Movements: Body, Space, Politics
Two-Day National Conference for Research Scholars
Department of English, Jadavpur University
7th and 8th November, 2019
Keynote Speakers:
P. Sainath. Founder/Editor of People's Archive of Rural India
Uma Chakravarti. Feminist Historian and Filmmaker
The term ‘movement’ carries a multiplicity of connotation with it, of which the two most obvious would be socio-political and physical. However, recent scholarship has turned the lens towards novel ways of thinking about different bodies, and this has by extension raised questions about the idea of movement itself, both within a political and a cultural framework (which, in any case, cannot be mutually exclusive). We can now think of different kinds of bodies and their unique politics in terms of expression and representation, the spaces they can access and the spaces they are denied. We can think of the absence of the physical body in a political movement (in its more conventional sense) owing to social media becoming a site of ‘movements’ rather than only the means to an end. We can also rethink the idea of performance within the context of the new ways of thinking about the body and therefore the space of performance as well.
An analysis of these evolving intersections in the broad spectrum occupied by space, body, and politics also calls for an (re)examination of the way in which older connotations of the term ‘movement’ have reinvented themselves in the past few decades.
Gender, race, sexuality, dis/ability, caste, and age must naturally be important components of such conversations as they govern how movements are materially experienced, culturally represented, and ideologically constituted.
This conference seeks to discuss and reinvestigate the various meanings, modes, and mediums of the term ‘Movement’ within the South Asian context by bringing together research scholars from across humanities and social science disciplines with the aim of creating an inter-disciplinary environment for the exchange of ideas.
Broad themes under which abstracts will be considered include (but are not limited to):
- Cultural Movement(s)
- Social Movement(s)
- Political Movement(s)
- Literary Movement(s)
- Borders and Migration
- Body
- Space and Time
- Performance
- Trade, Commerce, and Industry
- Science, Technology, and Movement
Please send abstracts of 300 words to judegradconference@gmail.com by 20th September, 2019. Selected presenters will be notified by 2nd October.
Permissible TA and accommodation may be provided only to outstation participants. All queries should be addressed to the email id provided. For additional information and updates, visit https://judegradconference.home.blog/.