Next IKS lectures at IIT Gandhinagar to focus on children’s literature in Indian languages
India Today
The next Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) elective course lecture at IIT Gandhinagar will focus on children’s literature in Indian languages. Here's the detailed information about the lectures.
The next set of lectures under the Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) elective course lecture series by the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) will focus on children’s literature in Indian languages.
Renowned researcher Professor Diti Vyas will deliver two talks titled ‘Between Impossibility and Possibility: Pre-colonial Children’s Literature in Indian Languages’ and ‘Female Voices in Children’s Literature in Gujarati’ on March 31 and April 1, 2022, respectively, from 5:05 to 6 pm.
She represents Gujarat in the collection of folktales, legends, and modern lore of India, ‘The Owl Delivered the Good News All Night Long’ by Aleph Book House.
By delving into the variety and plurality of literature that Indian children read in the pre-colonial era, Professor Diti Vyas’ first lecture seeks to explain a body of writing that is usually termed as an evolutionary phase in the temporal progression of children’s literature as it exists today.
Using examples from Indian languages, it aims to raise concerns about the definitions, permissions, omissions, categorisations, and attempts to contest the prevalent theories of the origin of Indian children’s literature.
Her second lecture attempts to render the gender-centric categorisation of literature for children problematic by delving into the ideological constructions of girlhood/womanhood in children’s literature in the Gujarati language.
Focusing on the oral folk lullabies in the Gujarati language as a female utterance, it will be argued that in their content and performance, these cradle-songs densely pack female cathartic and subversive strategies.
