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(N.A.A.C. Accredited "B") |
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Y. S. Arts & K. S. Shah Commerce College, D' Baria |
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National Conference on “Post-Modernism in Indian English literature”
‘Postmodernism’, a disputed term that has occupied much recent debate about contemporary culture since the early 1980s. In its simplest and least satisfactory sense it refers generally to the phase of 20th century Western Culture that succeeded the rein of high modernism, thus indicating the products the age of mass television since the mid- 1950s. As applied to literature and other arts, the term is notoriously ambiguous, implying either that modernism has been superseded or that it has continued into a new phase. Post Modernism maybe seen as a continuation of modernism’s alienated moods and disorienting techniques and at the same time as an abandonment of its determined quest for artistic coherence in a fragmented world: in very crude terms, where a modernist artist or writer would try to wrest a meaning from the world through myth , symbol, or formal complexity, the post modern greets the absurd or meaningless confusion of contemporary existence with a certain numbed or flippant indifference. The term cannot usefully serve as an inclusive description of all literature since 1950s or 1960s , but is applied selectively to those works that display most evidently the moods and disconnections described above. In the Post-1980 era Indian English Literature is marked by Post Modernism and can be profitably analysed in terms of Post- Colonial theory assiduously built up by Gareth Griffiths, Bill Ashcroft and Helen Tiffin basing upon Edward Said’s Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism. Important poets, novelists,shortstory writers and dramatists in the post-1980 period include the names of Nissim Ezekiel, A.K.Ramanujan,Jayant Mahapatra, Kamala Das , Shiv K. Kumar, Keki N.Daruwalla,Dom Moraes, Amitav Ghose,Shashi Tharoor,Upamanyu Chatterjee,Shashi Deshpande, Anita Desai,Vikram Seth, Ruskin Bond,Vikram Chandra,Arundhati Roy,Manju Kapur,Raj Kamal Jha,Manoj Das,Hari Kunzru and a few others. Postmodern Indian English Literature has come up age. It successfully meets the challenges of the Bhasa literatures at home and Postcolonial literature and Anglo-American Literatures abroad. Indian English Literature has transcended ‘the local’ and transformed it into global. And that is the hallmark of good literature. This brings to our mind Eliot’s observation: “True literature has something which can be appreciated by intelligent foreigners who have a reading knowledge of the language, and also something which can only be understood by the particular people living in the same place as the author”. Postmodern Indian English literature has vindicated Eliot’s observation in letter and spirit. The National Level Conference on “Post-Modernism in Indian English literature” will be devoted purely to the basic literary qualities of Indian English literary works of the Post-1980s.
Aims/Objectives: · To impart and share knowledge about Postmodernism in Indian English literature · To motivate participants to be research oriented in this area. · To create awareness regarding the latest thinking about Postmodern Indian English literature. · To make participants aware of current research trends in post-modernism. · To make students aware of current trends in Indian English Literature, especially in the modern context. · Since our college is situated in tribal belt, we would like to make ourselves in contact with the scholars in this area. · Many post-modern Indian writers such as Arundhati Roy, Girish Karnad, Mahesh Dattani, et al have become world-widely popular especially in their post-modern sensitivity. The conference will be mainly focused on such creative artists. · To develop aptitudes of the students through exchanges of ideas with the experts. · Post-modern Indian writers are mainly concerned about Indian sensibility in post-modern era and that sensibility is essential for us to comprehend. Thus, the conference will be fruitful in this regard. · Today, there is a powerful impact of Western Culture on Indian society. The post-modern writers have tried to make people aware of that culture and written about their being alienated from the Oriental Culture. · Though it is believed that post-modernism deals with the Western literature, the Indian writers of the post-1980s have remained completely aloof from that tendency and devoted to only Indian sensibility connected with the post-modern era. The entire conference will also try to find out such tendency. |