Imaging the Differently Abled: Reading and Translating the Indian Short Story
Centre of Advanced Study, Department of English
Jadavpur University
18-20 January 2017
Representations of disability have been ubiquitous in Western literature and popular culture as theme, metaphor or lived experience. In India disability studies is still an emergent area of scholarship. There is a lot of debate regarding the use of the term 'disabled', hence the title with the use of 'differently abled'. This conference proposes to explore the representation and translation of the differently abled in the Indian short story. The intention is to locate short stories, canonical or otherwise, in the regional languages, especially in the languages from the Eastern and North-eastern states of India (although not limited to these) that deal with the representation of the differently abled and also to engage in the translation of such stories.
Disability Studies grew in the United States in the 1990s. Disability scholars such as Lennard J. Davis and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, for example choose to transcend the biological determinant of the phenomenon (the 'medical' model of disability which traces its roots to the nineteenth century) and prefer to define it in social, cultural, and political terms (the 'social' model). According to them, a disabled person's so-called incapacity to perform normative life functions is to be attributed not to a clinically diagnosed physical or mental condition, but rather to a disability-hostile socio-cultural environment that prevents disabled people from realizing the fullness of their potential. They further interpret disability within a multicultural context as a manifestation of the diversity of the human condition and not as an undesired biological ailment to be cured and corrected through medical intervention. Disability is thus now understood as a culturally constructed phenomenon rather than a biological one.
Since the host university is situated in the Eastern part of India, the conference will focus on the regional languages in this part of the country. Nonetheless interesting papers from all over the country, dealing with representation and translation of disability in any of the languages in India would be most welcome. The stories chosen for discussion do not necessarily have to be authored by the differently abled. The paper for presentations at the conference will be in two broad sections – on disability studies in general including the representation of the differently abled in short stories, folktales or folklore and also children's literature, from regional Indian languages and on the hermeneutical problems that emerge in the process of translating such stories from the regional languages into English.
The conference intends to be a mix of academic presentations, panel discussions, and performances by the differently abled. Papers could be on any of the themes given below or on any related subject:
· Theories of disability
· Cultural representations of the differently abled in the short story, folktales and local folklore and its theoretical connotations
· Disability and gender, class, sexual or ethnic identity
· Disability and narrative structure
· Problematics of translating a text of disability
· How cultural markers determine the representation of the differently abled in the regional short story
· Representation of disability in folktales and folklore
· Disability in literature for children
· The subtexts that emerge through the process of translation of such texts
Please send abstracts of not more than 500 words and a short bio-note to the conference coordinators at rtda17@gmail.com by 15th December, 2016. Kindly note that reimbursement of travel for outstation participants will not be possible; however if funds permit, accommodation to outstation participants may be provided.
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