Meeting the academics
Yours truly was invited to participate at the fifth conference of the
Sri Lanka Association of the Commonwealth Language and Litterateurs
Study (SLACLALS) that was held on October 19 and 20 at the Royal Garden
Mall in Kandy.
The invitation was extended by Prof Walter Perera of the English
Department of the University of Perdeniya on behalf of Emeritus
Professor Ashley Halpe, who is not in best of health for sometime.
However, he was present at the conference and actively participated.
The subject of the conference was ‘Postcolonial or Postmodern?’ – an
interesting subject for academics, students and others like me to keep
abreast of what is happening in contemporary studies in English and its
literature.
Senior writer and critic Carl Muller was felicitated on his 75th
Birthday with a fine tribute to him by Prof Ashley Halpe.
Some of the participant writers read excerpts from their work. That
included Ashley Halpe, Kamala Wijeratne, Carl Muller, Parvathi Solomons
Arasanayagam, Richard Murphy, Lal Medawattegedera, Premini Amerainghe,
Sumathy Sivamohan and Aparna Halpe.
Emeritus Professor of Department of English, University of KwaZulu-Natal,
Durban, South Africa, Margaret Daymond, a writer and critic was the
foreign delegate who made valuable contributions. I liked her approach
and method of literary criticism very much. She too read from her works.
The son of the last British Mayor of Colombo Municipality, Richard
Murphy, also chaired and read from his poems. He is an Irish poet and
now settled in Lanka.
He chaired the plenary session where Margaret Daymond read an erudite
but intelligibly presented paper that was lucid and enunciated well.
Margaret Daymond’s paper was on “Writing a Postcolonial Condition in
South Africa as a Postmodern Strategist” based on Zoe Wicomb”
Dr Nihal Fernando, senior lecturer in the English Department of the
University of Peradeniya, chaired the next session where three leading
ladies in the academic and literary world of Lanka discussed three
different papers covering new areas.
Senior Lecturer in English, University of Peradeniya, Dr Carmen
Wickramgamage, Kamala Wijeratne and Dr Maithree Wickramasinghe were the
knowledgeable participants.
What is to be the current topic of concern for the academics and
students and the general public alike as we all know is the difficulty
in ‘Speaking English Our Way.’ Dr Chandra Wickramagamage titled her
paper “From Kaduwa to Maname - Thoughts on Recent Official Measures to
Re-invent the Status of English in Sri Lanka”.
She had valid points to make and stated the reality that the Elites
here have a stronghold in determining proper English and enunciation. As
she correctly said “English still retains its unofficial status as the
preferred currency for purchasing power and privilege via language”
As a person experienced in teaching English and English Literature
both in Lanka and abroad I welcome the points made by retired senior
educationist formerly Chief Project Officer of the National Institute of
Education (NIE) Kamala Wijeratne. Her paper was titled “Bloom’s Taxonomy
as a Launch pad for Teaching Literature to EFL students”. Her implicit
statement of teaching literature in the traditional way would be
productive in the present context as well is conducive.
To quote her, here is a relevant passage:
“In Bloom’s Taxonomy of educational objectives which clarifies the
process of ‘logical thinking’ and accepts the principle that ‘thought is
unavoidably harnessed to feeling’, a teacher finds a pragmatic and
systematic approach to the development of literary competence.”
Senior Lecturer in English, University of Kelaniya, Maithree
Wickramainghe’s erudite analysis in her paper baffled me due to my lack
of interest in such ‘isms’ as post modernism, post structuralism,
deconstruction etcetera. But her paper was useful in my attempt to
understand what this new literary concepts are and she spoke clearly
“Clashing Paradigms or Concurrent Paradigms? Feminist Standpoint
Theories of Post colonialism and Postmodernism”- that was her subject.
In her own words she summed up her contention:
“The paper will focus on ideas of ‘simultaneity’ or ‘concurrency’ as
a significant ontological position to re-conceptualize and re-orient
understandings of reality/ies and positionalities relating to the
postcolonial and postmodern”.
Truly the conference was academic in nature, but the speaker could
have made it easier for others who may not have attained her standards
in assimilating concepts. This is not sarcasm or condemnation but a mere
suggestion.
Richard Murphy read some of his poems, elusive to my comprehension, I
must admit. But I enjoyed the shortest poem he read which was read well.
Maybe his Irish accent was a problem for me to enjoy the earlier poems.
Jean Arasanayagam was scheduled to read her writing but did not turn
up due to her inconveniences.
Dr Carmen Wickragamage took the chair later. Three young academics,
two of them women, took the floor.
Vihanga Perera of the Department of English, University of
Jayewardenepura University spoke on the subject “The Role of the
Diaspora as a “New Middle Class” to the “Re-Colonization” of the
“Orient” – Observations Made through Sri Lankans’ “Writing” of Home.
He was justifiably critical of the Diaspora writers, whom he
claimed,’ befitting the editorial and consumer agendas of the
Eurocentric reader’.
‘Our intervention is crucial in preserving a “Sri Lankan Literature”
and a Sri Lankan Sensibility within it in the face of the “Zombie
attack” upon it by “Diaspora agents” inspired by cheap capitalist
motives, he concluded.
Undergraduate from Peradeniya Nayomi Abayasekera and Lecturer in
English, Open University of Sri Lanka Manikya Kodithywakku were the
young women who spoke next.
The former read a paper on” The politics of Representation in the
Representation of Politics” which had some bearings on the theme of the
conference and it brought out ideas anew.
The other read her paper relating to a fiction by a Lankan born
Canadian writer Michael Ondaatjee. She reviewed his book Anil’s Ghost
and titled “Returning to Imaginary Homelands” in the fiction mentioned.
I would have liked if a Lankan writer’s work had been taken for analysis
instead of already recognized international writers like M O.
Vihanga Perera and Kamala Wijeatne read their own prose and poetry
that were appreciable.
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