OTC 2012

The Last Call ORALITY TALK CIRCULARITY International Conference

UGC-SAP (DRS-II) on “Indian & Cross-Cultural Approaches to Marginal Literatures”, Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi & Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate Programme in “Cultural Studies in Literary Interzones” at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India March 7-9, 2011

Conference program: http://wwwdata.unibg.it/dati/bacheca/1028/55290.pdf

In the beginning was the mouth… the circular orifice… the source of talk… of the word. Alas, this primordial chain of the orificial and the narrative – of tales flowing in and out of the circles of the oral and the aural –was to be apparently superseded by the protruding pen, the penetrating stylus that etches and records incessantly, in a bid to transgress the bondage of discourse to time. But was the oral indeed doomed to such a finitude, or did it – while being rendered marginal – exist in some plenitude unfathomable to the written word?Was it rather that a network of talk and circularity rendered the oral into the oracular, the marginal into the liminal – into a littoral entity potently outlasting the mere literal? It is to brainstorm over such questions that two cosmopolitan academic programmes have got together to host this conference in New Delhi. One – the UGC Special Assistance Programme at CES, JNU – is devoted to the study of marginal articulations across cultures, while the other – the Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate – is oriented towards the study of the liminal and the interzonal in culture. Converging on their common interests in the iterative and interzonal circularity of the otherwise often marginalized oral discursive forms – of talk itself, the two programmes invite scholars from all over the world to come to this conference with papers pertaining to the general area of oratures, oral cultures, and orality.

Papers could focus on any aspect of oral discursive production, circulation and consumption, but those dealing with aspects of marginality and liminality, of the cross-cultural and the interzonal within oral cultures and diverse forms of talk will be particularly appreciated. All disciplines (in the fields of comparative literature, performing arts, visual culture, cultural anthropology…) and all periods can be considered.

Proposals, not exceeding 500 words, are to be sent before December 15, 2011, to the following e-mail addresses: sap_ces@gmail.com; drgeere@free.fr; gjvprasad@yahoo.com; bhaduris@hotmail.com. Selected applicants will be notified by January 15th, 2012 of the acceptance of their proposals.

All outstation delegates invited for the conference will be provided local hospitality, in the form of accommodation and meals, by the organizers, while outstation delegates from within India will also be provided suitable reimbursement of their travel expenses, as per rules. The organizers regret to inform that it will not be possible for them to reimburse travel expenses of delegates coming from abroad.