National Seminar at University of Kashmir - 2015

A national seminar was arranged by the Department of English of University of Kashmir at Ghandhi Bhavan auditorium on the topic of Revisiting Literary Classics in the Postmodern Secular World on October 21 -22, 2015.

The two day seminar was lead by the Prof G R Malik, former Dean Faculty of Arts, University of Kashmir and ex-head host department.

Speaking about the topic Prof Hameedah Nayeem, the incumbent head of English department, said, “there are significant voices claiming the death of literature because a stodgy post ‘Nietzchean’ world seems incapable  of thinking or imagining grandly as the postmodern age with its ‘incredulity towards all narratives’ is incapable  of sustaining grand visions and grand narratives.”

“The rise of a number of new perspectives in criticism - from cultural materialism to new historicism to deconstruction to neo-colonialism and a number of neo-Marxist appropriations of traditional critical approaches - are all wedded to a certain form of de-canonization discourse. 

Prof Hameedah further said that it is no longer learning profound truths about life and salvation and creative delight that used to be experienced in classrooms and in literary gatherings. “The Classics are suspected and their halo disrobed. At present literature is indeed fighting to survive in the desacralized context.With incredulity towards all narratives of emancipation and in its obsession with the ontologies of the singular and the cult of surfaces.

Prof Sridhar Rajeswaran presented a comprehensive keynote address dwelling on ancient to modern classics and cinematographic representations of the old classics and explained how old classics could be adopted in the postmodern age.

Prof G R Malik said that postmodern “sensibility and classics” are intrinsically opposed to each other and hence classics are disrobed by modern critics. “But timeless classics will always transcend time and be relevant to all those who look for them,” he asserted.

Source: Riyaz Khaliq, click4college Specialist