Department of English, Shri Guru Nanak Dev Khalsa College, University of Delhi is organizing a 2 day International Seminar in March 2015, Remembering Yeats at 150: Reading Myth, Nation and Historyas part of sesquicentennial celebrations. We hope to create a forum for a very fruitful and enriching interactions between our colleagues in Delhi University and international scholars last date for submission of abstract: 15th October Registration fee: 1500.00 International Seminar Concept Note Remembering Yeats at 150: Reading Myth, Nation and History The year 2014 marks the 150th birth anniversary of W B Yeats, one of the most highly regarded, if also controversial creative geniuses of the last century. Commemorative events, lectures and workshops, have been held this year across the academia, as well as the literary world. In keeping with the spirit of the sesquicentennial celebrations, this seminar aims to explore the magic behind Yeats’ enduring appeal, especially in the post colonial context of the subcontinent. On the one hand is the overwhelmingly formidable Yeatsian oeuvre in terms the sheer volume of his poetry, prose, dramatic writing, correspondence, sketches and drawings; and on the other, the complexities of his alternative cultural/ political nationalism fraught with ambivalences of his hybrid positionality, problematised further (and not insignificantly) by the abstract, transcendental structuring principles of his philosophy, politics and art. Yeats has been a formidable literary figure, whose creative as well as personal trajectory epitomizes the idea of an ever evolving praxis, and the fact that some of his finest work came after he was awarded the noble prize, bears testimony to it (cf. The Tower in 1928 and The Winding Stair and Other Poems in 1929). Traditionally, a lot of emphasis in reading Yeats has been on aspects of the formal finesse and delicacy of his lyrics, or the impulse towards esoteric philosophizing of his prose or the inspired heroism of his theatrum mundi. The recurrent thematic and structural tropes in his works, for instance of celticism, mysticism, the orders of the real and the symbolic as well as the everydayness of Irish peasantry and landscape have also received considerable attention. The aim of this seminar is to read the connections and interfaces between the various aspects of his ideation and practice. For instance, the mythopoeic preoccupations in his art as well as the mythmaking propensity in his life; his conceptualization of an inclusive, composite cultural nationalism and his political positions, including his brush with Irish fascism in the thirties; his insistence on the imperatives of a collective Irish identity, on the one hand, and the rather Romantic, individualistic, auto-ethnographic assertions on the other; and so on. Clearly, the tentativeness of his positions is not limited to domain of culture, but spills onto the political field, which can help address issues relating to the contiguities as well as ruptures between aesthetic and political positions. Also, how nationalism potentially can be a revolutionary as well as reactionary force, and often at once. Finally, a note on Yeats’ Indian connection: Yeats has been a consistent presence in English literary studies across India. However, there is more to the connection, in terms of his fascination for Indian philosophical texts, his association with Mohini Chatterjee, Purohit Swami and Rabindranath Tagore, and his introduction to Tagore’s Gitanjali. He also wrote three ‘India’ poems, and references to Bhagvad Gita, Vedanta philosophy and Upanishads abound in A Vision. What can be also of interest is how he reads India, and the various ways in which he can be read. For beyond his oft emphasized preoccupations with the mystic, esoteric orient; he saw affinities between the Irish and Indian condition, with their struggle against colonialism and their particular modes of resistance, reassertion and revival. We invite presentations on various aspects of Yeats’ writings, from poetry, prose, dramatic writing to correspondences, sketches and drawings. Submissions may be on the following suggested themes though not limited to them : The mythmaker’s oeuvre Yeats and the Newtonian mechanistic worldview The alternative, inclusive nationalism of Yeats National culture and cultural nationalism in Yeats’ writing Celtic antiquarianism versus European modernism Celticism and Orientalism in Yeats Yeats’ Theatrum Mundi Irish heroic and mystical theatre Images of Irish peasantry in Yeats’ writing The invented country Dualities of real and symbolic in Yeats’ works Philosophical influences on Yeats mail your abstract to Dr. Bhagwant at bhagwantmini@gmail
Posted on: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 06:38:32 +0000
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