YOUNG RESEARCHERS'NATIONAL CONFERENCE
on
INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND ENGLISH LITERARY STUDIES
organized by
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH & CULTURE STUDIES
THE UNIVERSITY OF BURDWAN
on
16 & 17 December 2014
The inclination towards interdisciplinarity displayed by academics engaged with English literary studies possibly originated as a reaction by Marxists, Historicists and New Historicists against the critical engagement with exclusively literary texts characteristic of the New Critical, Structuralist, and Post-Structuralist schools of the mid-twentieth century. The inflexible departmental structure of universities and the claims made by English departments were confronted by the groundbreaking Victorian Studies, a journal edited by four English professors and launched in the 1950s. The title of the journal suggested that its concern was not with literary studies alone, but also with the various cultural, social and political dimensions of the age. Since then, it has become fashionable, indeed necessary, for English departments to examine 'historical' and 'cultural' issues.
This does not imply that academic departments in universities have ceased to be discipline-specific. Faculty members of English departments, as professionals, still hold primary identities as specialists. Academic departments today possess the peculiar quality of being simultaneously productive and restrictive. The restrictive and confining quality of academic departments, or, even the very notion of a 'department', suggests a continuing resistance to interdisciplinary projects. The influence of Foucault, New Historicism and Cultural Materialism in the last two decades of the twentieth century has neutralized and subverted the a-historicity of Formalist critical approaches. The steady rise in the number of journals encouraging interdisciplinary scholarship bears testimony to the recognition of the importance of interdisciplinary research. Today Formalism is dated; it has been almost ruthlessly overtaken by historical and cultural modes of study. Still, the conspicuous scarcity of independent and full-blown culture studies departments is a measure of the endurance of single disciplines and the infancy, if not fragility, of interdisciplinarity.
In their present stage, interdisciplinary formations are offshoots that, at best, support and add variety to existing disciplines. Importantly, they widen the scope of academic research and possibly have futures as independent disciplines and departments in an increasingly postmodern situation that may eventually witness the dismantling of existing disciplinary and departmental structures. Several English departments now teach the standard courses along with a mix of culture studies, and much of the research undertaken today in English departments is inflected towards a concern with culture studies. With time, the current generation of research scholars may hold significant academic and administrative positions in independent culture studies departments; the paradox lies in that foreseeable future possibly retaining the notion of academic departmentalization and continuing to resist the imagined autonomy of interdisciplinarity.
Papers may address, but need not be restricted to, the following areas:
• English literature and cultural practices
• English literary studies and the performing arts
• English literary studies and the study of history
• English literary studies and politics
• English literary studies and the environment
• English literature and animal studies
• English literary studies and the conditions of the diaspora
• Postmodernism and interdisciplinarity
• Postcolonialism and interdisciplinarity
• The possibility of the autonomy of culture studies
• Marxism, New Historicism, Cultural Materialism and interdisciplinarity
• The relevance of the Formalist schools in the age of interdisciplinarity
• English literary studies, interdisciplinarity, and the future of English departments
• The future of research in English studies
• Interdisciplinarity and the new literatures in English
We welcome students and research scholars of different universities and institutions to the conference. They should send their abstracts to the organizers and if selected they will get 15 minutes for their presentations and 5 minutes for questions on their papers. Last date for receipt of abstracts is 16 November 2014. Acceptance will be conveyed by 22 November 2014. Abstracts within 300 words should be sent to the following mail id: buenglishyrc@gmail.com.
Registration fee details:
Rs 600 (without accommodation)
Rs 800 (with accommodation)
Venue:
The University of Burdwan, Golapbag, Burdwan – 713104
Conference Convener
Dr Arpita Chattaraj (Mukhopadhyay)
Associate Professor
Dept of English & Culture Studies
The University of Burdwan
Mobile: +91 94 94 24 26 45
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