Abu Saleh: Giving Voice to the Silenced: Presentation and Construction of Subaltern in Literature and Media

MES PONNANI COLLEGE

CALL FOR PAPERS

Dear Sir/ Madam

Department of English, MES Ponnani College, Ponnani, is organizing a two day U.G.C Sponsored National Seminar on Giving Voice to the Silenced: Presentation and Construction of Subaltern in Literature and Media, in the second week of January 2016.

About the Seminar

Subaltern is a constituency whose voices and social locations have generally been ignored by the privileged scholarship deliberately. Society tends to tag certain people as outside the norm - sinister, ghoulish, detestable and futile and relegates them to the fringes of society. Academic disciplines were predisposed to the advantaged lives till then and Subaltern studies delineated itself as an endeavor to approve to populace finally to speak within the invidious leaves of elitist historiography and in so doing, to articulate for, or to reverberate the hushed voices of, the truly browbeaten. They also shed new lights on the domains of culture and politics of the period and their roles in the whole picture. These writings have been able to outline the whole process of history being written from the point of view of elite nationalism and their confines. Writing such history constitutes subversive cultural politics because it exposes forms of power/knowledge that oppress subaltern peoples and also because it provides liberating alternatives. Subaltern studies also try to track resistance, even to the smallest degree, in an attempt to represent the subaltern as an active agent in her/his own history. Instead of merely enacting the tragic predicament of the subaltern, it mirrors the subaltern method of piecing together histories by examining the fragments and shards of a broken past that get lost in the process of historical explanation. The historical representation of the various lower-class subaltern groups was framed in the terms and interests of the ruling power, or dominant social class. Their works were not propaganda for subaltern groups but its politics of representation is such that rather than speaking for the subaltern unswervingly, it betrays the dominant manipulative and exploitative ideology using their own discourse. The seminar intends to find out how the marginalized is presented in literature and media in the hands of subalterns themselves and how they are constructed in the writings of dominant group and tries to identify whether there is a hidden pitfall in the glorification of subalterns in the works of dominant class.

The term 'subaltern' has got wider implication and the plight of any marginalized group which is being trampled down by the scrounging elitist can be discussed under that title. Here, leaving the broad platform, the focus is restricted to Dalits, Tribals, Transgenders, Sexual Workers and Slum Dwellers so that somber and profound deliberations can be ensued.

As Arundhati Roy said, "There's really no such thing as the 'Voiceless."

There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard."

Let that silence be broken here! Let those muffled sobs be heard here.

Original, unpublished papers from academia, experts in the concerned area and students/research scholars are invited for the presentation. The proposed papers can be on the topics listed below. Papers on the broad area of subaltern studies also will be considered, yet, we will be thankful if you choose to focus on the special areas mentioned here.

1.Dalits 2.Tribals 3.Transgenders 4.Sexual workers 5.Slum Dwellers

Those who wish to present papers in the seminar are requested to mail their abstracts (300 words) to english.mespni@gmail.com. Acceptance of the abstract will be intimated after a screening process. The soft and hard copies of the full papers (2500-4000, Latest MLA style) should be sent before the due date.

Dates to Remember

Last date for the receipt of abstracts: 20 October 2015

Intimation of selected abstracts: 25 October 2015

Last date for the submission of full papers: 25 November 2015

Abstract and Paper Format

The author's name, designation, name of the institution, email, telephone number and the address for communication should be specified on the right side just below the title.

Typing space should be 1.5

Font type: Times New Roman

Font Size: 14 for title and 12 for normal text

Contact Details

Ameera. V.U, Assistant Professor, Department of English Ph: +91 9961314545

Looking forward to your response

Abdul Ali.T.M Ameera. V.U

HOD English Convenor

Thanks & Regards:

Abu Saleh

PhD Research Scholar @ Centre for Comparative Literature (CCL)

School of Humanities, University of Hyderabad (UoH), India.
Mobile: +91 94 94 24 26 45