Guest Post
by
Tracy Isaacs*
The Sahitya’s International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Feminist and Gender Studies in a Global Perspective took place in Puducherry, a coastal city in South India, February 8-11, 2018. I was privileged to attend this wonderful conference as one of seven plenary speakers.
The Sahitya describes itself as “a hub of faculty, scholars and lovers of literature, language, and culture — an exciting and innovative platform of Namaste Educational Academy (NEA) to debate and discuss contemporary literary trends that rejuvenate, formulate and shape the academia.” The Satiya operates out of the Namaste Educational Academy, which “aims to foster and create a learning environment for international students, faculty, and scholars.” The International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Feminist and Gender Studies in a Global Perspective was the first major international conference that The Satiya has organized and was a major success on every measure.
[Description of image below (backslash indicates a line break): Group shot of 26 people, mostly women, in three rows, with a chandelier above them and a banner behind them that says “NAMASTE EDUCATIONAL ACADEMY / Puducherry” and “The Sahitya’s / Interdisciplinary and International Conference on / FEMINIST AND GENDER STUDIES IN A / GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE” and in smaller print “8-11 February 2018 / Venue: Hotel Bon Sejour, Puducherry 605 005]
The conference came together through the heroic persistent efforts and hard work of Dr. Kalapana Roa, a Professor at the University of Pondicherry, and Ms. Manimozhi, Director of the Namaste Educational Academy. They were assisted by a team of graduate students and colleagues, and the result was an occasion to remember.
Kalpana is a feminist literary scholar who did her PhD at the University of Alberta on the work of the brilliant Canadian author Alice Munroe. When Kalpana came to Western University for two weeks as a visiting scholar a couple of years ago, I was invited to attend a small dinner with her and three of my colleagues in English: Nandi Bhatia, Julia Emberley, and Teresa Hubel. Over North Indian food at Massey’s Restaurant in London, Ontario, we expressed an interest in visiting her at the University of Pondicherry. She said, “Leave it with me.”
In a short time, the wheels were in motion and we were invited to participate in The Sahitya’s first international and interdisciplinary conference on the theme of feminist and gender studies in a global perspective. Since that was about a year before the conference, we had plenty of time to get ourselves organized for what turned out to be an outstanding event and a remarkable experience, in an incredible part of the world, where there is a lively community engaging in feminist scholarship.
The conference was held at the Hotel Bon Sejour, Puducherry, which is also where we stayed, making it extra easy to get to sessions. We were offered the warmest welcome you can imagine, with a beautiful dinner party at Kalpana’s house the night before the event got underway. Kalpana, Mani, and their team of students and colleagues went out of their way to ensure that we were well looked after, even organizing a day trip after the final session on February 11.
Below I give an overview of the conference. Since the conference extended over four packed days, I can’t possibly go into every detail of the presentations. I end the overview with my overall impressions of the event and how it expanded my understanding of the type of feminist and gender studies scholarship that is happening in other parts of the world.
I’ve saved the full program as a PDF in google, and you can access it with this link.
____________________________________________________
Conference Report
The first evening of the conference consisted of two plenary sessions that introduced me to two Indian writers, Bama and C.S. Lakshmi, who writes under the pen name Ambai. People were extremely excited to hear from Bama, who is a highly acclaimed Dalit feminist teacher and novelist. She spoke about Indian women writers and the caste system in India, articulating the intersectional point that the combination of gender and caste has a devastating impact on the lives of Dalit women in India. Lakshmi is doing important work on a women’s history archive and she presented an overview of that work in her talk.
Days two and three of the conference each involved a number of 30-minute plenary sessions (20 minutes speaking and 10 minutes Q&A), each with one speaker, and 60- minute “technical sessions,” which were themed sessions of four papers, where people had 10-12 minutes to present. Q&A followed the four presentations. Time keeping was quite strict, with an alarm buzzer indicating when the technical paper presenters were nearing the end of their time, and PhD candidate Saniya moving things along from one session to the next. They were long days, but the diversity of talks and the energy of the Q&As kept our attention.
The plenaries and sessions covered a vast range of topics. From “Remembering the 1947 Partition in Canada” (Nandi Bhatia) and “Indigenous Knowledges and Gendered Violence in Louise Erdich’s The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse,” to an examination of Indian surrogacy and the female body in Kishwas Desai’s Origins of Love (Remya Krishnan), and masculinities in a time of global feminisms (Rimika Singhvi). There were no less than nine technical sessions over the course of the weekend: 1. Body Politics and Sexuality; 2. Civil Society and Human Rights; 3. Diaspora, Transnationalism and Translation; 4. Feminist/Gender Theories; 5. Arts, Media, and Popular Culture; 6. Indigenous, Native, Minorities, and Sexuality; 6. Re-Look at Feminism and Gender; 7. Literary Contexts; 8. Literary Contexts; 9. Literature, Myth, Media.
On the final morning, we watched Indian filmmaker Leena Manimekelai’s “Is It Too Much to Ask,” a documentary about a pair of trans-women (identified as such for the purposes of the film, but to be understood more accurately as women) and the ordeal that they have had to go through trying to find an apartment to rent after they were evicted because their previous landlord learned they were trans-women. It’s a fascinating film, and the Q&A with Leena Manimekelai was one of the most animated and engaging sessions of the event.
The majority of speakers were faculty and graduate students from India, mostly, but not exclusively, from the University of Pondicherry, which is the local university where Kalpana and her students are based. In addition to the Canadian contingent, the program included scholars from Israel and Italy. At least half of the papers engaged in literary theory and analysis, but there were also papers in feminist theory, history, media analysis, and political theory/human rights theory.
Many of the Indian scholars, indeed most, invoked theoretical frameworks familiar to those of us working in Anglo-European traditions. But, in many cases, they made the theories relevant by applying them to Indian literary works, political issues such as caste and multiculturalism, and in more than one case, Indian theatre and dance. For me, this approach helped me tap into new ideas without pushing me completely outside of my theoretical comfort zone.
A friend once told me that no feminist gathering is complete without good food. If this is a condition, then the conference in Puducherry met it, and then some. The conference organizers, in addition to putting together an excellent conference program, kept us well fed, with regular tea breaks, and amply catered lunches of delicious South Indian cuisine.
Since returning, we have been in touch with Kalpana about the possibility of another conference next year, also on feminist and gender studies in a global context, with a slightly different theme than the first one. If you are interested in connecting with an active community of scholars in South India who work on feminist and gender studies, I highly recommend that you keep an eye out for the CFP and consider making the trip next February.
p.s. the day trip to the Mangrove forests in Pitchchavaram and the Nataraja Hindu Temple in Chidambaram on February 11th after the film screening was fantastic. I’ve included two photos from that trip.
[Description of image below: Five women in saris standing on a dock at the water’s edge watching a row boat with a stripe on the side and the number “91” painted in a circle on the back. A group of five men in life jackets and a guide are in the small boat. In the foreground of the picture, you can see metal railings on the dock with two tires hanging from them with ropes, acting as fenders for incoming boats.]
[Description of image below: A portion of the intricately carved and colourfully painted façade of the main entrance to the Nataraja Temple, with bright blue sky in the background and a bird coming in for a landing on the structure in the lower right corner of the frame.]
Part 1 of "Redefining Borders" is here.
*Tracy Isaacs is Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies and Feminist Research at Western University in Canada.
posted by Shelley
Comments