Chandigarh February 22, 2020

        MELOW, the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the World hosted its 19th International Conference at Panjab University, Chandigarh from February 21 to 23, 2020. The theme of the conference was “CONNECTIONS/DISCONNECTIONS: LITERARY TRADITIONS, CONTINUITIES & DISRUPTIONS”. The conference aimed to discuss topics related to the timeless and the temporal in the world of literature, continuities and disruptions in the literary tradition, and the making and breaking of literary canons.

Day 2 of the conference had simultaneous sessions  held at multiple venues. Session III A was held at the Main Hall chaired by Nilakshi Roy. The Speakers included Satnam Singh and Jashanpreet who presented a paper
titled Gay or Queer Canon: Disrupting the Heterosexist Predominance of Mainstream Canon Formation, Ishita Sareen and Nitika Gulati collaborated on Graphic Narratives and Narrative of Graphics: Invading the Literary Canon and Sujata Thakur and Meenakshi Thakur’s  From Feminism to Womanism- Extending beyond Gender. The concluding paper was presented by Shruti Gaur titled Politics of the Best Seller and the Temporality of Tradition.

Session III B was held at Language Lab, 1st Floor chaired by Senath Walter Perera. The Speakers included Nipun Kalia who presented a paper titled The Gendered Myth: Queering of Mythology in Devdutt Pattanaik’s
Shikhandi and Other Tales They Don’t Tell you, Rashmi Sharma’s The Digital Mythologies of Mahabharata: A Study of Epic’s Memetic Adaptations. The concluding paper was presented by Shikha Pawar titled
The Shift in Narration: Centralization of Draupadi’s Perspective in Chitra Banerjee’s The Palace of Illusion

Session III C was held at the Smart Classroom, 2nd Floor chaired by Rimika Singhvi. The Speakers included Komil Tyagi who presented Narrative, Norms and Nation: Re-presentation of India’s oldest text as Sita-Ramayana, Manjinder Wratch’s  Making Heard the ‘Tree-speech’ and ‘Animal-speech’: A Reading of Sumana Roy’s Writings, and Tanvi Garg’s Beyond Boundaries: A Study of Githa Hariharan’s Selected Texts. The
concluding paper was presented by Shubh Lata titled Reworking on Mughal History: A Critical Analysis of Indu Sundaresan’s The Twentieth Wife.

Session III D was held at Ground Floor, Room No. 1 chaired by Manpreet Kang. Speakers included Mary Mohanty who presented Six Acres and a Third: A Timeless Novel of Thematic and Stylistic Innovations, and
Sayar Singh Chopra’s The Tribal Worldview: Community in Gopinath Mohanty’s The Paraja and Narayan’s Kocharethi.

Session III E was held at Ground Floor, Room no. 2 chaired by Meenu Gupta. Speakers included Bipasha Som who presented Locating Indian Literature, Neha Arora’s Contextualizing Dalit Literature: Defying the Existing, Anticipating New, Amandeep DES’s The Dark Rock of Indian History: Neglected Ex-Untouchables, and Jaishree Kapur’s Response to the Reception of Samskara: A Critical Journey. This was followed by a Tea Break.

Session IV A held at the Main Hall chaired by Eric Chinje. The Speakers consisted of Japanese Panel I i.e. Koharu Ogawa and 8 panelists who collaborated to present a paper titled Adaptations, Revisions, and Reworking of Landmark Texts: Japanese Adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

Session IV B held at Language Lab, 1st Floor was chaired by Roshanlal Sharma. The papers presented included Ravneet Gill Singh’s Rumi 2.0: Revamped and Rewired, Amandeep Kour’s Lal Ded and her Vaakhs: Revisiting the Mystic’s Perspective, Kuldeep Singh and JapPreet Bhangu’s Narrating Disruption: Selected Short Stories of Saadat Hasan Manto, and Kanika Bhalla’s Literature of a War-zone: Tracing the Evolution of Literary Traditions in Kashmiri Literature.

Session IV C was held at Smart Classroom, 2nd Floor chaired by Krishnan Unni. Speakers included Neela Sarkar who presented  Tintin in Academia, Kusumika’s Syncretic Continuities between Bengali Hindus and
Muslims: Historicizing Narratives Associated with the Worship of Bon Bibi and Asan Bibi, and Iqbal Baba’s Writing/Adapting Ghazal in English: A Select Study of Agha Shahid Ali’s Call Me Ismael Tonight.

Session IV D was held at Ground Floor, Room No. 1 chaired by Mukesh Williams. The papers presented included Debarati Bandyopahdyay’s Horizon of Expectations, Horizon of Change: Exploring the Canonical
Place of Sally Morgan’s My Place, Anita Sharma’s Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook: Transcending Golden Genders,  Rachit Verma’s Reading Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed (2016) as a Trans-textual Narrative, and
Aleena Achamma Paul’s Censorship, Sexuality, and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.

Session IV E was held at the Ground Floor, Room no. 2 chaired by Harpreet Vohra. The papers presented included Sango Bidani’s A History of the Cinematic Adaptations of Devdas in Hindi Language, Aparna
Pathak’s A Canon is Drawn: An Enquiry into Canon Formation in Comic Books, and Anirban Guha Thakurta’s May some useful Lesson Teach: A Study of the Continuities and Reversals of Traditions in The Anti-Slavery Alphabet (1846). This was followed by Lunch Break and a PLENARY SESSION.

This was followed by the ISAAC SEQUEIRA MEMORIAL LECTURE chaired by Tej Nath Dhar. The esteemed Speaker Senath Walter Perera discussed Sri Lankan Writing in English: The Search for an Elusive Canon.

The ISM AWARD Session was held which was chaired by Manju Jaidka. The papers competing for the prestigious award included Ashita Thakur’s Canon as Curriculum, Pia Bakshi’s Reimaginings: Hyphenated identities and Canons and Semanti Nandi’s George Egerton: Reclaiming the Subdued Voice of the Fin de Siècle.