http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/43850Dalit Literatures In, Out and Beyond - Synopses by January 31, 2012
Series PoCoPages - Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée
contact email:
judith.misrahi-barak@univ-montp3.fr, joshilabraham@gmail.com
Dalit Literatures - In, Out and Beyond
Call for Contributions
Series PoCoPages, Coll. « Horizons anglophones »
Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée
http://www.pulm.fr/index.php/collections/horizons-anglophones/pocopages....
The history of Dalit literature can be traced back to centuries. But
Dalit literary/cultural expressions were never taken into
consideration due to the hegemonic nature of the field of literary
production. The emergence of Dalit as a political category and
identity coincide with the emergence of Dalit literature. Current
researches by scholars reveal the widespread character of Dalit
writings in various parts of India. Research also shows that Dalit
literature had long before acquired a distinct language through its
heterogeneous and plurivocal character which challenged dominant
literary canons. Dalit literature acquired a recognizable identity
towards the middle of the twentieth century. The term 'Dalit
literature' – 'Dalit' meaning oppressed, broken and downtrodden — came
into use officially in 1958 at the first conference on Dalit
literature in Mumbai. The emergence of the Dalit Panthers (a political
organisation formed in 1972 in Mahrastra) is a significant moment in
the history of Dalit literature which was furthered by various
political/literary movements across India.
Dalit literature for a long time was disregarded and not taken
seriously in the literary circles. The publication of translations
from modern Marathi literature entitled Poisoned Bread edited by Arjun
Dangle with a prefatory note by Gail Omvedt had already sparked
debates in the literary circles. Under the impulsion of such academics
as Arun Prabha Mukherjee (York University, Toronto) who translated
Omprakash Valmiki's Joothan (1997) into English in 2003 and wrote an
introduction to it, the initial reluctance to accept new literary
genres by the dominant literary discourses, has, over time, given way
to wider acceptance and circulation of Dalit literature in and outside
India. The recent volume on Dalit writings from two south Indian
states No Alphabet in Sight edited by Susie Tharu and K.
Satyanarayana, opens up a new debate on the long history of Dalit
literature and its current prominence in the contemporary scene of
literature and politics. It also shows how Dalit literature moves
beyond the usual discourses of literary modernity.
The debate between Gandhi and Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956), one
of India's foremost revolutionaries, an untouchable and a fierce
critic of Gandhi, is a major event in Indian history. Ambedkar
famously said 'Mahatma, I have no country'. Fictionists like Avinash
Dolas and others have explored the depth of this theme. This
discussion between Ambedkar and Gandhi has provoked debates on
nationhood and Hindu religion. The well-known book by D.R. Nagaraj,
The Flaming Feet, is a case in point. Although untouchability was
abolished with the 1950 Constitution of India (drafted by Ambedkar),
Ambedkar's experiences continue to be the lot of India's 170 million
Dalits today.
Dalit literature in its initial stages (and in a broader sense, even
today) was identified as specific protests directed against everyday
humiliations that individual dalits and Dalits as a community face. In
this context, contradictions between Marxism and progressive literary
movements (which works on larger abstractions) with Dalit literature
(and Dalit movements) have to be taken into serious consideration.
Most of the debates around/about Dalit Literature have failed to
adequately acknowledge the new vocabulary of imagination and
aesthetical sensibility produced by these literatures. Dalit
literature cannot be reduced to an engagement with victimhood. In the
hands of poets like S. Joseph, it has spawned new literary cannons by
disturbing the usual language available in the pre-existing canonical
literary circles. Dalit Literature today has established itself as a
new mode of literary/aesthetic imagination and writing.
The fact that John Berger, Arundhati Roy and Joe Sacco saluted the
publication of the graphic novel Bhimayana : Experiences of
Untouchability (Delhi: Navayana, 2011), may be the sign that something
is changing in the context of Dalit literatures. The visual, the
literary and the political dimensions closely intertwine in this
graphic biography of Ambedkar. The artists Durgabai Vyam and Subhash
Vyam, together with Srividya Natarajan and S. Anand for the story,
crafted a book that has broken new ground, not least because it did so
in a controversial way. The publication of Bhimayana could be a signal
that Dalit cultures are edging out of the restricted areas where they
were formerly circumscribed. This could also be an opportunity to
examine Dalit expression and literatures in a renewed way and from
different perspectives.
Far from concentrating on the historical, social and economic
circumstances of the untouchable communities that are described by
Dalit writers or non-Dalit writers (such as Raja Rao, Arundhati Roy or
Rohinton Mistry), the editors of the projected volume of PoCoPages
encourage contributions that will foreground the following issues:
- the linguistic questions linked to translation from regional Indian
languages into English and other international languages; more
generally the question of accessibility; questions linked to
sub-Indian and international distribution; magazines, books and the
web;
- the attention Dalit literatures are getting outside the limited
circles of activists in India and outside India; more generally the
question of reception; Dalit literature and its readership; who writes
for whom;
- the generic questions linked to the literary choices made by the
writers : poetry, short story, novel, autobiography, biography,
graphic novels, photo-journalism, recorded oral narratives, theatre,
etc; the poetics and politics involved in such literary choices;
- the gender question: male and female writers; male and female
readers; the relationship between caste and gender, in the specific
context of the Dalits;
- the relationship between Dalit literature and Dalit politics,
including the impact of literature on the social situations faced by
the untouchables; the transformative value of such literature and on
what grounds;
- the contact zones between Adivasi literature and Dalit literature;
- the marginalisation of minority Dalit literature (Christian, Muslim,
Sikh Dalit literature for instance);
- the resistance that Dalit literature is facing from dominant
literary groups and the legitimacy it is slowly being granted, or not;
- the pitfalls of literary fashion and stereotypes;
- Dalit literatures and the film industry (film adaptations,
documentaries, etc);
- the relationship between Dalit literatures and the Indian literary
canon; the relationship between Dalit literatures and other
literatures (postcolonial, African-American, subaltern and trauma
literatures, etc); intertextuality within Dalit literatures;
- the relationship between Marxism and Dalit literature, specifically
in terms of how the questions of class and caste overlap and conflict;
the perspective of Indian Marxists;
- Dalit self-writings and their specificities; narrative voice and perspective;
- last but not least, the problematics of inside and outside: writing
on or from a Dalit perspective; the academic perspective and the
non-academic perspective; the perspective of Indians, and Indian
writers, of the diaspora; the Indian and the non-Indian perspective;
bridging the western and the eastern perspective on Dalit writing.
PoCoPages is a peer-reviewed series in the collection "Horizons
anglophones" published by the Presses universitaires de la
Méditerranée (Pulm). India and the Diasporic Imagination is the latest
volume (2011).
http://www.pulm.fr/index.php/collections/horizons-anglophones/pocopages....
General Editor : Dr Judith Misrahi-Barak (Paul-Valéry University –
Montpellier 3, France).
This volume, to be published in 2013, will be co-edited with Joshil K.
Abraham (Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi). Please submit a 300-word
abstract with a short bio (200 words maximum) by January 31, 2012 to
Joshil K. Abraham and to Dr Judith Misrahi-Barak .
If the preliminary proposal is accepted, final essays (33,000
characters, spaces and footnotes included, bibliography on top) will
be due by May 31, 2012.
cfp categories:
journals_and_collections_of_essays
postcolonial
By web submission at 11/19/2011 - 13:04
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