Notice: talk on Conrad and story-telling

the Department of English, 

Bharati College 

invites you to a lecture titled 

‘Joseph Conrad and the Art of Story-Telling’, 

to be delivered by 

Ms. Nabanita Chakraborty, 

Assistant Professor, Department of English, 

Hansraj College, University of Delhi 

on 

Monday, 13th April 2015 

from 12 noon onward 

in the college Seminar Room.

***********************************************************************************

Nabanita Chakraborty is a Ph.D scholar from Delhi University and is in the last year of her doctoral thesis. She is also a recipient of Charles Wallace Fellowship of the British Council, 2012-13. 

***********************************************************************************

For more details, please feel free to mail to Ms. Anavisha Banerjee at conf.eng.bc@gmail.com.

Notice: lecture on Hamlet and King Lear

The Department of English,

Jamia Millia Islamia

and

the Department of English,

Bharati College

invite you to a lecture titled

‘Shakespeare’s Questioning of the Renaissance Image of Man in

Hamlet and King Lear’,

to be delivered by

Dr. Subhajit Sengupta,

Associate Professor, Department of English and Culture Studies,

University of Burdwan

on Monday, 16^th March 2015

from 12:15 p.m. onward

in

the Seminar Room,

Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi – 25.

Abstract:

This proposed lecture falls into two distinct, though related, sections. The first briefly historicises Renaissance perceptions on the question of human greatness, while the second looks at Shakespeare’s Hamlet and King Lear as plays that counter certain major Renaissance humanist assumptions about man, and occasionally, about the universe. These plays problematize Renaissance humanist ideology by subjecting it to subtle but incessant questioning. The essentialist humanism which shapes Hamlet’s mind undermines, almost paradoxically, the very possibilities of that humanist ideology.  Several of his speeches are characterised by an acknowledgement of conventional Renaissance humanist wisdom about the universe and about man, only to subsequently give way to a very private perspective upon the same. This private perspective, pessimistic and cynical, constitutes Hamlet’s questioning of Renaissance humanist thought. In this complementary parallelism of macrocosm and microcosm, we have a remarkable antithesis of humanism and counter-humanism. The skeptical questioning of Renaissance humanism informs King Lear too. This play about filial ingratitude is also a play about the ‘barrenness’ of man, and the suggestions of man’s fundamental affinity with beasts threaten to undermine the distinctions between man and beast so energetically made in conventional Renaissance formulations of the image of man.

For more details, please feel free to mail to conf.eng.bc@gmail.com, or call/text Mr. Anubhav Pradhan at 09999105003.

Notice: talk on Keats' life, poetry and letters

 The Department of English,

Bharati College

invites you

to a talk titled

‘John Keats: His Life and Poetry’

to be led by

Prof. Robert S. White,

Program Leader, Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, University of Western Australia,

on Friday, 13^th March 2015

in the college Theatre Room

from 12:55 pm to 1:50 pm.

Abstract:

Prof. Robert White will give an introductory lecture on the life, poetry and letters of John Keats, based on John Keats, A Literary Life (Palgrave Macmillan 2012), his acclaimed biography of the poet. This informal talk is focused primarily on “The Eve of Saint Agnes,” “Ode to a Grecian Urn,” “Ode to a Nightingale,” and “Autumn.” It also explores some of Keats’ letters, discussing how they reveal the romantic poet’s creative process. The talk is intended to provide some basic information about the Romantic poet John Keats, and will aim to enhance the audience’s appreciation of his works.

***********************************************************************************************

For more details, feel free to call/text Ms. Bhawna Khera at 08376953641 or email to conf.eng.bc@gmail.com.

Lecture on Gothic in nineteenth century novels

The Department of English, 

Bharati College 

invites you 

to a lecture titled 

'Fairies and Monsters of the Bedroom' 

to be given by 

Ms. Aratrika Das, 

Research Scholar and University Teaching Assistant, 

Department of English, University of Delhi 

on Friday, 27th February 2015, 

in the college Seminar Room 

from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM. 

Abstract: 

The lecture will focus on Gothic as a form, its emergence and difference from domestic novels. This juxtaposition of two forms of novel writing will be explained in terms of their thematic concerns and protagonists. Texts discussed will include Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

********************************************************************************************** 

Aratrika Das is a final year doctoral candidate at the Department of English, University of Delhi. Her thesis titled “Demarcating those Foul Bodies: Mutating Masculinity, Body and Death in the Nineteenth Century” is concerned with the genealogy of dark masculinity that reaches its fullest potential in the figure of a vampire. She has been awarded several international fellowships that include Short-term research grant by the Charles Wallace India Trust (London), Research grant by the British Society for the History of Science (UK), International Travel grant by the Research Council University of Delhi, and, International travel grant by the Edinburgh University (UK). 

For more details, feel free to email to conf.eng.bc@gmail.com.

Lecture on text-and-image in Blake's poetry

The Department of English,

Bharati College

invites you

to a lecture titled

‘The Marriage of Words and Pictures’

to be given by

Dr. N.A. Jacob,

Assistant Professor, Department of English,

Ramjas College

University of Delhi

on Tuesday, 17^th February 2015

in the college Theatre Room

from 10:50 AM to 11:45 AM.

Abstract:

The dynamic relationship between words and pictures in Blake’s poetry resists the sterility of a text versus illustration hierarchy. By drawing our attention to the space that lies at the cusp of the visual and the verbal, Blake’s illuminated poetry attempts to bring about a rapprochement between words and pictures and also forces us to recognize the fragility of our distinctions between the mental and the phenomenal.

My paper will begin by placing Blake’s intermedial experiments within the broader context of Romantic theory and then go on to focus on specific plates from The Songs of Innocence and Experience,  The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and The First Book of Urizen.

**********************************************************************************************

N. A. Jacob teaches English at Ramjas College, University of Delhi. His doctoral thesis at Rutgers University was titled Looking Through Words: Histories of the Visual Image in Nineteenth-Century Literature.

For more details, feel free to call/text Ms. Bhawna Khera at 08376953641 or email to conf.eng.bc@gmail.com.

Lecture on disease in Dickens's works

The Department of English,

Bharati College

invites you

to a lecture titled

‘The Moral as Physical: Disease in Oliver Twist and Bleak House’

to be delivered by

Ms. Debolina Dey,

Assistant Professor, Department of English,

Lady Shri Ram College for Women,

University of Delhi

on Tuesday, 3^rd February 2015

in the college Seminar Room

from 10:50 AM to 11:45 AM.

Abstract:

My talk proposes to look at “the ubiquity of contagion as a master narrative in Victorian culture” specifically through the novels of Charles Dickens by focusing on Oliver Twist and Bleak House. I argue that significant to this narrative of contagion is not only the ‘miasmic thinking’ through which contagion functions in the novels, but more importantly for the Victorians contagion as a metaphor goes back to the debates about philanthropy and the figure of the circulating vagabond, embodying the contagion both literally and metaphorically.

I propose to look at contagion in two ways: one, the idea of contagion through the debates around the Poor Law represented in Dickens’ Oliver Twist; and two, contagion as disease through Bleak House in the context of the emergence of ‘public health’ in the latter half of nineteenth century.

For more details, feel free to call/text Ms. Neha Garg at 08376018059 or email to conf.eng.bc@gmail.com