Room Number: TRS 1-077
Join the Meeting: https://ryerson.zoom.us/j/91619294436?pwd=NWhOcXZaZDBRTXdjUjRQcFVwRU9LZz09
Chair: Maloba Wekesa (U Nairobi)
Speakers:
Diksha Beniwal (IIT Kanpur), “Migration and Modernity: Rupturing of the Indian Nationalist Imagination”
Doris Hambuch (United Arab Emirates U), “The Caribbean Nation as Imagined Community”
Alex Wanjala (U Nairobi), “Disruptions in the Notions of Home, Family and Nation in Postcolonial Kenya as Portrayed in Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’s Dust”
Paper Summaries:
Diksha Beniwal (IIT Kanpur), “Migration and Modernity: Rupturing of the Indian Nationalist Imagination”
Paper begins with Jadhav’s family’s migration to the city of Mumbai, tracing their attempt to acquire English education and jobs with the British. The memoir ruptures Nationalism as an upper caste movement which excludes dalit voices, and the paper highlights an alternative reality of dalit narratives as they struggle in pursuit of casteless modernity.
Doris Hambuch (United Arab Emirates U), “The Caribbean Nation as Imagined Community”
This presentation advocates a more inclusive cross-Caribbean discourse. With a focus on Caribbean thinkers who do acknowledge their colleagues from the Dutch parts of the region, and in agreement with Dutch Caribbean critics that the latter have much to offer to the discourse at hand, I argue that attempts to counter hierarchies may lead the way to heal ruptures.
Alex Wanjala (U Nairobi), “Disruptions in the Notions of Home, Family and Nation in Postcolonial Kenya as Portrayed in Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’s Dust”
The paper focuses on Yvonne Owuor’s novel Dust (2014), and examines its depiction of the colonial and the postcolonial history of the country in order to illustrate how the trauma linked to the disruption of the social fabric of nationhood that has impacted upon the lives of the members of the family of Aggrey Nyipir Oganda.