Report on the 9th Biennial Conference of the Comparative Literature Association of India

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture ISSN 1481-4374 Purdue University Press ©Purdue University Volume 11 (2009) Issue 2 Article 13 Report on the 9th Biennial Conference of the Comparative Literature Association of India Babli Moitra Saraf University of Delhi Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, and the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons Dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information, Purdue University Press selects, develops, and distributes quality resources in several key subject areas for which its parent university is famous, including business, technology, health, veterinary medicine, and other selected disciplines in the humanities and sciences. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access learned journal in the humanities and social sciences, publishes new scholarship following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." Publications in the journal are indexed in the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (Chadwyck-Healey), the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Thomson Reuters ISI), the Humanities Index (Wilson), Humanities International Complete (EBSCO), the International Bibliography of the Modern Language Association of America, and Scopus (Elsevier). The journal is affiliated with the Purdue University Press monograph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies. Contact: <> Recommended Citation Saraf, Babli Moitra. "Report on the 9th Biennial Conference of the Comparative Literature Association of India." 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This journal is covered under the CC BY-NC-ND license. UNIVERSITY PRESS <http://www.thepress.purdue.edu> CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture ISSN 1481-4374 <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb> Purdue University Press ©Purdue University CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access learned journal in the humanities and social sciences, publishes new scholarship following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." In addition to the publication of articles, the journal publishes review articles of scholarly books and publishes research material in its Library Series. Publications in the journal are indexed in the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (Chadwyck-Healey), the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Thomson Reuters ISI), the Humanities Index (Wilson), Humanities International Complete (EBSCO), the International Bibliography of the Modern Language Association of America, and Scopus (Elsevier). The journal is affiliated with the Purdue University Press monograph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies. Contact: <> Volume 11 Issue 2 (June 2009) Article 15 Babli Moitra Saraf, "Report on the 9th Biennial Conference of the Comparative Literature Association of India" <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol11/iss2/14> Contents of CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 11.2 (2009) <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol11/iss2/> Abstract: In her article "Report on the 9th Biennial Conference of the Comparative Literature Association of India" Babli Moitra Saraf presents her perception of the intellectual trajectories of the conference and discusses a number of selected papers read. The conference in the main addressed two issues: the institutional status of Comparative Literature and Comparative Literature as an academic discipline. A close third was the agenda of Comparative Literature to construct a World Literature. Babli Moitra Saraf, "Report on the 9th Biennial Conference of the Comparative Literature Association of India" page 2 of 7 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 11.2 (2009): <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol11/iss2/15> Babli Moitra SARAF Report on the 9th Biennial Conference of the Comparative Literature Association of India The 9th biennial conference of CLAI: Comparative Literature Association of India <http://clai.in/> was at the University of Hyderabad 28-32 January 2009 with the theme Diverse Harmonies: Literary and Cultural Confluences. It was organized by the University of Hyderabad Centre for Comparative Literature, the Hyderabad English and the Foreign Languages University (EFLU), and co-sponsored by the Sahitya Akademi, the Mysore Central Institute of Indian Languages, and the Hyderabad Goethe Zentrum. The conference also hosted the Third Sisir Kumar Das Memorial Lecture. The concept note of the conference stated that the "conference is planned as a fusion event to map and celebrate the meeting of literatures and cultures to foster better understanding of both the bonds that bind and the differences that must be respected." The political significance of this theme may not be underestimated in South Asia in 2009, particularly in India where social polity stands precariously on the edge of collapse due to divisive social formations, with differences and divergences becoming increasingly difficult to contain, including so politically. If comparatists were looking for broad definitional categories traditionally and theoretically suited to their discipline, or enthusiasts of World Literature for common goals and methodologies, the CLAI Conference 2009 established that the divisive experience and discourses of colonialism are still dominant and relevant, issues of the nation-state are yet unresolved and are still being addressed, and in more region and culture specific ways than ever. Micro histories and ethnic identities within the Indian nation-state are emerging, encouraged and enabled by what is sometimes the new found literacy of first generation literates, from margins, gaps, interstices, and every imaginable crevice that this vast, varied, pluralistic, poor, and problematically democratic nation can pour out in an effort to be heard. This polyphony, or these "diverse harmonies" sent out a common refrain. The playing field is not even and, indeed, has become over recent times even more ridden with the pitfalls of inequality. Peoples are seeking spaces to articulate private oppression and community anguish and n (...truncated)