will foster articulation of research questions and positions and the construction of one or more interlinked, interdisciplinary projects. We seek to identify the interconnections between precarity, populism and post-truth politics in ways that will enable the development of cross-cutting thematic and theoretical approaches to these manifestations of global inequality, injustice and tension.

Judith Butler first introduced the concept of precarity in Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (2004), defined as a type of precariousness by which human life can be understood from a collective, communal and interdependently political point of view. Whereas all lives are born precarious—i.e. vulnerable and hence finite—precarity refers to a “politically induced condition” (2009, 25) derived from (in)action on the part of social and economic systems, usually maintained by nation-states, which fail to protect human lives from physical impairment for reasons such as disease, poverty, starvation, or political violence. In a similar way poverty also has been reframed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum,1 as not just material deprivation but a failure of the world system, due to social cultural exclusion, lack of agency and access to rights and capabilities.

In these contexts, a new form of populism has recently emerged, albeit not unprecedented in history, as a powerful social response, tainted by xenophobia, which emphasises the need for protection against perceived threats to national security, health and well-being, employment and living standards. More peripheral groups, often aided by Non-Governmental Organizations, independent associations, Refugee Councils or other transnational agencies, have traditionally been targets of populism; but recently more affluent social sectors have also begun to experience conditions of precarity, to demonstrate hostility towards immigrants, and to demand sovereignty, as with Brexit, or secession, as with Catalonia in Spain. Examples include the European austerity policies and the emergence of right wing political parties and pressure groups such as UKIP, the Front National (France), The Golden Dawn (Greece) and the Freedom Party (Netherlands), which both foster and are symptomatic of the opposition between the haves and the have-nots. This growing fracture entails the dehumanization and/or reification of the Other, rendering asylum seekers, illegal migrants or refugees—i.e.border subjects—considered outside national and ethnic boundaries, as unintelligible and unrecognizable.

This per se intricate situation of our contemporary moment is complemented by a third phenomenon, known as “post-truth”, a term which was awarded the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year in 2016.2 Post-truth, usually associated with the noun “politics,” is described by the Oxford Dictionary of English (ODE) as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”. The complex interrelationship between precarity and populism is thus marked by the unparalleled mass media impact on our globalized era and the tendency towards distortion of the news in the press and social media. Factual events are set aside; emotional appeals are foregrounded. This implies that reality is multifarious, kaleidoscopic and that multiple overlapping and sometimes colliding “truths” co-exist. Global issues of poverty worldwide (regardless of whether those areas are classified as developed or developing countries) are in danger of being overlooked and political governments and agencies are faced with ethical and aesthetic issues of representation, concerning aspects of voice, agency and authenticity.

In taking up the critical concepts of this three-field intersection, we suggest precarity, populism and post-truth politics can be interpreted through the lens of racial, gender, or ethnic discrimination, silencing, censorship and marginalization on the part of governments, corporations or other forces, leading to violence and terror and ecological degradation in the context of fierce neo-liberal capitalism.

This International Conference also proposes to examine precarity, populism and post-truth politics through multiple research disciplines, ranging from sociology, economics, ethnography, anthropology, literary and comparative studies, visual and media studies, translation, among others, by focusing on individual or collective cases, imaginative responses, and theoretical or experimental approaches. The aim of this conference is to provide a multi- and transdisciplinary platform which will allow delegates to (un)settle, (re)frame, and analyse the global issues from multiple viewpoints as well as their cultural representation.

 Themes:

We invite abstracts that focus on, but are not limited to, the following:

*  Global Health and Safety, starvation and housing

*  National and transnational terrorism, war, and violence

*  Subalternity, marginality, poverty, and economic inequality

*  Gender, sexuality, poverty, and precarity

*  Diasporas, immigration and global population trends and growth

*  Mass media representations of economy, democracy and global conflict

*  Depletion of natural resources, ecological degradation and the Anthropocene

*  Imperialistic globalization of cultures

*  Human Rights, refugees, asylum seekers, illegal migrants and social activism

*  Populisms and aesthetics

*  Global emergence of right wing ideologies

*  NGOs, UN and other corporate stakeholders

*  Racism, discrimination, and ontologies of the grievable

*  The role of censorship in mass media and cultural representations

*  Neo-liberal capitalism and human sustainability

*  The role of science and technology in poverty, populism and the post-truth era

*  The humanities and social sciences in the global world

*  Truthiness,3 Truth and Post-Truth Politics: political discourse and consciousness

*  Scapes of poverty and precarity and its representational practices

*  Contested representations of precarity, populism and post-truth phenomena

*  Political separatisms, populism and Brexit

*  Literary and visual representations of precarity, populism, post-truth politics

*  Ethics and aesthetics in the representations of poverty

CONFIRMED PLENARY SPEAKERS

Elleke Boehmer (University of Oxford, UK)

Tabish Khair (Aarhus University, Denmark)

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION

 Deadline: 30 September 2017.

Notification of acceptance: 31 October 2017.

We invite abstracts of 300-400 words for 20-minute papers which can be either oral or virtual. If virtual this should be stated on the abstract as instructions about content and delivery will be sent on acceptance. Proposals for 90 minutes panels, with a 500-word justification in addition to individual abstracts of 300 words, are also welcome. Please include personal information (name, affiliation, contact information) with the abstract, and send it to the following:

Om Dwivedi, Sri Ramswaroop Memorial University, Lucknow, India (om_dwivedi2003@yahoo.com)

Cristina M. Gámez-Fernández, University of Córdoba, Spain (cristina.gamez@uco.es)

Janet Wilson, University of Northampton, UK (Janet.Wilson@northampton.ac.uk)