Poetics and Politics of Memory/Trauma-Scapes in South Asian Literatures
Virtual Session
Description
This seminar extends an invitation to scholars, translators and creative writers to reflect upon the nascent theoretical, fictional and historical interventions in the 'interstitial' space of Memory Studies and South Asian Literatures. This seminar seeks provocative works that negotiate the poetics and politics of memoryscapes - the culturally and historically alienated memories - in the literatures of Global South. Through critical/creative explorations of religious, cultural, ethnic and linguistic borders across Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Nepal, we will collectively recall the ways Toni Morrison identifies memory as "the deliberate act of remembering, a form of willed creation. It is not an effort to find out the way it really was-- that is research. The point is to dwell on the way it appeared and why it appeared in that particular way” ("Memory, Creation and Writing" 385). This panel also extends its invitation for theoretical deliberations into recent and canonical scholarship in memory studies including, but not limited to, Michael Rothberg's 'Multidirectional Memory', Stef Craps's 'Postcolonial/Transcultural Memory and Trauma', Marianne Hirsch's 'Post-memory', Neil J. Smelser's 'Post-traumatic memory', Cathy Caruth's 'Trauma Theory' and Dominick LaCapra's 'Reliving Trauma'.
Schedule
Papers
Speaker Bio
Aadrit Banerjee (he/him) is presently pursuing Masters in English from St. Stephen's College, University of Delhi. Interested in trauma, memory, queer studies and Bangla literature, Aadrit has presented his research works in various national and international platforms. He is a spoken word poet, and loves to eat, sleep, doodle and paint.
Speaker Bio
Udita Banerjee is a PhD student in the Department of Humanities and
Social Sciences at IIT Gandhinagar. Her research interests include
Postcolonial Literature(s), Affect Studies, and Border Studies.
Speaker Bio
Dr. Justyna Kurowska is a lecturer in Hindi at the Department of Indology at the University of Würzburg in Germany. She obtained her Ph.D. in 2019 from the Institute of Oriental Studies at the University of Warsaw, focusing on the aesthetics of death and dying in modern Hindi literature. She held the position of assistant professor at the Department of Modern South Asian Languages and Literatures at the South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg. Additionally, she worked as a lecturer at the Department of Linguistics and Philology at Uppsala University, and as a research assistant at the University of Bonn. Her areas of research focus on prison writing, memory studies, food cultures, and written and oral narratives of convicts from the penal colony in the Andaman Islands.
Papers
Speaker Bio
Margarida Pereira Martins holds a PhD in English Literature and Culture from the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Lisbon (2016) and is an assistant professor at the Department of Humanities, Universidade Aberta, Portugal. She is a researcher at ULICES (University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies), member of the Representations of Home research project and Associate Editor at Anglo Saxonica https://revista-anglo-saxonica.org/about/editorialteam. Her research focusses on cultural studies, postcolonial literatures and cultures, identity and agency in anglophone literatures.
Speaker Bio
Azka Chaudhry holds a Bachelor's degree in English Literature from the University of Management and Technology (UMT). With a keen interest in exploring the intersections of psychology and culture, my research has focused on the profound impact of psychocultural trauma in the conflict-ridden region of Kashmir. My work delves into the emotional and psychological scars left by prolonged conflict, offering a nuanced understanding of the human experience in such challenging environments. My dedication to this field highlights my commitment to shedding light on important social and cultural issues through literature.
Speaker Bio
Suchetana Sarkar is a PhD student in the department of English at the University of South Carolina where she also works as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. Her research interests include postcolonial studies, environmental humanities, women's writings, and global Anglophone literature.
Papers
Speaker Bio
As an accomplished artist, curator, oral historian, and researcher, I specialize in intergenerational stories, cultural memory, and postcolonial identities. I have worked with the 1947 Partition Archive, State Library Berlin, University of Minnesota, and Ramsey County, enriching my curatorial practices and gaining community project experience. My doctoral research at Freie Universität Berlin highlights my dedication to complex, multifaceted narratives in the global art landscape.
Speaker Bio
Muhammad Numan is a Lecturer at Department of English and Literary Studies, School of Liberal Arts, University of Management and Technology, Lahore. He has recently submitted his PhD thesis at Department of English, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad. He is a former visiting PhD Research Fellow at Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Minnesota (Twin Cities), MN, USA.
Speaker Bio
Pawan Sharma is a Doctoral candidate (ABD) at the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Minnesota. His research delves into the dynamics of newer digital media ecosystems and alternative viewing infrastructures in provincial India. Pawan is also a practice-based visual media artist and an active filmmaker, having been involved in visual media productions for the past 12 years.