Critical Approaches to Dalit (formerly "untouchable") Life Writing

S. Shankar will discuss the importance of life-writing genres in the recent boom in Dalit (formerly known as untouchable) literature in India. Like the literatures of other marginalized groups across the world, testimony plays an important role in Dalit literature. Memoirs and autobiographies are effective genres for this purpose of witnessing. Shankar will begin with some general remarks introducing the boom in Dalit literature and then explore Dalit life-writing in particular, offering readings of texts and suggesting important themes. He will endeavor to field questions and suggest answers about the ways in which Dalit literature and questions of caste may be brought into a variety of academic conversations and classrooms focused on South Asian studies and beyond.

S. Shankar teaches in the Department of English at UH Manoa. He is a cultural critic, novelist and translator. His most recent book is the forthcoming Flesh and Fish Blood: Postcolonialism, Translation and the Vernacular (U. of California Press, May 2012), which contains a chapter-long discussion of Dalit literature. His novel manuscript "Ghost in the Tamarind" is currently being circulated to editors. He has translated from Tamil into English."

Event Sponsor
Center for Biographical Research, Mānoa Campus

More Information
808-956-3774, biograph@hawaii.edu, http://www.facebook.com/CBRHawaii

Tweet