By Tanya Ruscheinski (Contributor) – Email
Date Posted: October 31, 2011
Print Edition: October 26, 2011
South Asia seemed a little bit closer to Abbotsford last Thursday as roughly 40 students and faculty took their seats for this first-ever event. “Greeting the Light: UFV’s South Asian Literary Colloquium” was in the Abbotsford campus’ Centre for Indo-Canadian Studies on October 20 – the event featured presentations from a number of people involved in the area of South Asian literature, including UFV professor Trevor Carolan, new UFV faculty members Rajnish Dhawan and Prabhjot Parmar, Canadian poet Christopher Levenson, and associate dean of Arts Susan Fisher.
Coordinated by Satwinder Bains – director of the Centre for Indo-Canadian Studies – with the help of UFV student Paul Falardeau and Carolan, the event offered attendees an hour of delving into the culturally-rich world of literature within India and South Asia, complete with snacks and refreshments provided by the College of Arts.
Each speaker at the event took a few minutes to address their interests in South Asian literature and diaspora works, revealing through firsthand experience the great variety and vast opportunities available in studying South Asian culture through literature. One by one the presenters explained how an area such as South Asia, which contains great diversity in culture and language, subsequently has a very broad area of literature that can be covered. Dhawan, one speaker at the colloquium, accounted for India’s diversity in literature by pointing to the fact that the country has 20 official languages. “India is the seventh largest country [in the world],” said Dhawan, “but I’d say it is the largest in terms of cultural variety.”
Levenson, a poet and self-defined “travelling salesman” for South Asian poetry, brought light to the fact that many South Asian poets are being largely left in the dark when it comes to interest from across the Atlantic. He noted that although there is the occasional special feature on Indian life and literature in Canada, “there has been no ongoing window outside India to what is going on in this particular area.”
Adding to this, Carolan spoke of incidences where the gap between the proliferation of Indian literature and its exposure in Canada has been reduced, and celebrated the idea that “this very distant world of India suddenly didn’t seem so distant at all,” leaving many bright possibilities for the future.
According to Carolan, the colloquium came about due to a combination of different factors.
The first was to welcome the two new faculty members, Dhawan and Parmar, to UFV. Secondly, it was to recognize the publication of Carolan’s book, “The Lotus Singers” – an anthology of 18 short stories from South Asia – and to hear the reading of an excerpt from it by UFV student Francesca Tan. Additionally, it was a chance to welcome Levenson, who handed out a sampling of South Asian poetry he had put together during the event and performed a reading of two of his own poems for the attendees.
Together, all of these factors made the event a perfect opportunity to expose students to the colourful world of South-Asian literature. “It just seemed like a no-brainer,” said Carolan. “Why don’t we do something… where we could bring all these different energies together and see what it might lead to?” Rajnish agreed: “We wanted students to know UFV has these new people here, and if they are interested in this [area], maybe we can help.”
The welcoming of Dhawan and Parmar to UFV has held particular significance for the area of Indo-Canadian studies. According to Fisher, the contributions they are able to provide through their insider experience and extensive knowledge on South Asian literature is unique not just to UFV, but to the entire Lower Mainland. “No other institution in BC… has this kind of depth when it comes to South Asian literature,” she explained. “I think we’re very fortunate in having this kind of strength.”
Given the colloquium’s collective insight and experience, feedback after the event reflected a general consensus that the one hour it was allocated was not nearly enough to allow for the in-depth exploration of South Asian literature that was possible; however, Bains noted that if the high levels of interest that were seen at the event continue, we could begin to see a lot more South Asian literature happenings sprouting up at UFV in the future.
