LITERATURE AND CULTURE

REPORT ON THE UGC SPONSORED NATIONAL SEMINAR- EXEGESIS OF SPACE                  

                                     IN LITERATURE AND CULTURE

The UGC National sponsored seminar of the English Department at SGND Khalsa College, University of Delhi was held on February 9-10, 2015 in the Seminar hall. The seminar was titled “Exegesis of Space in Literature and Culture” and was widely attended by scholars and academics from outside Delhi and institutions and colleges in Delhi and NCR region. The themes and issues of deliberation in the seminar were wide ranging and extremely fascinating in the academic and conceptual sense.

The seminar was inaugurated by the Principal, Dr. Manmohan Kaur and Convener of the English Department, Dr. Gita Lakhanpal. They effectively elucidated upon the scope and issues related to the topic, and how an academic deliberation on it actually has the potential of opening many significant questions as well as areas of interest. The proceedings were taken further by ‘Keynote Address’ by Prof. Anita Singh (Benares Hindu University) and she gave a brilliant start to the event with her elaborate and detailed understanding on different theoretical positions around the theme of the seminar.

Prof. Rajesh Kumar Sharma, Head of the Department of English, Punjabi University Patiala, delivered the special Address where he majorly highlighted on an understanding of space in literature and culture by historicizing its aspects through a certain trajectory of literary and cultural events. The papers read by the presenters ranged across the topics of relationship of space to the aspects of domesticity, gender and psyche. There were also papers presented on the importance of spaces of marginality and periphery and its impact on the literary sphere through the aspects of Dalit literature and ecological materialism. The day concluded with sessions on Report reading by the undergraduate students of English honors. Their participation in the proceedings was certainly impressive and noteworthy.

The second day of the seminar was equally rigorous and the first session was chaired by Dr. Tapan Basu, Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Delhi. This session seemed to foreground an elaborate understanding on some defining moments in India’s recent political and social history and moments of literary upsurge related to the same. The engaging and intensively detailed papers continued through the Lunch into the afternoon and the evening session as well. The Evening session was chaired by Dr. Suneeta Patnayak with ruminations on geographical and territorial scope of the term ‘space’ with an understanding created through examples from literature and political writings. Some of the popular texts utilized in this session were Salman Rushdie’s Imaginary Homelands and Vandana Singh’s short story, Delhi.

The last academic session of the seminar, chaired by Dr. Jyoti Bajaj Desai, seemed to provide the desired conclusion to two days of constructive academic involvement and critical discussion. There were papers on space and mythology with discussions on Hindu temples and canonical episodes from epics like The Mahabharata. This was taken further by Report reading session by the student volunteers. The two day seminar was put to a fitting conclusion by the ‘Vote of Thanks’ delivered by Ms. Rishibha Agarwal. She rightfully commented on the excellence and enterprise with which Dr. Gita Lakhanpal managed the whole event and the overall contribution of the teachers of the Department, the student volunteers and members from the non teaching staff. The event concluded on a note of joy and satisfaction for all the teachers and students.

The outcome of this seminar eventually led to a detailed and diverse exchange of ideas on the aspect of spatiality and its relation to literature and culture. Popularly recognized by diverse terms in the critical works of theorists like Homi K. Bhabha, Edward Said, Foucault or B.Westphal; the deliberations on space and literature have widely featured at some major academic forums nationally and internationally. Our seminar was an attempt to bring various ideas on this topic together-both from the theoretical and textual point of view- and to contribute to these wide ranging debates from diverse perspectives.