Partitions: What are they good for?
An AHRC Research Network on Comparative Partitions
Organised by
School of English, Communication and Philosophy, Cardiff University
School of English, University of St Andrews
Partitions & Cultural Memory
John Percival Building, Cardiff University
3-4 June 2013
Monday 3 June
09.00 – 09.45: Registration [Ground Floor Refectory]
09.45 – 10.00: Opening remarks
10.00 – 11.30: Plenary Session 1: Remembering and Forgetting (Chair: TBC) [Room 3.46]
Bordering on Forgetting (Radhika Mohanram, Cardiff University, Wales, UK)
Partitioned memory: Partial rememberings (Patrick Williams, Nottingham Trent
University, UK)
11.30 – 11.45: Tea/Coffee break [Refectory]
11.45 – 12.45: Spotlight Session 1
Partitions in Word and Image (Chair: TBC) [Room 3.46]
Forgetting 1948: New Palestinian and Israeli Writing (Anna Bernard, King’s College
London, UK)
(Im)Posing Memories: disrupting origin myths in Bani Abidi's photography (Humaira
Saeed, University of Manchester, UK)
12.45 – 13.45: Lunch [Refectory]
13.45 – 15.15: Parallel sessions 1
Post-partitions and Theorising Borders (Chair: TBC) [Room 3.46]
Reading for Time: Notes on a Post-Partition Literature (Charlotta Salmi, University of
Oxford, UK)
Post-memory, authenticity and citizenship in Ireland (Louise Harrington, University of
Alberta, Canada)
Black Passport and Memories of Personal Journeys through Geographies of Trauma
(Samuel Sequeira, Cardiff University, Wales, UK)
Narrating the Nation(s) (Chair: TBC) [Room 3.45]
‘Between ‘going away’ and ‘homing home’: A reading of The Shadow Lines by Amitav
Ghosh’ (Eva Rask Knudsen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark)
Partition Epic: Elias Khoury’s Gate of the Sun (Nicola Robinson, University of York,
UK)
Title TBC (Amal Hallak, Cardiff University, Wales, UK)
15.15 – 15.30: Tea/Coffee break [Refectory]
15.30 – 17.00: Plenary Session 2 (Chair: TBC) [Room 3.46]
From postmemory to post-amnesia: forgetting and remembering East Pakistan
(Ananya Jahanara Kabir, Kings College London, UK)
Respondent: Jennifer Yusin, Drexel University, USA
18.30 – late: Stories of Partition at Butetown History & Arts Centre, followed by dinner at Spice
Route, Cardiff Bay [transportation will be arranged]
Tuesday 4 June
09.00 – 09.30: Registration [Refectory]
09.30 – 11.00: Spotlight session 2
Partitions and the Performances of Memory (Chair: TBC) [Room 3.46]
Enforced memory / Erased ethnicity: Commemorating the Rwandan genocide (Laura
De Becker, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa)
Violent Memories, Virtual Realities (Robert Schaeffer and Torry Dickinson, Kansas
State University, USA)
Partition Migrants and their Children in a New City: A comparative analysis of Kamila
Shamsie’s Kartography and Inga Iwasiów’s Bambino (Agnieszka Sadecka, Jawaharlal
Nehru University, India)
11.00 – 11.15: Tea/Coffee break
11.15 – 12.45: Parallel sessions 2
Afterlives of Partitions (Chair: Kalina Yordanova) [Room 3.46]
Diversity in Macedonia: Between historical tensions, ignorance, conflict and
cooperation (Stefan Molocea, Yuan Ze University, Taiwan)
Cultural memory formation in children of war survivors from Bosnia and Herzegovina
(Kalina Yordanova, University College London, UK)
Impact of Partition in Assam and Tripura: Beginning of a New Culture or a Process of
Making ‘Bengali Identity’? (Anindita Ghoshal, Rishi Bankim Chandra College, India)
Partitions – Bodies and Processes (Chair: TBC) [Room 3.45]
‘Effacement and Reclamation of the Bod(il)y: Negotiations with the Sundarbans in
Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide and Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children.’ (Shayeari
Dutta, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India)
Partition Violence and the Limits of Empathy (Karni Bhati, Furman University, USA)
Partition as On-going Process (Smita Tewari Jassal, Middle East Technical University,
Turkey)
12.45 – 13.45: Lunch [Refectory]
13.45 – 15.15: Parallel sessions 2
Narrating Partitions (Chair: TBC) [Room 3.46]
Manto the Prophet: interrogating the timeliness of Manto in his time and ours
(Hannah Fitzpatrick, University of St Andrews, Scotland, UK)
Religion in Rang de Basanti: India, Partition and Nehruvian secularism (Sraddha
Shivani Rajkomar, University of Mauritius, Mauritius)
Partition Within in Susan Abulhawa's Mornings in Jenin (Jacqueline Jondot, Université
de Toulouse le Mirail, France)
Partitions: Histories and Memories (Chair: TBC) [Room 3.45]
Partition of India and the Disfigurement of History (Waqas Khwaja, Agnes Scott
College, USA)
Moldova’s “loss” of Bucovina: The effects on the political, cultural and diplomatic
relations between Prussia, on the one hand, and the Principality of Moldavia on the
other hand between 1774-1812 (Amelia- Liana Vaidean, Babeș-Bolyai University,
Romania)
South Asian Partition and Cultural Memory (Sayma Khan, Goethe University,
Germany)
15.15 – 15.30: Tea/Coffee break [Refectory]
15.30 – 17.00: Plenary session 3 (Chair: TBC) [Room 3.46]
Shifting Geopolitical/Sexual Borders: Rethinking (Queer) Identities and (National)
Belonging in a Transnational World (William Spurlin, Brunel University London, UK)
Respondent: Anindya Raychaudhuri, University of St Andrews, Scotland, UK
17.00 – 17.15: Closing statement
17.30 – late: Film Screening: Crosswinds over Icchamati (Dir: Subha Das Mollick, 2011) [Room 3.46]
and dinner [venue TBC]