Peer Seminar: The Anatomy of Peace

The Department of English, Bhawanipur Education Society College, organized a Peer Seminar on 25th of April, 2023, featuring a talk by Ms Abantika Dev Ray, faculty of the department. The talk was titled, ‘The Anatomy of Peace: A Reading of How to Tell the Story of an Insurgency’ and was attended by the teachers of the department and its postgraduate students. Starting with this session, the Department of English restarted its tradition of offline peer seminars, which had briefly been replaced by online webinars during the Covid pandemic.

Ms Dev Ray is currently researching on the representation of violence and trauma in selected fictional works of Assam. The violence may be traced back to the crisis that took place in Assam of the 80s, centering on the demand for a sovereign or ‘Swadhin Asom’ which wanted freedom from the Indian Union. This demand resulted in the creation of a conflict between the state of Assam and the Centre, which remained unresolved and the repercussions of which were felt by the common people. Thus, Ms Dev Ray in her paper looked at the traumatized condition of the common people in Assam who unwittingly and unwillingly became active participants of the crisis of nationalism. She also attempted to trace the gradual disillusionment that came upon people in spite of the fact that people were quite enchanted by the ideology of the nationalists at the beginning.

Mr Soumyajit Chandra, also Faculty at the Department of English, welcomed and introduced Ms Dev Ray. The Head of the Department, Dr Gargi Talapatra, enlightened the students about the importance of research and how research is a mutually inclusive exercise. The MA Coordinator, Prof Ananyya Banerjee felicitated Ms Dev Ray.

During the course of her talk, the speaker analyzed the stories in the collection, How to Tell the Story of an Insurgency from the perspective of trauma theory as propounded by Cathy Caruth. She talked about the ‘belatedness’ of trauma and how traumatic experiences serve as near-death experiences. In conclusion, she mentioned how with the gradual fizzling out of the movement, common people of Assam began to hope for a more peaceful ambience, in which there would be an amicable solution to the crisis induced by sub-nationalistic demands of ‘Swadhin Asom’.

The session ended with a question and answer round in which the speaker addressed the questions and doubts of the audience.