Tamil Studies Conference 2009 | May 21 - 23, 2009

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About the Conference

The Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Toronto and the University of Windsor jointly host "வீடும் வெளியும் தமரும் பிறரும்" - "Home, Space and the 'Other,'" the fourth annual Tamil Studies Conference from May 21-23, 2009. This conference will bring together Tamil Studies scholars, artists, writers and activists from North America, Central America, Europe, South Asia, and Australasia. Over 70 presenters from disciplines and fields ranging from Anthropology, Archaeology, Art History, Dance, Diaspora Studies, English, History, Journalism, Labour Rights, Literature, Music, Religion, Sociology, Theatre Studies, Visual Arts and Women's Studies will present papers.

The annual conferences have the following goals:

To stimulate the development of Toronto as an important centre for Tamil Studies in North America.
To strengthen the engagement of the Toronto Tamil community with both the University of Toronto and the academy of Tamil Studies scholars in North America.
To provide North American scholars with a regular opportunity to present their work before their academic colleagues and informed members of the Tamil community.
To introduce students in Toronto to the diverse disciplines of Tamil Studies and the scholars pursuing them in North America.
To enable scholars working on Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka to engage with each other's work and to develop a more comparative approach to the study of these Tamil regions.
To make the Tamil diaspora an important subject of academic study and engagement.
To publish selected conference papers.

Theme

The objective of the conference is to map the various ways in which the Tamil regions and their spaces - linguistic, cultural, political, economic, religious etc. - have been constituted by, interacted with or responded to influences from within and outside their cultural norms, conventions, or geographical boundaries. The "other" could be defined internally as in constructions of "ur", "kaadu-naadu" and the "aham-puram" schema of Sangam literature, or it could be identified as the various languages, religions, peoples and political forces that impinged on the Tamil regions. How have "others" in turn conceptualized the Tamil region, peoples and traditions? What are the sources and ongoing relevance of Tamil theorization of the "other" and how has the impact of the "other" introduced new forms of such theorization or altered interpretive frames? In the colonial and modern era when the Tamil regions have been subject to new regimes of knowledge and when Tamils have traveled, been transported and expelled how have they encountered and conceptualized new "others" and how have they been conceived and transformed by these new "others" in their historic and diasporic worlds?

Plenary Panel and Lecture

May 22nd Evening, Plenary Panel:

Hari Krishnan (Dancer), M.A. Nuhman (Poet), Padma Viswanathan (Novelist), & Prasanna Vithanage (Film Maker).

May 23rd Evening, Plenary Lecture:

R. Radhakrishnan, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine.

About the Conference

Theme

Plenary Panel and Lecture

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