Colloque : India and the Indian Diasporic Imagination

You can find more details (abstracts, bios) and registration forms to download on the website: http://recherche.univ-montp3.fr/pays_anglophones, Then go to 'Colloques' and scroll down.

INDIA AND THE INDIAN DIASPORIC IMAGINATION : 1-4 APRIL, 2009
Cerpac (EA 741)- Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier 3, France

A partnership between the Cerpac (Research Centre for the Commonwealth, EA 741, Montpellier 3), the Caribbean Studies Centre (London Metropolitan University, UK), Desi (Diasporas : Research Centre on Indian Specificities / EA 4196 Climas, Bordeaux3), RIRRA 21 (EA4209, Montpellier 3), the Department of History of Purdue University (USA) ; with the support of the Embassy of France in India ; In collaboration with la Ville de Montpellier, the Club International Universitaire and the bookshop Sauramps.



PROVISIONAL PROGRAMME

WEDNESDAY 1 APRIL (Maison des Relations Internationales)
1 :30 pm : OFFICIAL OPENING by the Vice-President of International
Relations at Paul Valéry University (Auditorium du Musée Fabre)
2 pm: Plenary session on cinema. Chair: Pr Jean-François Baillon (Bordeaux III).
. Binita J. Mehta (Manhattanville College, Purchase, USA): “Bhaji, Curry, and Masala: Food and/as Identity in South Asian Diasporic Cinema”
. Rosa Maria Garcia Periago (University of Murcia, Spain): « A Part of Oneself Dies Abroad, and One Is Eternally in Search of it: Hybridity and Diaspora in Pseudo Bollywood film Bollywood Queen »
. Soraya Santamaría-Navarro (University of Oviedo, Spain) : “Earth: the Narrative of Partition Relived from the Distance of the Diaspora”

Coffee break

. Zeenat Saleh (Besançon University, France): “ Mississippi Masala : a case study in forced hybridity”
. Paul Daniel Veyret (University of Bordeaux III, France): “I See Dead People: M Night Shyamalan's cinema”

4.30 to 5.30 pm: CINEMA ROUND TABLE chaired by Jean-François Baillon, Harsh Kapoor, Vijay Mishra and Christian Viviani

6 pm Welcoming cocktail dinner
7 to 9 pm: Screening of Masala (Auditorium du Musée Fabre)


THURSDAY 2 APRIL
9am: Plenary session on Representations and modes. Chair: Dr Judith Misrahi-Barak (Montpellier III)
. Tithi Bhattacharya with Bill Mullen (Purdue University, USA): “Locating the Local in Diaspora”
. Catherine Pesso-Miquel (University of Lyon II, France): “Unseen Cities : Representations of the Diasporic Experience in Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers”
. Guillaume Cingal (François Rabelais University, Tours, France): « Epistolary Modes & Diasporic Nodes in C.B. Divakaruni’s “Mrs Dutta Writes a Letter »

Coffee break

.Florence Cabaret (Rouen University, France): “From the page to the screen: Diasporic Variations on India in The Namesake by Jumpa Lahiri (2004) and Mira Nair(2007)”
. Deepika Bahri (Emory University, USA): "A Tale of Two Cities: The Aesthetics of Diasporic Space in Mira Nair's The Namesake”
11:30 am: Keynote Speaker, Pr Vijay Mishra (Murdoch University, Perth, Australia):
“In the Arcade of Hanuman House': Ghostly Spectres in the Diaspora”

AFTERNOON 1 : Indian Diasporic spaces. Chair: Pr Tithi Bhattacharya (Purdue University)
. Louise Harrington (SOAS, UK): “An-Other Space: Diasporic responses to Partition in Bengal »
. Lise Guillamon (University Paris IV-Sorbonne): « The Diasporic Tongue of Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies »
. Delphine Munos (University of Liège, Belgium): “Zigzagging Paths to Self-Transformation: Mapping Out the “Time Zones” of Diaspora in Desirable Daughters by Bharati Mukherjee”
. Irma Maini (New Jersey City University, USA): “Food Codes in Jhumpa Lahiri’s short stories”

AFTERNOON 2 : The Indian subcontinent in Canada. Chair: Pr Gulshan Taneja (Delhi University)
. Nancy Batty (Red Deer College, Canada): “Apocalypse Then: Communal Violence and Diasporic Time in M.G.Vassanji`s The Assassin`s Song”
. Chun Fu (Ching Yun University, Taiwan): “The (Im)possibility of Backtracking in M. G. Vassanji’s The In-Between World of Vikram Lall”
. Busolo Wegesa (Moi University, Kenya) with Godwin Siundu (Western University College of Science and Technology, Kenya): “Groups, City-Spaces and the Ambivalence of Modernities: Reading Nairobi and Dar-Es-Salaam as Heterotopias in Dawood and Vassanji’s Novels”
. Faith Pullin (University of Edinburgh, UK): “Double Displacement in the writing of Rohinton Mistry: the Parsi community in Tales from Firozsha Baag”
. Veronica Thomson (Athabasca University, USA): “From Komagata Maru to Kanishka:The Indian Diaspora in Canada in Anita Rau Badami’s Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?”
. Pascal Zink (Paris IV La Sorbonne): “The Inheritance of Hell in Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost and Romesh Gunesekera’s Heaven’s Edge”

6 to 7 pm: Reading by Romesh Gunesekera, introduced by Judith Misrahi-Barak and Alexis Tadié (Auditorium)


FRIDAY 3 APRIL

Cultural Modes of Memory. Chair: Pr Deepika Bahri (Emory University)
. Amar Wahab (York University, Canada): «Colonial Governmentality and Indentureship: A Genealogy of ‘Coolie’ subjectivity in the Early Post-Emancipation Caribbean »
. Shubhra Tripathi (Govt. MVM College, Bhopal, India) “Diasporic Ramayana: A Confluence of Cultures”
. C.S. Biju (St. Thomas College, Thrissur Kerala, India): “Indian Diaspora and the Performance of Cultural Memory-Production, Performance and the Politics of Representation in Theatres of Indian Diaspora in Britain”

Coffee break

.Alexis Tadie (University of Paris-Sorbonne, France): “Is cricket a fictional sport?”
. Selwyn R. Cudjoe (Wellesley College, USA): “Modes of Indian Literature in the Diaspora: Trinidad and Tobago”
11.30 am: Keynote Speaker, Pr Clem Seecharan (London Metropolitan University, UK):
“Mother India’s Shadow over El Dorado: The Shaping of the Indo-Guyanese Imagination”

AFTERNOON 1
Urban spaces. Chair: Harsh Kapoor
. John McLeod (University of Leeds, UK) “Hanif Kureishi and the Fortunes of Diasporic London”
. Maria S. D. Alexandru (University of Bucharest, Romania): “Provincialising London in Vikram Chandra’s Novel Red Earth and Pouring Rain”
. Sabine Lauret (Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle, France):“The “Going Home Syndrome” in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane”

Coffee break

There and Back
. Meg Samuelson (Stellenbosch University, South Africa): “Crossing the Kala Pani: Citizenship and Belonging in Post-Apartheid South Africa Indian Narratives”
. Betty Govinden (University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa): “Satyagraha and The Indian Diasporic Imagination - with particular reference to South African writings on Gandhi"
. Nalini Mohabir (Leeds University, UK) “Return Journeys in the Indo-Caribbean Diaspora”

From the Caribbean to Mauritius. Chair: Pr Jean-François Durand (Montpellier III)
. Felicity Hand Cranham (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain): “The Construction of Indianness in the Mauritian Imagination”
. Srilata Ravi (University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia): “Indians in Mauritius: national and postnational identities”
. Valerie Magdelaine (Université de La Réunion): “Un retour du discours des origines : L’écriture ethnographique comme réparation de la perte de l’Inde dans quelques romans francophones antillais et réunionnais de l’engagisme”

Coffee break

. Maria Mar Garcia Lopez (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Espagne): « Poétique du Postexotisme cbez Ananda Devi : Lecture de Soupir »
. Asha Pande (University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, India) “Le corps et la souffrance dans l’écriture féminine de l’Ile Maurice”
. Véronique Bragard (Université de Louvain, Belgium): «’Dualité irreversible? Négritude! Coolitude!’”: quête identitaire dans l’oeuvre de Laure Moutoussamy »

6 to 7 pm: Reading by Khal Torabully, introduced by Véronique Bragard (Auditorium)


SATURDAY 4 APRIL
Chair: Dr Rita Christian (London Metropolitan University)
. Simone Alexander (Seton Hall University, New Jersey, USA): “Two Bo-rat can’t live in the same hole”: Revis(ion)ing Indo-Caribbean Female Subjectivity
. Adlai Murdoch (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA): “Doubling Difference: Writing the Franco-Indo-Caribbean Experience”
. Laurel Steele (Career diplomat, Afghanisthan): « Writing Class with Mr Khan : No Luncheon at Longchamps for the Jumbie Bird »

Coffee break
. Kerstin Shands (University College, Stockholm, Sweden): “Hyperfabula of Gains and Losses: Immanent-Transcendent Narrative Perspective in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss”
. Corinne François-Deneve (University of Liverpool, UK): « Vijay Singh or Choosing Paris »
. 12 am-1 pm: WRITERS’ ROUND TABLE, chaired by Rita Christian and Judith Misrahi-Barak, with Romesh Gunesekera, Lakhsmi Persaud, Vijay Singh,Khal Torabully

AFTERNOON 1
Memory, Loss & Trauma. Chair: Pr Prudence Layne (Elon University)
. Sophie Croisy (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France): “Unveiling Everyday Traumas: migrations in Shani Mootoo's Cereus
Blooms at Night”
. Jennifer Yusin (Drexel University, USA): “Crossing the Shadow Lines: Trauma,
Fragmentation, and the Impossibility of Return”
. Savitri Ashok (Middle Tennessee State University, USA): “Anamnesis and Amnesia: Salman Rushdie's ImagiNation in The Moor’s Last Sigh”

Coffee break
The Old and the New. Chair: Dr Binita Mehta (Manhattanville College, Purchase)
. Claude Chastagner (Montpellier III, France): “Bhangra, the sound of the Indian Diaspora: A new paradigm for US-Indian relationships?”
. Charu Uppal (University of South Pacific): “Old Diasporas, Media and Cultural Identity”
. Pia Mukherji (Independent scholar): “Cyberlogs, Desi Diasporas, and the Postfeminist Debate”

Coffee break
Indo-Caribbean women in Literature/ Art/Culture. Chair: Pr Simone Alexander (Seton Hall University, New Jersey)
. Mariam Pirbhai (Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario, Canada): Re-Casting Jahaji-Bhain: A Survey of the Indo-Caribbean Women’s Novel, 1990-2009”
. Brenda Gopeesingh (Hindu Women's Organisation (HWO) of Trinidad and Tobago): “Identity, Spirituality and Activism in the Art of Bernadette Persaud”
. Joy Mahabir (SUNY, NY, USA): “Silent Archives: Indo-Caribbean Women’s Jewelry”
. Myriam Moïse (Montpellier III, France): “The Diasporic Gendered Subject in and out of Space in Lakshmi Persaud’s Butterfly in the Wind and Sastra”

4 to 5 pm: Reading by Lakshmi Persaud, introduced by Rita Christian and Myriam Moïse
6 to 8 pm: Screening of One Dollar Curry + debate with Vijay Singh