Event Calendar
On Not Mentioning the Modern
The 7th Symposium in the Literary Activism series
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Presented by the Centre for Creative and the Critical, 51茶馆 and听, in partnership with The Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities (TORCH) and the India International Centre, Delhi.
As the mission statement says, one must wonder ‘why modernity, the modern, and modernism 鈥� terms that are by no means interchangeable, but which are related to each other 鈥� have largely vanished, in India, from critical discourse and the quest for self-knowledge. There鈥檚 not only a deep hostility to, and nervousness about, the modern; it has, in a sense, slipped out of language.’ This is true not only of India, but of other countries and contexts. They symposium hopes to generate a conversation about modernity and its elision.
It is open to all.
听
25th February听
Opening remarks听– 4.45-5 pm Indian Standard Time
Partha Mitter: ‘Swimming in the Waters of Modernity鈥� –听5.00-5.50pm
Kaiser Haq: ‘The Perpetual Catwalk of Modernity’听– 5.50-6.40 pm
Yi-Ping Ong: ‘Fictions of Modernity: An Immigrant Reads Joyce and Akutagawa’ – 6.45-7.35 pm
Laetitia Zecchini: ”Listening to Indian Poets: Explorations into Modernism as Struggle’ – 7.35-8.25 pm
Robert O鈥橫eally: ‘Unforgivable Jack Johnson: The Black Heavyweight’s Juneteenth’ – 8.30-9.20 pm
26th February听
Haun Saussy:听‘Modernist House-Cleaning’ – 10.30-11.20 am听Indian Standard Time
Marjorie Perloff: 听‘Modernism after Postmodernism’ – 11.20 am-12.10 pm
Jatindra Kumar Nayak: ‘Negotiating Modernity: The Emergence of the Essay in Odia Literature’ –听12.15-1.05 pm
Amit Chaudhuri: ‘Freedom and Invisibility: Literary Modernity in India’ – 1.05-1.55 pm
Closing remarks听–听1.55-2.15 pm
SPEAKERS
Kaiser Haq听is Professor of English at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. He is interested in writing poetry and non-fiction, and in literary translation. His books include听Published听in the Streets of Dhaka: Collected听Poems听and听The Triumph of the Snake Goddess.
Partha Mitter听is an author and art historian. He is Professor Emeritus at Sussex University. His books include听Much Maligned Monsters: History of European Reactions to Indian Art听(1977, 1992, 2013) and听The Triumph of Modernism: India鈥檚 Artists and the Avant-Garde 1922-1947(2007). He was awarded an honorary D Litt from the Courtauld Institute, London
Jatindra Kumar Nayak听retired as Professor of English, Utkal University, Odisha in 2016. He won the Hutch- Crossword Book Award in 2004. He has coedited听Critical Discourse in Odia, which was published by Routledge in 2021.
Robert G. O鈥橫eally听is the Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English at Columbia University, where he has served on the faculty for thirty years. Director of Columbia鈥檚 Center for Jazz Studies, O鈥橫eally is the author of听The Craft of Ralph Ellison, Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday, The Jazz Singers,听and听Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey.
Yi-Ping Ong听is Associate Professor of Comparative Thought and Literature at Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of听The Art of Being: Poetics of the Novel and Existentialist Philosophy听(Harvard University Press, 2018). Her work on nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy and literature has appeared in听PMLA,听Philosophy and Literature, Twentieth-Century Literature, Comparative Literature, nonsite,听and听Post45.
Marjorie Perloff听is the Sadie D. Patek Professor of Humanities Emerita at Stanford University.听She is the author of many books on 20th听and 21st听century Poetry and Poetics.听听Her most recent book is听Infrathin:An Experiment in Micropoetics (2021),and her edition/ translation of Wittgenstein鈥檚 Private Notebooks 1914-1916 is due out in April 2022.
Haun Saussy听is University Professor at the University of Chicago, teaching in the department of East Asian Languages & Civilizations and in the Committee on Social Thought. His work attempts to bring the lessons of classical and modern rhetoric to bear on several periods, languages, disciplines and cultures.听He is a former Guggenheim Fellow, a fellow of the American Academy in Berlin, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Laetitia Zecchini听is a research fellow at the CNRS in Paris, and visiting scholar at the Department of World Languages and Literatures at Boston University. She writes on contemporary Indian literature, especially poetry, postcolonial modernisms and the politics of literature.
Amit Chaudhuri听is a writer and musician. He is Professor of Creative Writing and Director of the Centre for the Creative and the Critical, 51茶馆. He is editor of听听and conceptualises and curates the ‘literary activism’ symposia.