The last call
ORALITY TALK CIRCULARITY
International Conference

UGC-SAP (DRS-II) on “Indian & Cross-Cultural Approaches to Marginal Literatures”,
Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
&
Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate Programme in “Cultural Studies in Literary Interzones”
at
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
March 7-9, 2011

Conference program:
http://wwwdata.unibg.it/dati/bacheca/1028/55290.pdf


In the beginning was the mouth… the circular orifice… the source of talk… of the word. Alas, this primordial chain of the
orificial and the narrative – of tales flowing in and out of the circles of the oral and the aural –was to be apparently superseded
by the protruding pen, the penetrating stylus that etches and records incessantly, in a bid to transgress the bondage of
discourse to time. But was the oral indeed doomed to such a finitude, or did it – while being rendered marginal – exist in some
plenitude unfathomable to the written word?Was it rather that a network of talk and circularity rendered the oral into the
oracular, the marginal into the liminal – into a littoral entity potently outlasting the mere literal?
It is to brainstorm over such questions that two cosmopolitan academic programmes have got together to host this
conference in New Delhi. One – the UGC Special Assistance Programme at CES, JNU – is devoted to the study of marginal
articulations across cultures, while the other – the Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate – is oriented towards the study of the
liminal and the interzonal in culture. Converging on their common interests in the iterative and interzonal circularity of the
otherwise often marginalized oral discursive forms – of talk itself, the two programmes invite scholars from all over the world
to come to this conference with papers pertaining to the general area of oratures, oral cultures, and orality.

Papers could focus on any aspect of oral discursive production, circulation and consumption, but those dealing with aspects of
marginality and liminality, of the cross-cultural and the interzonal within oral cultures and diverse forms of talk will be
particularly appreciated. All disciplines (in the fields of comparative literature, performing arts, visual culture, cultural
anthropology…) and all periods can be considered.

Proposals, not exceeding 500 words, are to be sent before December 15, 2011, to the following e-mail addresses:
sap_ces@gmail.com; drgeere@free.fr; gjvprasad@yahoo.com; bhaduris@hotmail.com. Selected applicants will be notified
by January 15th, 2012 of the acceptance of their proposals.

All outstation delegates invited for the conference will be provided local hospitality, in the form of accommodation and meals,
by the organizers, while outstation delegates from within India will also be provided suitable reimbursement of their travel
expenses, as per rules. The organizers regret to inform that it will not be possible for them to reimburse travel expenses of
delegates coming from abroad.