Jorhat College hosts lecture programme on post-colonial studies

From a Correspondent

JORHAT, APRIL 4: The Forum of English Studies, Jorhat College hosted a lecture programme on Post-Colonial Studies by Prof Saba Anish of the Department of English, JB College at the College Conference Hall on Saturday at Jorhat.

In the hour-long deliberation on the subject, Professor Anish dealt with the subject graphically with slide shows representing the framing of the Orient by the West from the latter’s point of view. The subject being vast and time limited, the professor brought in some representative texts which capture well the key  Post Colonial concepts such as ‘othering/mimicry/ appropriation/ biry oppositions in the treatment of the tive Caliban by the colonizer Prospero in Shakespeare’s Tempest; the ‘white man’s burden’ in George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant; the mystery associated with the East represented by the Marabar Cave episode involving Adela Quested and Dr Aziz in E M Forster’s A Passage to India and the stereotypical representation of India in Oscar winning film Slumdog Millioire. Professor Anish also contrasted Slumdog Millioire with Mira yyar’s film Salam Bombay from the 80’s which also dealt with lives in city slums but failed to get an Oscar because it did not support the West’s impression of India.

mes of major thinkers like Edward Said, Gayatri Chakrabarti, Spivak, Frantz Fanon, Homi Bhaba, Dipesh Chakravarti, and Gauri Viswathan were also highlighted in the discussion which the students enjoyed thoroughly as the lecture was laced with humour and anecdotes.

The Forum also hosted two lecture programmes, one by Dr Devabrata Sharma, the Principal of the college on counter criticism – the criticism of the Post Colonial critics by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe and the other by Monisha Duara on the Diaspora studies with special reference to the migration of Indians to Mauritius as indentured labourers in the 19th Century.