SRINAGAR: A two-day national-level seminar on Revisiting Literary Classics in the Postmodern Secular World began at the University of Kashmir on Wednesday.
The seminar, organized by the Department of English, was presided over by Prof G R Malik, former Head of the Department.
In his presidential address, Prof Malik deliberated upon various dimensions of the seminar theme. The writers of Classical literature have uncanny access to timeless and universal. This imparts to Classics a timeless quality, he said, while complimenting the Department for holding the seminar on an important theme.
In his keynote address, Professor Sridhar Rajeshwaran, Director Centre for Advanced Studies in India, Gujarat, dwelt at length on the literary forms of Epic and Tragedy.
The Conference has its focus on profound truths about life and salvation and creative delight, in short of being and aesthetics, as enshrined in the term Classics, and specifically identifies two forms of re-representations i.e. the literary forms of Tragedy and Epic, he said. But while locating the thematic concerns rather increasingly complicates issues by introducing a caveat that has at least four-fold ramifications which bemoan the death of literature per-se and the absence of new great art that is in magnitude and purposes comparable to the Classics.
In her welcome address, Head of the English Department, Prof Hameeda Nayeem the seminar aims to interrogate the current understanding fostered in the name of de-canonization and ideological criticism and approaches to criticism that downplay original contexts, reception and significance of the culture of classics that has dominated the world till recently, she said. It also proposes to explore related issues like renaissance in folklore studies and the thematic and formal connections between folklore and classics. It would especially examine marginalized brand of literary criticism that still builds on the classical understanding of literally texts.
On the occasion, noted Kashmiri poet, Prof Rehman Rahi, read out a Kashmiri poem from his collections.
The seminar was attended by scores of students and research scholars of the department, apart from university officials and academics. Dr Mufti Muddasir conducted proceedings of the inaugural session.
