English Studies
Otherwise, think other-wise!
Speakers at the Second International Conference "Thinking Other-wise with/in English Studies," held at Jahangirnagar University on May 13-14, 2011, detected a crisis in humanism and emphasized the need for reshaping English departments. The purview of English Studies has to be rethought and redesigned in order to prioritize various objectives of teaching English at a university level, they opined.
Speaking as the chief guest, Chairman of the University Grants Commission Prof AK Azad Chowdhury pointed out that the lack of language proficiency was forcing us to lose our competitive edge in the global arena. He urged English departments to streamline their curricula to address real needs in the area.
"English Studies now include literary theory, rhetoric and composition, technical writing, creative writing, cultural studies, TESOL, linguistics, children's and adolescent literature, English education, pedagogical theory, computerization of literature," the convenor of the conference, Dr. Shamsad Mortuza, noted in his opening remarks, and added, "We can characterize the changes either as remarkable or as deplorable; but the fact remains that English departments are changing. English departments are thinking otherwise."
While presenting the keynote speech, Prof Rajgopalan Radhakrishnan, Chancellor's Professor of University of California, Irvine-USA, addressed the politics of language, focusing on its translatability in a postcolonial and postmodern milieu. He gave examples of Tamil writers writing in their native language as opposed to other Indian writers writing in English in order to explain how an act of translation, in the name of knowing others and knowing "thyself," imposed subjectivity on the work being translated. He then applied Ngugi's idea of Decolonizing the Mind to underscore the racial and gender politics of language.
After the opening session had set the tone, the first panel, titled "English Studies: Thinking Elsewhere", discussed the state of English Studies in different parts of the world. Dr. Arun Gupto of Pokhara University observed that students of literature were misappropriating western ideas while applying them to local cultural texts. Prof. Sangjun Jeong from Seoul National University shared his experience of drafting the syllabus at the Centre for American Studies in South Korea, while Prof Elizabeth Platt from Florida State University enlightened the audience with her remarks on the hegemonic role of English in African countries. Prof Nurul Islam (Dean of Arts, Eastern University) was also critical of different language teaching models in Bangladesh.
The second panel dedicated itself to Poet-Sage Tagore on the occasion of his 150th birth anniversary. Those involved with the publication of Essential Tagore from Shantiniketan and Harvard University Press (HUP) shared the pleasure and pain of translating Tagore. The editors of the omnibus, Prof Radha Chakravarty (Delhi University) and Prof Fakrul Alam (Dhaka University), talked on the politics and policies of translation that guided their translation. Prof Somadatta Mandal gave the perspective of a translator while Dr. Sharmila Sen, editor-at-large of HUP, mentioned the reasons behind the commissioning of the "Essential Tagore" project. The session was moderated by Prof Shafi Ahmed of JU.
The next panel, "Translating and Translocating," featured Prof Syed Manzoorul Islam, who noticed that the approach to teaching and learning literary texts was being influenced by the advancement of internet based materials and secondary sources. Prof Somadatta Mandal's paper dealt with the issue of authenticity of film versions of literary texts and their use in classrooms. Dr Sharmila Sen's talk focused on retaining beauty in translation at the expense of fidelity.
The second day of the conference had two plenary papers. Prof Raj Rao from Pune University critiqued TB Macaulay for his homophobia, and noticed the presence of such "sickness" (i.e. tuberculosis) in other areas of his language policy that shaped Indian sensibility. Prof Fakrul Alam's paper, on the other hand, was more current in his criticism of the British Council or other centres involved in the language trade. In a concurrent session, titled "Engreji", the audience heard talks on bilingualism, nativization, code switching and their impact on human cognitive processes.
There were also sessions on "Theory and Praxis," "Locating Bangladeshi Writers", "IN/TO English", "Course/Career", "A Room of her Own," "Nation/Narration," "Popular Culture" and so on. A total of seventy papers were shared during the two-day event with more than 200 scholars in attendance.
The conference had its pleasant respite from serious academic discussions too. Poet Kaiser Haq amused the audience with his performative reading of his witty poems and writer-activist Raj Rao shared a chilling experience of transsexuality while reading out from one of his short stories at the Creative Reading session. The participants later went on a 'journey by boat' in Bongshi River, Savar. They also attended the book-launch of "Essential Tagore" at Bengal Gallery.
The two-day academic session was followed up by a workshop titled "Postcolonized!" Conducted by Dr. Sharmila Sen, the workshop traced the colonial agenda of teaching the English language and tried to find ways of negotiating and negating such political agendas in a postcolonial space. Reflecting on the migrant workers returning from the Middle East, Sen questioned the validity of our language policy. Later certificates were given to the participants by the Chair of the English Department, Mashrur Shahid Hossain.
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