Program and Scholars

Click Here to view the program in Tamil

Program - May 13-14, 2011

• Parimaanam: "Images, Embodiments, Contestations" - Sixth Annual Tamil Studies Conference | University of Toronto

Friday, May 13 2011

• 1.00 pm | Registration, William Doo Auditorium Lobby (and onwards)
• 1.30-2.30 pm | Welcome
• 2.30 pm - 4.30 pm: SESSION 1
  
  
  • Panel A, 1016 Wilson Hall: Perspectives on Embodiment
    
    
  • Francis Cody, Chair
  Sudharshan Durayappah and Corinne Dempsey:
  Recasting Sexuality, Gender, and Family through Contemporary Canadian Ritual Innovation
  
  Francis Cody:
  Echoes from the Teashop in the Dinamalar Newspaper
  
  Christina Davis:
  Embodying Conflict: School Segregation and the Regimenting of Language Medium in Sri Lankan Schools
  
  
  
  • Panel B, William Doo Auditorium: Representations of the Refugee
    
    
  • Aparna Sundar, Chair
  Sasikumar Balasundaram:
  "Terrorizing Refugees": Structural Violence against Sri Lankan Tamil Refugees
  
  Glynis George & Anuppriya Sriskandarajah:
  Multicultural Discourse and the Construction of Tamil Identity: An Analysis of Alternative, Mainstream and Tamil Media
  
  Arun Nedra Rodrigo:
  Seeming a Terrorist, Being Tamil
  
  Sumugan Sivanesan:
  Lost Limbs
  
• 4.30-5.00 pm | Break
• 5.00 - 6.30 pm | Plenary Address, William Doo Auditorium
• V. Geetha:
  Being Feminist the Tamil Way: Thinking about Gender and Justice in the Early Twentieth Century
  
• 6.30-8.30 pm | Reception

Saturday, May 14 2011

• 8.30am | Registration (open until last event)
• 9.00 - 10.00am | Welcome
• 10.00 - 12.00pm |SESSION 2


• Panel C (In Tamil), 1016 Wilson Hall:
• Ponniah Kanagasabapathy, Chair
தமிழ் மரபில் உடல் பற்றிய கருத்தியல்கள்



• Panel D, William Doo Auditorium: The Embodiment of Women in Classical Tamil Literature
  
  
• Karen Pechilis, Chair
Karen Pechilis:
To Body or Not to Body: A Classical Tamil Female Poet-Saint and Her Biographer

Archana Venkatesan:
No Night Like This One: Female Longing in Nammalvar’s Tiruviruttam

Matihili Thayanithy:
Delivering Goddess, Dissembling Woman a Conflicting Discourse of Female Embodiment in the Tirumantiram



• 12.00 - 1.00pm | Lunch, Wetmore Dining Hall
• 1.00 - 3.00pm | Session 3


• Panel E, 1016 Wilson Hall: Politics, Ethics, and Aesthetics of the Tamil Film Image
  
  
• Anand Pandian, Chair
Preminda Jacob:
Power Plays: Tamil Film Hoardings in the Construction of a Regional Identity

Constantine Nakassis:
The Aesthetics of Realisms in Tamil Cinema: Between the "New Face" and the "Super Star"

Anand Pandian:
Landscapes of Expression: Affective Encounters in Tamil Cinema


• Panel F, William Doo Auditorium: Destabilizing "Tamilness" in Sri Lanka
  
  
• Mythri Jegathesan, Chair
Mythri Jegathesan:
Taming the future: documenting place among Hill Country Tamils in Sri Lanka

Sidharthan Maunaguru:
"Picture"ing Marriages: witnessing traditions, kinship and marriage through wedding albums

Sharika Thiranagama:
Tamilness: Northern Muslim images of ur/home

Rebecca Walker:
Absent Bodies and Present Memories: Marking out the everyday and the future in Eastern Sri Lanka



• 3.15 - 5.15pm | SESSION 4


• Panel G, 1016 Wilson Hall: Of Religion and Region: The Question of Tamil/Dravidian Modernity and Episteme
  
  
• Chelva Kanaganayakam, Chair
Chelva Kanaganayakam:
Reading resistance and writing the Pallava period

Perundevi Srinivasan:
Constructing the Goddess: Colonial Ethnographic and Public Health Discourses in South India

Ravi Vaitheespara:
Naveena-Caivar (Modern-Saivites) and the Vellalar: Revisiting the Question of the Social Base of the Dravidian Movement

Mark P. Whitaker:
Returning to Mandur: the Sri Kantacuvaami temple and the resilience of its 'amiable incoherence'



• Panel H, William Doo Auditorium
• Manjula Selvarajah, Chair
Risky Voyage: Tamil Refugees on a Boat
A Panel discussion with:
Sharry Aiken, Hadayt Nazami , Arul S Aruliah , and Gary Anandasangaree



• 5.30 - 7.00 pm | Plenary Address, William Doo Auditorium
• Daud Ali:
  Other Worlds: Structures of Feeling and Histories of the Inconsequential in the Precolonial Tamil Nadu


• 8.00pm | A Tamil Studies Conference Fundraiser, William Doo Auditorium
  Gender performed and disrupted: Theatre and Dance at Tamil Studies Conference

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> Main Menu

> Presenters

• Ali, Daud
• Aiken, Sharry
• Anandasangaree, Gary
• Aruliah, S. Arul
• Balasundaram, Sasikumar
• Durayappah, Sudharshan
  & Dempsey, Corinne
• Cody, Francis
• George, Glynis
  & Sriskandarajah, Annupriya
• Jacob, Preminda
• Jegathesan, Mythri
• Kanaganayakam, Chelva
• Maunaguru, Sidharthan
• Nakassis, Constantine
• Nazami, Hadayt
• Pandian, Anand
• Pechilis, Karen
• Rodrigo, Nedra Arun
• Sivanesan, Sumugan
• Srinivasan, Perundevi
• Thiranagama, Sharika
• Thayanithy, Maithili
• Vaitheespara, Ravi
• Venkatesan, Archana
• Walker, Rebecca
• Whitaker, P. Mark
• V Geetha