The First Interactive Workshop on Narrative Studies

Centre of Advanced Study (Phase II)
Department of Comparative Literature
Jadavpur University
Kolkata

January 18, 2012 


The Centre of Advanced Study (Phase II), Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University will be organizing a one day National workshop on “Following Forkhead Paths: Discussions on the Narrative” on January 18, 2012.

The workshop would locate ‘narrative’ within a wider cultural framework, across spatial and temporal dimensions. Where do narrative traditions come from? And what purpose do they serve?
The Workshop will focus on the Narrative as a form of ordering and cognition in any medium : language, visual media, performance or film. The questions that we would like to address are
How does a narrative tradition reconfigure experience, and establish/ rupture normative aspects of life worlds?
How does one narrative tradition accommodate another, what are the dynamics of accommodation and reception, what are the elements of a narrative tradition that produce it as a separate repertoire or interconnects one tradition with the other?
What are the premises behind categorizations and modes of fabrication of the ‘text’?

The objective of the Workshop would be to reinvent the epistemological issues regarding narrative theory and traditions that would in turn, provide direction in the understanding Narrative as a cognitive operation through  comparative literature methodology. The workshop aims to invite interdisciplinary dialogues on the dynamic nature of the narrative and how different narrative traditions form their own kind of theory, highlighting certain aspects of their social construction at the expense of others and the negotiations involved in literary and cultural transactions. The larger aim of the project, of which the workshop is a part,  aims to look at the potential relationship between and futures for diverse narrative traditions.

A 200 word abstract (in Bangla or English) of the paper proposed for presentation must be sent together with the mail indicating interest in participating in the Workshop at narrativeworkshopju2012@gmail.com by 30th October 2011. Acceptance of papers will be communicated latest by 20th November 2011. Full text of the paper will be expected by 31st December, 2011. Selected papers would be published. The workshop encourages participants to seek travel and accommodation funds from their home institutions. 


Contact Persons:
Dr. Sudip Bhattacharya, Reader in English, Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira, Belur Math, Howrah (caespitose@yahoo.co.in)
Ms. Epsita Halder, Assistant Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, Kolkata (epsita.halder@gmail.com)
Dr. Debashree Dattaray, Assistant Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, Kolkata (debashreedattaray@gmail.com)