15/02/2014
SGTB Khalsa College invite papers for annual seminar -"Reading the Outcast in Literature" - to be held on the 25th and 26th of Feb.
In every establishment of order, there is always a select group of people who contend with the mainstream conventions- the outcasts. The outcast faces social rejection for merely being different from what the majority defines as normal, whether by possessing uncharacteristic beliefs or creating discrepancies in society. There have been multiple theories attempting to explain this social alienation of characters, ranging from Michel Foucault’s interpretation of the outcast purposely ignoring or defying society’s codes of conduct requiring his/her isolation to Rene Girard’s theory of a community wrongly blaming a disenfranchised individual for its ill fortune and thus harassing and ostracising the character.
Our conference seeks to trace the figure of the outcast, from the earliest examples of the social outré to the romanticised shades that coloured later portrayals, to the realism of modern day narratives that seek to assign the outcast a degree of agency.
The last date of submission of abstracts : 17th Feb Send in your submissions to [email protected]
Regards, Simar Bhasin President The English Literary Society, S.G.T.B Khalsa College
