Workshop

Date: 19-9-2018 to 27-9-2018

The Department of Studies in English, Kannur University, hosted a nine-day workshop on Literary Research and Critical Theory. Prof. (Dr.) Meena T Pillai, Department of English, Kerala University was the resource person. The workshop was designed to facilitate a better understanding at applying critical theories to literary texts. Dr. Meena relied on two key texts during the course of the workshop: Research Methods for Cultural Studies edited by Michael Pickering and Research Methods for English Studies by Gabriele Griffin. She divided the workshop into two phases. During the first phase (19-09-2018 to 22-09-2020) Dr. Meena introduced the participants to various novel research methods discussed in Michael Pickering’s text Research Methods for Cultural Studies. She was quite critical of the tendency to blindly accept such research methods in pursuit of capturing Indian sensibilities. The intention was to lay bare the inadequacies of Western research models in the Indian context and to challenge the hegemony of Eurocentric inclinations in academic research. The second phase of the workshop began on 23-09-2020 and went up to 26-09-2020. During the second phase, Dr. Meena shifted her focus on to Gabriele Griffin’s Research Methods for English Studies. She spoke about the contemporary interest in memory studies and the revival of new historical tendencies in literary research. The last day of the workshop (27-09-2020) was left open for interested research scholars to meet Dr. Meena in person with their respective research proposals and have a discussion on it. To sum it up, the workshop introduced the student participants to a wide spectrum of contemporary critical theory and also explained how those theories work when applied to literary texts. Students were greatly benefitted as the got many contemporary ideas for their future research. A total of forty-two students took part in the workshop.

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