A Conference and some self promotion

Hi everybody…
I attended a three-day conference on World Literature and Challenges to Comparative Literature last week (26, 27, 28 March 2008) at EFLU (I prefer its former name – CIEFL; but the institution’s status has changed from a deemed university to a full fledged central university and so has its name…sigh…those CIEFL days…). This was one of the most eclectic conferences that I ever attended…I think the term ‘comparative literature’ can absorb quite a lot…apart from papers relating to Kannada, Hindi, Malayalam, Bengali, Urdu, English, Japanese, Russian, and Eritrean literature among others…there was a full session on comparative Hindi literature with papers being read in Hindi…I could meet many scholars…some old friends…and attending seminars and conferences, especially in EFLU (my CIEFL), means I meet my teachers and exchange pleasantries and notes on works in progress or on general well being…but the most important relief is that it helps me break away from the monotony of teaching from a text book and for a change, sit back and listen to others…I met Tharakeshwar during the course of these three days…I have known him since 1996 or so, when we were conducting our respective researches, he at HCU, I at CIEFL…he now teaches at Kannada University, Hampi…a good scholar and a forceful speaker…it was nice meeting him and he gave me some morale boosting news…one of his M.Phil. students is doing a course on Kannada Translation Studies (or something related to translation and Kannada literature…) … and Tharakeshwar told me that he has prescribed one of my published articles (“Translation and Kannada Literature: Appropriating New Genres” published in CIEFL Bulletin) as essential reading for the course… nothing makes a researcher more happy than to hear that his/her work is being consulted/read/quoted… I felt so happy and I told him that this was encouraging…A week earlier, an ex-CIEFL-ite called me up (actually she called Shruti, how she got her number I don’t know) and told me she was working on U R Anantha Murthy’s Samskara for her Ph.D. and that she had found my published paper on the early Kannada novel quite useful…she wanted to know where she could get substantial information on the modern Kannada novel…she is a Telugu and can’t read/understand Kannada and there is very little written in English about Kannada literature…I gave her whatever references I had…I hope she finds them…so much for some mood elevation and self promotion…

During the course of the previous week (Mar 29), as I was browsing the net, I thought I’d take a quick look at what Vinod Ekbote’s up to and visited his blogsite…and there it was…such a piece of exhilarating news…Vinod had succeeded in completing his novel…hats off to Vinod for accomplishing a most demanding and most creative job…I appreciate his determination and single minded devotion…only the first draft is complete…and it will be some time before we can see it in print…he has promised me a copy…I will buy a copy anyway…I have promised him something… he knows that…good going Vinod…

Shruti has come back from her trip to Harrogate…with loads of photos and lots of experiences…till next time then…

Jayasrinivasa Rao