Lecture Series
In an effort to bridge the academic gap that occurred due to the pandemic, the department initiated a series of lectures aimed at the student community. As the pandemic opened doors for academic exchanges to thrive in digital spaces of the internet, the lecture series, that was held online, was able to introduce students with a number of academics, poets and authors from across the nation and the world to enable them learn from some of the best minds amidst us.
The first lecture was held on 29th October, 2021. It was delivered by Dr. Sayan Dey, Postdoctoral Fellow at Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, University of Witwatersrand. He is also the Head of Gender Equality Mandate, Center for Regional Research and Sustainability Studies, India. Dr. Dey’s research interests include postcolonial studies, decolonial studies, race studies, food humanities and critical diversity literacy. The title of his talk was “Systemic Racism in the Higher Education Institutions in India.” Usually, discourses on racism in India are silenced as non-textual and irrelevant. Amongst many reason, one of the major reasons for this collective reluctance to accept the habitual practice of racism in India is what scholars like W.E.B. Dubois, Lewis R. Gordon, Sabelo J. Nldovu-Gatsheni, Olivia U. Rutazibwa, and many others argue as a failure to understand the transition of racism from the ‘color line’ to the ‘epistemic line.’ A majority of discourses on racism in India continue to revolve around the matrix of black/white dichotomy. Such a restricted perception of racism systemically, epistemically and institutionally hides the ‘other’ aspects of racism like communal racism, geographical racism, anatomical racism, culinary racism, pedagogical racism, curricular racism, etc. With respect to these arguments, the lecture unpacked how the educational institutions in India racialize, marginalize, and dehumanize the social, cultural and intellectual voices of selective communities.
The second lecture of the series was delivered by noted author and translator Aruni Kashyap on 20th November, 2021. He is an Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing and the Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Georgia, Athens. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Faculty Research Grants in the Humanities and Arts Program, Arts Lab Faculty Fellowship, and the Charles Wallace India Trust Scholarship for Creative Writing to the University of Edinburgh. His books include His Father’s Disease: Stories, The House With a Thousand Stories and an edited volume called How to Tell the Story of an Insurgency. The title of Aruni’s lecture was “Northeast Indian or Assamese: Beyond the Confines of Indian English Literary Conventions.” The talk highlighted the complexities of choice while choosing to write as a Northeast Indian or Assamese and the problematics of identity. It addressed the dynamics of the insider/outside position of the writer from the region whose spatial location facilitates objective story-telling but also invites suspicion with regards to the authenticity of representation.
The third lecture of the series titled “The Leave to Describe: Sananta Tanti’s Missive” was delivered on 20th December 2021 by eminent academician and translator and former head of the Department of English, Cotton College, Pradip Acharya. The talk was a tribute to noted poet and Sahitya Akademi awardee Sananta Tanti who had passed away on 25 November 2021. Sri Acharya situated Tanti a voice of dissent that, through poetry, told stories of the poor and the downtrodden. He highlighted the key features on Tanti’s works that addressed corruption in public life, unemployment, poverty and hunger. The rawness of Tanti’s verse together with his radical thoughts and observations established him as a compelling poet of the present times.
Rashmi Narzary was the fourth speaker of the series. Her talk was titled “Weaving of Contemporary Fiction into Historical Facts” and the event was held on 21st January 2022. Rashmi Narzary won the Sahitya Akademi for English Children's Literature in 2016 for her book His Share of Sky. Her debut novel, Bloodstone: Legend of the Last engraving, is an academically acclaimed work that has inspired much debate and discussion on the integration of folklore and literature in the contemporary times. The lecture delved into the importance of folklore in structuring and comprehending the cultural practices of societies at large. It also laid stress on the significance of folk practices in the existing era of climate change and ecological disasters and posited literature as a platform for dialogue and deliberations on the present human crisis.
The fifth lecture of the series titled “Why I Write” was delivered on 25th February 2022 by Mitra Phukan, a writer, translator, columnist and trained classical vocalist. Her works include four children’s books, a biography, novels and a volume of stories from Assam titled The Greatest Assamese Stories Ever Told. Phukan’s talk bordered on the personal as she dived into her own experiences of writing to give a glimpse of the process that included varied methodologies and research processes. Fiction, for Phukan, is a reflection of her own experiences and outlook towards the various events that shaped her life.
Mona Zote, a dominant voice in North East poetry, gave the sixth lecture of the series on 30th March 2022. Her talk was titled “Poetry is a One-Armed Chair.” Describing herself as a poet “disguised as a government employee” Zote poetry voices the angst and despair of the people of Mizoram, and the North East, troubled as they are with frequent episodes of violence and conflict.