NATIONAL SEMINAR ON WOMEN'S

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN INDIA: THEORY AND

PRACTICE , MAR 29-30, 2014
full name / name of organization:
KAKATIYA UNIVERSITY, WARANGAL, SOUTH INDIA
contact email:
kpku61@gmail.com
\
Department of English
KAKATIYA UNIVERSITY
Warangal, India-506 009
Call for Papers
UGC Sponsored
Two-Day National Seminar on
Womens Autobiography in India: Theory and Practice
March 29-30, 2014
Womens life narratives/histories, a generic term for womens autobiographies, memoirs and
testimonios, hagiographies has emerged as a genre, consequent to the postmodernist thrust on
liberation discourse. Though these narratives blur genre boundaries, they depict the I with a
focus on the individualnotion of a private selfrevealing a split between public and private
self-representations. Violating the parameters of the canonical autobiography, they create
testimonios of gender, caste, class and religion, and provide an alternative source of history. The
works narrate the self vis--vis family, society and politics bearing witness to gendered
subordination. Narrated in the first person, and the narrator being a protagonist or witness of the
events recounted, the unity of the narration could be a significant personal experience. Primarily
aimed at communicating the subordinated predicament, oppression, suppression and struggle for
emancipation, these writings claim the agency, expecting the reader to respond and judge her
predicament. Based on memory, experience and identity, women narrators reproduce the cultural
modes of self narrating, simultaneously critiquing the status quo.
Life narratives generate new possibilities of being read. Whichever be the genre, womens life
narratives seek affirmation in the correcting mode. By bringing the personal life into public,
womens narratives challenge and articulate gender concerns vis-a-vis caste and religion.
Therefore, they cannot be reduced to narrations of pain and sorrow or memories of a hateful
life but go beyond these. They also have a bearing on research and pedagogy in that, the
historical narrators of experience are a means of introducing counter views on gender. Life
narratives perform the roles of projecting womens triumphs and inducing guilt in the minds of
oppressors by recounting how they were wronged. Reading womans life narratives without a
political ideology stands the risk of making a spectacle of womens suffering and pain. The

narrations bring new insights into male dominant academic institutions, assuming importance in
the construction of curriculum. The proposed seminar provides a platform for discussion of
womens life narratives to explore links between the historical devaluation of women, their
writing practices, exclusion of their writing from the canon of traditional autobiographies,
cultural biases in defining the selfhood, revising the prevailing concept of autobiography and
other perspectives that the paper presenters can think of. Interested scholars may send in
abstracts in 500 words in MS Word format.
Papers can focus on the following or any other research questions/issues:
Can womens life writing be distinguished from that of male authors?
Why lives of woman narratives are important?
Can women remember and write differently?
How can this difference be historically located?
How do women articulate gender, caste, class and religion?
How do women narrators deconstruct their gendered selves?
How do women narrators re-construct their selves?
How do they recount the withdrawal of the self from the public domain?
How do they create new spaces for themselves?
What are the specific themes and sub-themes of womens autobiographical narratives?
What do these narratives reveal about representation and identity?
~~~
Keynote Speaker: Prof Susie Tharu, EFL University, Hyderabad
Valedictory Address: Dr K. Lalitha, Yugantar, Hyderabad
Plenary Speakers: Prof G. Thirupathi Kumar, EFL University, Hyderabad
MS Gita Ramaswamy, Hyderabad Book Trust
Dr H. Kalpana, Pondicherry University
Dr Aparna Lanjewar Bose, EFL University, Hyderabad
Dr Murali Manohar, University of Hyderabad
Important Dates
Submission of Abstracts: 28th February 2014
Acceptance will be conveyed by 3rd March 2014
Submission of Full Papers by 25th March, 2014
Note: TA and DA will be paid to invited speakers; paper presenters may arrange for their own TA
and DA. However, local hospitality will be extended to all the participants.
K. Purushotham
Professor, Head and Coordinator, SAP
Director of the Seminar
kpku61@gmail.com
B. Deepa Jyothi
Assistant Professor and Deputy Coordinator, SAP

Coordinator of the Seminar

deepa.jyothi91@gmail.com
Following are some of the texts on which proposal for papers can be considered:
1. Parikh et al, The Road Less Travelled: The Life and Writings of Vinodinee Neelkanth.
2. Bina Das, Bina Das: A Memoir.
3. Cornelia Sorabji and Chandani Lokuge, India Calling: The Memories of Cornelia Sorabji,
India's First Woman Barrister, OUP.
4. Binodini Dasi, My Story and My Life as an Actress.
5. Devee Sunity, Autobiography of an Indian Princess: Memoirs of Maharani Sunity Devi of
Cooch Behar, 1995.
6. Dhanvanthi Rama Rau, An Inheritance: The Memoirs of Dhanvanthi Rama Rau. Harper &
Row, 1977.
7. Durgabai Deshmukh, Chintaman and I.
8. Elaine Williams Brinda (Maharani of Kapurthala), Maharani: The Story of an Indian Princess,
1954.
9. G S. Datt, A Woman of India: Being the Life of Saroj Nalini.
10. Gayatri Devi, A Princess Remembers: The Memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur.
11. Hutheesing Krishna Nehru, With No Regrets: Krishna Hutheesing's Autobiography. Oxford
Univ. Press, 1952.
12. Indira Goswami, An Unfinished Autobiography.
13. Jameela Nalini, The Autobiography of a Sex Worker.
14. Jha Rama, Woman with a Mission.
15. Kamala Das, My Story. Sterling Publishers, 1988.
16. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya, Inner Recesses, Outer Spaces: Memoirs, 1986.
17. Kamalini Bhansali, My Karmabhoomi: Three Decades at SNDT Women's Univ.
18. Kamla Chowdhry, In Service to Humanity: Kamla Chowdhry: A Loving Tribute to her Life
and Spirit.
19. Kulkarni Dongerkery and Kamala Sunder rao, On the Wings of Time: An Autobiography.
20. Vijayaraje Scindia, Princess: The Autobiography of the Dowager Maharani of Gwalior, 1988.
21. Monica Felton, A Child Widow's Story.
22. Mridula Sarabhai: Rebel with a Cause.
23. Mrinal Pande, Daughter's Daughter, Penguin.
24. Nanda Savitri Devi, The City of Two Gateways: An Indian Girl.
25. Nayantara Sahgal, From Fear set Free.
26. Nayantara Sahgal, Prison and Chocolate Cake, Knopf, 1954.
27. Popati Hiranandani, The Pages of My Life: Autobiography and Selected Stories.
28. Prema Naidu, M, In Love with Life: Memoirs of a Lady Doctor, Sterling Publishers, 1990.
29. Ramadevi Choudhuri, Into the Sun: An Autobiography.
30. Rasika Chaube, An Inspirational Journey: Pratibha Devisingh Patil-the First Woman
President of India.
31. Renuka Ray, My Reminiscences: Social Development During the Gandhian Era and After,
Bhatkal & Sen, 2005.
32. Santha Rama Rau, Home to India, Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1945.
33. Sharanjeet. Shans In My Own Name.

34. Shobha De, Selective Memory: Stories from My Life, Penguin Books, 1998.
35. Shrabani Basu, Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan.
36. Sonia Faleiro, Beautiful Things: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars.
37. Stree Shakti Sanghatana, We Were Making History: Women and the Telangana Uprising,
London: Zed Books, 1989.
38. Suresh Dalal, Harmony: Glimpses in the Life of Madhuri R. Shah.
39. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Prison Days, Northwestern Univ, Signet.
40. Vijaylaxmi Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, 1979
41. Vimla Dang, Fragments of an Autobiography.
42. W.W. Sita Rathnamal, Beyond the Jungle: A Tale of South India, Blackwood, 1968.
Dalit Women Autobiographies
43. Baby Kamble, The Prisons We Broke. Trans Maya Pandit, Chennai: Orient Longman, 2008.
44. Bama, Karukku (1992), trans. Lakshmi Holmstrom, Chennai: Macmillan, 2000.
45. Bama, Sangati (1994), trans. Lakshmi Holmstrom. New Delhi: OUP, 2005.
46. Sumitra Bhave, Pan on Fire, trans. Gauri Deshpande, New Delhi: Indian Social Institute,
1988.
47. Viramma, Josain Racine, Jean Luc-Racine, Viramma; Life of an Untouchable, trans. Will
Hobson. London: Verso, 1997.
48. Sivakami, A Grip Of Change. Orient Longman, 2006.Translated from Tamil by the author.
49. Urmila Pawar, The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman's Memoirs.
cfp categories:
gender_studies_and_sexuality