Call for Proposals/Abstracts

Journal: Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics (https://jcla.in/)

Special Issue: Writing Orality

Guest Editor: Dr. Natasa Thoudam

Email: submissionindiasnortheast@gmail.com

The aim of this issue is to highlight a unique feature of the writings from India’s Northeast which has been termed as “writing orality” by Temsula Ao, where the oral intermixes with the written (see Thoudam). “Writing orality” refers to “an emerging trend in creative writing [from North East India] which relies heavily on elements from the oral tradition of the region” (Ao 106). However, such an exercise also highlights their marginalized position located “on the side of ‘orality’” and “against the ‘written’” (Ao 106). Ao defines the term “writing orality” in this manner: “By incorporating insights from their oral traditions, the North East Indian writers are not only writing orality but also creating a new literature of their own in a language which though not their own, nevertheless lends a kind of universality to the literature” (107). Thus, for Ao, this “blending” of “the elements of oral tradition with their creative imagination” and “synthesizing the past with the present” lead to “an exciting and derivative literature” that is simultaneously oral as well as written (107). She also highlights how writing orality contributes in providing “political insights to traditional village polities” (109). At the same time, she argues that these political insights were characterized by “a spontaneity” that distinguish them the African context wherein “writing orality” was “a deliberate political activity” (109). For Ao, “the relationship between orality and writing is often one of complementarity and not of any hierarchical disparity” (111) (see Thoudam). Furthermore, Manjeet Baruah in “Temsula Ao’s Literary Representation of the Nagas” writes on how this concept has inherent connection with the term “postcolonial”:

Writing orality’ is mainly a postcolonial critique of the Nagas’ encounter with colonialism, Christianity and modernity. Notably, it is a method of literary writing that Ao herself had popularised in the region. (162)

Baruah further reinforces the postcoloniality of this concept thus:

The concept treats the ethnographic form as not only a postcolonial critique as mentioned above but also as an engagement with the vicissitudes of globalisation vis-à-vis tribal societies situated in the borderlands. (162)

However, this special issue goes beyond the postcolonial interrogation of Ao’s concept of ‘writing orality’ and demonstrates how oral storytelling traditions of the region inform and are translated into these writings. It also explores genres beyond literary studies to include films, songs, comics, graphic narratives, and graphic novels.

One of the novelties of this special issue is how the debate of the oral versus the written plays out in the digital domain.

Suggested Key Themes

Written histories of India’s Northeast

Oral traditions of India’s Northeast

Folk songs of India’s Northeast

Folklores of India’s Northeast

Orality in films on/of/from India’s Northeast

Orality in literature of India’s Northeast

Orality in comics/graphic novels/graphic narratives of India’s Northeast

Orality in a digitized India’s Northeast

Timeline

Deadline for proposal/abstract: 1 August 2026

Intimation of Acceptance: 31 August 2026

Deadline for full paper: 1 December 2026