Society: The Everyday Stage

The theme of the seminar was to explore the myriad lives experiences of our everyday lives that constitute the social reality. The seminar constituted special lectures relevant to the theme by esteemed academicans, followed by paper presentations by students, research scholars and faculty members across different colleges and universities. The seminar opened with an inaugural speech by Prof. Debjani Ganguly, Vice Principal (Arts). She elaborated on the resemblance of unscripted stage performance with our everyday interaction that helps us to constitute the social world.

The first session of the seminar was chaired by Dr. Susmita Bhattacharyya, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Calcutta. Here Prof. Bhattacharyya elaborately discussed upon “Women and Leisure: An Exploration of Reality”. It was followed by a indepth lecture on everyday life and social movements by Dr. Shoma Choudhury Lahiri, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous) Kolkata. The title of her lecture was : “Sociology of Everyday Life: Reflecting on Social Movements during the Pandemic”. A number of students, research scholars and faculty members of different colleges and universities then presented papers under the theme “Gender and Everyday Interactions”. They  discussed upon Women street food vendors, ganikas and their resistance to Brahminical patriarchy, artefacts, domestic space and women’s everyday life.

A parallel session titled “Food, Culture and Consumption” was chaired by Prof. Indrani Ray, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Katwa College. A good number of engrossing research papers were presented here relevant to the theme that explored food, identities, memories and everyday interactions.

The second session of the seminar began with an engrossing lecture on “Visual Experience and Everyday Food” by Dr. Dalia Chakrabarti, Professor, Department of Sociology, Jadavpur University. Prof. Chakrabarti explored how everyday visual implications constitute subjective understanding of food and consumption patterns. It was followed by two parallel sessions on paper presentation.

Prof. Indrani Ray chaired another session titled “Art, Media and Leisure”. Here students and faculty members across different colleges presented their research papers exploring manifest forms of art, performances, memes and social media influences in constituting an everyday lived reality.

Pinaki Roy, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Government General Degree College, Mangalkote, chaired another session with the theme “Folktales, Religion, Caste and Experiences”. Research scholars and students of different universities and colleges explored a wide array of everyday incidents pertaining to folktales, folk festivals, rituals and ceremonies, human-pet relations, that constitute our intersubjective experience of social lives.

The seminar came to end with a vote of thanks by Pallavi Sharma, faculty of the Department of Sociology, The Bhawanipur Education Society College. Overall it was an enriching scholarly experience for the Department. A few photographs are attached herewith for your kind perusal.