NATIONAL SEMINAR THEORIZING THE LITTLE MAGAZINE MOVEMENTS IN INDIA: COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES

THEORIZING THE LITTLE MAGAZINE MOVEMENTS IN INDIA: COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES

UGC Sponsored  II NATIONAL SEMINAR

THEORIZING THE LITTLE MAGAZINE MOVEMENTS IN INDIA: COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES

Department Of English, Maharaja Sayajirao University Of Baroda

13-14 March 2015

 Little magazines (or “small magazines") are literary magazines publishing experimental and non-conformist writings of comparatively unknown writers. Generally noncommercial in their outlook, and irregular in their publication, the little magazines have played a considerable role in the spread of the avant-garde movements like modernism and post-modernism across the world in the twentieth century. In India, little magazine movements came to prominence in the nineteen fifties and the sixties in many languages like Bengali, Tamil, Marathi, Hindi, Malayalam and Gujarati. Importance of  small magazines like ‘Kshitij’,  ‘Vrishchik’ and ‘Zhreagy’ (pronounced ‘Ray’) in establishing avant-garde movements in Gujarati, or the role of ‘Asmitadarsha’ in establishment of Dalit literature in Marathi and ‘Akrosh’  in Gujarati is generally acknowledged. However, in the study of Indian literatures of the post- Independence period, the little magazine movements are merely mentioned in passing.

Commenting on the significance of the  ‘active phase’ of small magazines in America which began with publication of Harriet Monroe’s  Poetry in 1911, Ezra Pound, one of the most influential figures in the history of the avant-garde movements and modernism in the West, notes, “ the significance of the small magazine has, obviously, nothing to do with format. The significance of any work of art or literature is a root significance that goes down into its original motivation. When this motivation is merely a desire for money or publicity, or when this motivation is in great part such a desire for money directly or for publicity as a means indirectly of getting money, there occurs a pervasive monotony in the product corresponding to the underlying monotony in the motivation.”
Ezra Pound in 1930 is arguing for the necessity of resisting commodification and standardization of art to preserve its vitality and diversity, and the function of the “small magazine” is to carry out this function. In the globalized world, market forces and the forces of commodification have invaded cultures. Today, when the threat of cultural homogenization looms large, and the avant-garde movements of the mid twentieth century have died down, there is an urgent need to revisit, rethink and theorize the significance of the little magazine movements in various Indian languages from a comparative Indian perspective. The Department of English, the Maharaja Sayajirao University, which is awarded UGC SAP DRS II for the thrust “Representing the Region: Literary Discourses, Social Movements and Cultural Forms in Western India, 1960-2000” seeks to take initiative in theorization of these movements.

The possible areas for the research paper can include the following:

i)                 The little magazines and the rise of modernist and post-modernist avant-garde literatures in India
ii)                 Little Magazines and literary historiography
iii)                Little magazines and the politics of canonization
iv)                The little magazine movements and/as social and cultural movements
v)                 Little magazine movements and identarian movements
vi)                The little magazine movements and visual cultures
vii)                The little magazine movements and their national and  international counterparts
viii)               The little magazines, globalization, and the digital platforms

We invite papers that critically engage with the theme of the seminar. Please send abstracts latest by the 5 February 2015, to the conveners Madhurita Choudhury at madhurita09@yahoo.co.in and Sachin Ketkar at sachinketkar@gmail.com.
We shall intimate acceptance by 15 February 2015.