Conference on 'Navigating Diaspora' at Assam University
Last Date (abstract) : 15, December, 2013

For details: http://www.aus.ac.in/CFP%20Diaspora%20Conference%2015-11-2013.pdf

A Two-day National Conference
on
Navigating Diaspora
March 11-12, 2014

Organized jointly
By
The Department of English, Assam University, Silchar
&
Forum for English Studies, Assam University, Silchar

Introduction:

The Department of English, Assam University, Silchar, and Forum for English Studies, Assam University, Silchar, will jointly organize a two-day National Conference on “Navigating Diaspora” during 11-12 March, 2014. The conference will be organized around plenary sessions, panel discussions and presentations by participants. Proposals for presentation at the Conference are welcome from faculty members, research scholars and academicians engaged with research on various aspects of diaspora studies.

Concept Note:

The multivalent term “diaspora”, which has its etymological origin in the Greek gardening tradition, referring to the dispersal of seeds, has come to be associated with exile and some sort of suffering because of the mass relocation of people from their originary homelands to new regions and a consequent sense of loss derived from an inability to return, with the Jewish experience of forced exile from Jerusalem in the sixth century BC seen as the prototype diasporic experience. The mass movement of Africans via slavery to the Americas can also be considered to be a diasporic experience of a similar kind. More recently, of course, we have started talking in terms of the diasporas of ‘casualization’, formed by groups of people who have moved from marginalized regions to metropolitan centres in search of, say, a better life.

One of the most powerful ideas associated with the study of diaspora is the concept of a remembered ‘original’ home, made all the more compelling by it being both temporally and spatially distant and also by the competition it faces from other possible home spaces in the diasporic subject’s perceptions. The Conference intends to look into, amongst various other issues, the multilayeredness of the notion of home in relation to the study of diaspora as well as how cultural (dis)orientations given rise to by the phenomenon of diaspora influence literary expression. In particular, the Conference would seek to explore the ways in which the experience of the traumas induced by diaspora are memorialized in the rich literary responses to diasporic experiences in the works of authors like V. S. Naipaul, Derek Walcott, Wilson Harris, Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Michael Ondaatje, Amitav Ghosh, and Jhumpa Lahiri, et al., authors who speak from diasporic subject positions and explore the psychic terrain of diaspora, and who, through their experience of multicultural mediation, challenge us in numerous ways to reconsider the commonly held assumptions about identity, nation, home, memory, etc., in cross-cultural and transnational contexts.

Diaspora studies today is a broad church characterized by much multi- and interdisciplinary work reflecting a tremendous cross-fertilization of ideas from disciplines like history, political science, geography, sociology, anthropology, creole studies, postcolonial studies, culture studies, etc.. Therefore, it is necessary to take a polyvocal approach in order to chart and navigate the varied course of diaspora studies, bringing it into more explicit engagement with key intersecting agendas and themes like politics, language and literary studies, various aspects of social relations like race, gender and sexuality, etc. It is with this purpose in mind that the Conference intends to bring together scholars and researchers (with dispersed interests on diaspora!) from across the social sciences and the arts and humanities on one platform so that there is multidisciplinary participation, interdisciplinary engagement and a vocal debate on issues related to diaspora studies.

Possible themes on which submission of proposals is sought include, but are not limited to, the following:
o Diasporas, home and memory
o Diasporas, nation and ethnicity
o Diasporas, literature and literary studies
o Diasporas and gender issues
o Diasporas, race and difference
o Diasporas and hybridity
o Diasporas, social identities and creolization
o Diasporas, language and language studies

Organising Committee:

Chairperson: Dipankar Purkayastha, Head, Department of English
Convenor: Anindya Syam Choudhury
Joint Convenor: Saugata Kumar Nath

Members: Rosaline
Jamir Dipendu Das
Ramaprasad Biswas
Baby Pushpa Sinha
Jaydeep Chakrabarty
Sumana Chakraborty
Sib Sankar Majumder
Anindya Sen

Abstract Submission Guidelines:

Abstract template:
National Conference on Navigating Diaspora
F. Author* and S. Author†
Department of English
† Department of Sociology
Assam University, Silchar-788011, Assam
* Email: [email protected]

o Kindly copy and use the MS Word template above for your abstract preparation and submission. Use the Times New Roman font everywhere.
o The title (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.
o 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.
o Leave a line between the title and the author affiliation, and another before the abstract body.
o The abstract body (one paragraph, 12pt, left and right aligned) should be 300 words or less.
o The abstract must be followed by 05 keywords.
o 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.
o The last date for submission of abstract is December 15, 2013.
o Kindly send in your abstract as an email attachment to [email protected] mentioning in the subject line “Abstract Submission”.
o Acceptance of your paper will be communicated to you by email (after December 15, 2013).
o Only one submission per presenter is allowed. A maximum of two presenters per submission is allowed.

Registration Guidelines:

o All participants (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) after December 15, 2013, along with a non-refundable Registration Fee as per the details given below.
Early Bird Registration Fee (from December 15, 2013 to January 15, 2014) for Presenters other than Students and Research Scholars: Rs. 1500/-
Early Bird Registration Fee (from December 15, 2013 to January 15, 2014) for Students and Research Scholars: Rs. 1000/-
Late Registration Fee (from January 16, 2014 to January 31, 2014) for Presenters other than Students and Research Scholars: Rs. 2000/-
Late Registration Fee (from January 16, 2014 to January 31, 2014) for Students and Research Scholars: Rs. 1500/-
o The mode of payment of the Registration Fee will be communicated to those participants whose proposals are accepted for presentation.
o The Registration Fee includes lunch and refreshments for the days of the seminar, seminar kit and the certificate of participation.
o Please note that there is no on-site registration for the Conference.
o The participants will have to bear their own travel and accommodation expenses. The organizers will, however, provide the participants with all the help required in finding accommodation in hotels in Silchar.

Important Dates:

Conference dates: March 11-12, 2014
Last date for the submission of abstracts: December 15, 2013
Early Bird Registration: December 15, 2013 to January 15, 2014
Late Registration: January 16, 2014 to January 31, 2014