Literary Engagements beyond Academics (Enrichment Lecture:16)

Literary Engagements beyond Academics

The Dept. of English organized yet another Enrichment Lecture, as part of its ongoing series, on 12 April '21. The speaker was Dr. Yamini Dand Shah, a Mumbai-based literary researcher engaged in Gender Studies and socio-economically marginalized communities/ writers of South Asia and Canada as also Indian  Aesthetics, Culture and Arts Management. Dr. Shah is on the Editorial Board of a digital bi-lingual magazine and on the Advisory Board of publishing houses too. Being a part of the Research Repository of the Asian Heritage Foundation, she also aims to dialogise regional heritage. Among her various projects are the ones which see her promoting the indigenous arts of India; examining gender, identity, resistance and sustainability as well as celebrating the region of Kutch in her poetry. 

 Dr. Shah began by throwing light on the vast field open to students for literary engagements beyond the classroom.  The students were given useful information about as diverse fields as interning at publishing houses to helping curate literature festivals; from homing their academic writing skills to come up with research papers to minutely observing their surroundings to dabble in creative writing as well. She also spoke about the emerging inter-, multi- and cross-disciplinary areas for Doctoral Studies and motivated the students to prepare well in advance and clear NET/ SET in order to embark on a career in academics.

The session closed with an interactive round of Q&A and with Dr. Shah finally closing it by reading one of her poems entitled "Being left behind", which is a part of the prestigious Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English. In sum, it was an extremely enriching session  wherein the students - as also the faculty members in attendance - were inspired to imagine, engage with and produce knowledge in all forms possible.