'Vernaculars Underground: Histories, politics, aesthetics' a talk by Dr. Brinda Bose & Dr. Prasanta Chakravarty at Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML), Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg > 9am on 7th & 8th March 2014

Time : 9:00 am onwards

Entry : Free (Seating on First-Come First-Served basis)

Place : Seminar Room, Library Building, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML), Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg, New Delhi - 110011
Venue Info :  Events | About | Map | Nearest Metro Station - 'Race Course(Yellow Line)'

Event Description : The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library cordially invites you to a Conference on ‘Vernaculars Underground: Histories, politics, aesthetics’ in association with Dr. Brinda Bose and Dr. Prasanta Chakravarty, Marg Humanities and University of Delhi, Delhi.

Abstract : Is it possible to create something of a larger platform for humanities studies by stepping outside of academia to think about it more rigorously, clearly, reflexively? Can we think about arts and literature through ways and means that are calm and raw, capricious and angry, and yet deeply analytical and sensual? Can we ponder and underline afresh the visceral and expansive political core that the humanities bequeath us along with an edgy sense of aesthetics, in these times of grandstanding, networking and spinning fashions? Is it at all possible to talk about literary movements in times of globalization, or are people who are passionate about the humanities destined to remain independent, sectarian and fractious? There are remainders and reminders around us. We just choose not to see them. Or we may be unaware of them, but certain people do exist in our part of the world—those who have been able to keep out of circuits of power and influence and be invested in local causes and commitments, and given their lives to full blooded love of literature. Not naively, but sometimes with a detached zeal, and sometimes with a sense
of immediacy and urgency. They have paid a price for their convictions. Our academia and our festivals have been successfully able to keep them out of important venues and podiums. Political parties have been mostly wary of their ways and methods. They have sometimes been persecuted and ostracised. Often they have lived strange lives—suspended. But indomitable souls that they are, they have been able to channel their endless energy into creative pursuits, in ventures hitherto un-thought of. Their silent commitment to the humanities is easily revealed when they wield pens to create poems touched by magic, when they talk and walk, when they come together to write a collective manifesto. They still believe in humour and tragedy. They meet personal and social conflict and antagonism headlong. They detest civility. They affirm life, above all. Therefore we shall shun all forms of goodness. And eschew the podium and arc-light culture on March 7th and 8th at the NMML. We shall expend our energies instead on thrashing out some difficult questions about the world of little magazines, blogs and other minimal literary practices in contemporary South Asia. And drawing upon those debates, try and find entry points into larger questions of and about the humanities. We will have two days of literary and political adda —on the very nature and idea of underground literature in India and its prospects.
We hope to provide a platform where we can exchange notes and tactics for future directions in the humanities, where we can have a serious give and take about our craft and job, but by looking outside of institutionalized academia for our concerns. We shall de-academize academia as we know it and as most of us practice it. We shall have editors, writers and bloggers from Uttaranchal, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Assam, Kerala, Delhi and Bangladesh at ‘Vernaculars Underground: Histories, Politics, Aesthetics’.

Related Events : Talks