The Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago is pleased to announce the Second Biennial Norman Cutler Conference on South Asian Literature (COSAL), featuring noted Hindi author Manzoor Ahtesham.
Manzoor Ahtesham will talk about his work and his experience as both a Hindi writer and a ‘Muslim writer’ in Hindi. The program also features a bilingual reading from his novels.
Bridging the Hindi-Urdu divide, the event brings together a group of eminent scholars of Hindi and Urdu. Their papers will cover a range of topics relating to contemporary Hindi and Urdu prose fiction, its themes and aesthetics. The conference will explore the historical and social experience of Indian Muslims from a literary perspective, examine the construction of community identity, and address how the contested issue of Hindu-Muslim relations is represented in various literary writings from the nineteenth century to the present day.
The keynote lecture will be given by Shamim Hanfi, Professor emeritus of Urdu, Jamia Millia Islamia (New Delhi).
The 2009 COSAL is sponsored by the University of Chicago's Committee on Southern Asian Studies and the Franke Institute for the Humanities.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**UPDATE**
Click for:
-Complete conference video and audio
-Photos
The Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago is pleased to announce the first biennial Norman Cutler Conference on South Asian Literature (COSAL), which in 2007 will feature the Tamil author “Salma” [R.A. Rokkiah, b. 1968], a Muslim woman who has recently catapulted into public controversy over her frank poetry on the female body.
The 2007 COSAL will also include a presentation by the eminent Tamil cultural historian and literary scholar A.R. Venkatachalapathy, Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies in Chennai. Additionally, the conference will host Lakshmi Holmström, recently of the University of East Anglia, a renowned translator of Tamil fiction who is currently finishing a translation of Salma’s first novel, Late Night Story.
COSAL will also feature the screening of a new documentary film on Salma and three other female Tamil poets, SheWrite (dir. Anjali Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar, India 2005). Lectures and panel discussions on contemporary Tamil literature will also feature Bernard Bate of Yale University (Anthropology), Paula Richman of Oberlin College (Religion) and Chicago SALC faculty Tamil specialists Sascha Ebeling, James Lindholm, and David Shulman. Sam Sudanandha of Columbia University (Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures) and U of C SALC faculty members Valerie Ritter and Yigal Bronner will also contribute to the proceedings.
The 2007 COSAL is co-sponsored by the University of Chicago Committee on Southern Asian Studies, Division of the Humanities, Franke Institute for the Humanities, South Asia Language and Area Center, Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, and Center for Gender Studies.