VIOLENCE OF MEMORIES: RECLAIMING SPACES AND LOST VOICES IN SOUTH ASIA

 Seeking abstracts for proposing a panel at UW-Madison Conference on South Asia, 2023. 

Panel Abstract: 

This panel seeks to put forward literary texts, films, visual aids, and other forms of cultural productions as counter-memory to dominant historical narratives of the nation. Our current understanding of violence in South Asia is shaped by a legacy of several historical and unresolved geopolitical crises, which is further underlined by the hierarchy of what can and cannot be narrated as part of the nation’s history. In such circumstances, it becomes a matter of urgency to reclaim and retrieve those voices, spaces, and incidents that have been under-represented or suppressed altogether in the face of continual state-sanctioned violence. The panel will look at this act of retrieving and reclaiming through the lens of reviving or challenging memory – cultural, historical, and public. The panel will investigate if literature and aesthetic representations can work as alternate, future archives of lost voices that can challenge hegemonic nationalistic discourses. To that extent, how can these alternative cultural productions help us in redefining the ways of remembering a particular historical event or phenomenon in the context of modern South Asia?

 Abstracts of 200-300 words are solicited on topics and themes including, but not limited to:

• Remembering wars and emergency situations in South Asian popular culture
• Memories of sexual violence and nationhood.
• Identity and nationalism.
• Class, caste, and gender violence.  
• Narratives of resistance and agency during times of conflict.

Please attach a 50-word bio-note with the abstract. The deadline for submission is March 28, 2023.  Email your submissions to sharmapaulomi@yahoo.com with the subject line reading “South Asia Conference Abstract 2023”.