Chennai: Over 30 colleges across the city, in association with the University of Madras conducted Chennai festival with workshops on topics ranging from Dalit to digital literature.
The festival, in its 6th edition this year, has welcomed a new attitude of introducing literature back into the lives of the young citizens as its primary objective. “The association of a couple of erudite scholars led to the formation of the Chennai literary festival. The workshops covered topics ranging from translation studies to world literature. With the University of Madras playing the part of the main host, colleges like Loyola, Stella Maris and Presidency were involved in making the 2nd day of the festival a grand success,” said Kumaravel, president of the association which organised the festival.
From basic introductions to the subjects, the lecturers who conducted the workshops shared themes and motifs pertaining to the topic enabling the attendees to gain the capability to comprehend any literary work that hails from the genre.
The Australian literature workshop led by Dr Supala Pandiarajan kicked off with a basic introduction giving the students insights on the oppressor-oppressed historical perspective while also giving focus to the glorification of the convictism that the white Australians developed to justify the colonization that they brought into the land of Australian.
Dr S.Armstrong, head of the department of English at Madras University, led the workshop on literary theory. He briefly described the chief tenets of major literary theories across history and elaborated on the new age theories of posthumanism and bio-semiotics. He emphasized the need for interdisciplinary studies for a better comprehension of the extent culture'. He encouraged the attendees to approach every form of literary expression with a sense of multiplicity and an aim to situate it in the broad sociopolitical and cultural scenario.
The workshop on digital humanities was led by Syed Hussain who encouraged the students to cultivate the habit of reading blog sites as these content-filled sites are the future of literature. He prophesied a dystopian age where humans are caught up in a derivative of the post-humanist philosophy which advocates the loss of the uniqueness of humanity.
A workshop on translation was organized by the Presidency College and the special speaker was Dr.Naresh from New College, Teynampet. Students from various colleges attended the workshop actively. He explained the important aspects of translation and he also explained the major ideologies of translation.
