The deadline to submit the Abstracts is 10/12/2019.
acceptance of the Abstracts will be intimated on 15/12/2019.
The deadline for full paper is 04/01/2020.
College Students and Graduates Association of the Blind (CSGAB), which was founded in the year 1980, has been the pioneer organisation in the state of Tamil Nadu to work for a respectful, independent and equal living for the blind people. CSGAB has been working relentlessly and uncompromisingly for ensuring the employment, educational and basic rights of the vision impaired people for last forty years through various legitimate means ranging from prolonged legal battles in the courts to stunning protests on the street. The CSGAB takes pride in having secured several Government Orders and landmark judgements for realising the employment and education opportunities for the blind through its relentless struggles. The CSGAB, one of the pioneer organisations in the Indian disability rights movement, hosts annual seminars in order to continue its effort to contribute for bringing about perceptible change in our society by encouraging debates, documentations and deliberations about the issues concerning the blind. In this line, the CSGAB Annual National Seminar 2020 will be held in the month of January 2020, and selected papers will be published as an ISBN book in March 2020 on the occasion of CSGAB’s 40th anniversary.
Blind people and blindness have happened to be one of the favourite subjects dealt with by various art forms for a huge long time. Art forms like literature, music, dance, drama, painting, cinema etc. have employed blind characters in their creative works. The prophet Tiresias in Greek mythology and the blind king Dhritarashtra in Mahabharata are only a few examples for such characters in art and literature. Modern literary as well as artistic works have indulged in numerous characterisations having blindness. In addition, the usage of myths, stereotypes and discourses surrounding blindness as symbols, images, metaphors and analogies has been a cherished trend with art, literature and cinema. Thiruvalluvar’s analogy of an illiterate’s eyes for ‘injured blind eyes’, Tagore’s comparison of freedom without destiny for the moving of a blind man’s hands in an empty space, and silver screen and television serial portrayals of blindness as the storehouse of pathetic and tragic scenes serve as explicit evidences to the representation of the blind and blind characters in literature and arts.
Conceptualisations and common notions about blindness and blind people are invincibly diverse and complex in the cultural paradigms which happen to be the fountain of artistic creativity. For instance, it remains to be a common tendency in our culture to use the metaphor of ‘a blind man touching an elephant’ for pointing out the incomplete understanding about a large phenomenon. Myths about the blind people and notions surrounding blindness are replete in the cultural institutions like rituals, religions, family and marriage, language, food, attires, and behaviours. These cultural institutions, families and religions in particular, have developed a diverse range of complex understandings about blindness and blind people in relation to their socio historic, political and economic circumstances.
Persons with blindness have involved themselves in the literary, artistic and cultural activities throughout the human history, even though in limited number and space. The blind poets who brought about a considerable change and created a large impact within the cultural domains of their space include the Greek epic writer Homer, English poet John Milton, one of the saints of medieval North Indian Bakthi movement Surdas and one of the ‘twin bards’ who composed verses in Tamil in the medieval age. The vision impaired persons with social awareness and political ideologies have exerted a huge positive impact among the blind people as well as in the societal perceptions of blindness all over the world through their activisms of various kind in the last two centuries. From Louis Braille the inventor of the Braille script, Helen Keller the writer and political activist and Francis Joseph Campbell the founder of the first ever college for the blind, history has witnessed many vision impaired activists throughout the world. In India, there have emerged many poets, writers, film singers, musicians, disability rights activists and educators from among the blind community, and they have established a distinct mark for themselves through their unique contributions. There are also emerging artistic and cultural efforts for the blind initiated by the blind activists such as tactile painting, dance performances, stand-up shows, sessions for beautification and cooking. If there has been a visible change in the attitudes, notions and stereotypical myths about blindness and blind people in the Indian society in last fifty years, these developments have been achieved only with the huge efforts and tremendous sacrifices of individuals, lawyers, media persons, organisations like the CSGAB, and activists concerned about the disabled people and their socioeconomic progress through education, employment, sociocultural participation and availing of equal civil rights.
In this background, the 2020 Annual National Seminar of the CSGAB looks forward to engaging in a meaningful deliberation of an in-depth and broader nature about the artistic and cultural characterisations of the blind, common cultural notions about blindness and representations of the same in art, literature and media, and the contribution of blind activism in altering the stereotypical perceptions as well as myths about blindness within the social, cultural and artistic scenarios. Original and unpublished papers are welcome for presentation in this seminar to be held in January 2020 (exact date and venue will be intimated later). Following are some of the suggestive, but not limiting, thrust areas for the paper presenters:
· Depiction of blindness and blind persons in Indian literatures and Art forms like cinema, television shows, dance performances, drama, painting, sculpture and music
· Blind characters in Indian literatures and art forms
· Contribution of blind persons from India to art, literature and media
· (Mis)Representations of the deafblind and blind persons further marginalised on the basis of their gender, caste, class, locality etc. in Indian art forms, literatures, media and culture
· Contribution of organisations and activists to the socioeconomic empowerment, education, employment, political awareness, cultural participation and overall progress of the blind people in India (Papers about any particular NGO and its specific activities may kindly be avoided)
· Contribution and interventions of the blind activists and organisations in the enactment of disability rights legislations
· Contribution of the organisations and activists to alleviate the employment, education and sociocultural hurdles at the grassroots level
· Notions and myths about blindness and blind people in family and marriage, and activist interventions towards positive changes in these realms
· Stereotypical attitudes about the blind women and activist interventions for the education, employment and overall empowerment of the blind women in India
· Blindness and blind people in relation to nation, language, religion and other cultural identities
· Challenges and oppressions beyond the scope of legal definitions faced by the blind individuals
· Cultural impacts of Braille, electronic media, communication technologies and assistive equipment’s in the lives of blind persons in India
· Distinct artistic, literary and cultural identities of the blind and blindness in India
Abstracts of not more than 300 words are invited from the willing paper presenters through email to csgabseminar@gmail.com by the 10th of December 2019. Intimation of acceptance will be sent to the selected papers by the 15th of December 2019. The final deadline for sending the full paper is 4th January 2020. The full papers should be between 2000 and 3000 words (5-8 pages) length, and should be send only as a word file in English or Tamil languages. Selected papers will be published in an ISBN book in March 2020 on the occasion of CSGAB anniversary celebrations. The registration fee for the employed and faculty is Rs.800, Rs.500 for research scholars receiving stipend and Rs.300 for non-stipend research scholars and students.
All queries related to the seminar may please be emailed to csgabseminar@gmail.com
1. Software to be used is MS Word.
2. Pages can be between 5 and 8.
3. Line Spacing is 1.5
4. Tamil font should be Ladha Unicode
5. Tamil Font size must be 10
6. The font style for English is Calibri.
7. The size of the English font is 12
8. The citations in accordance with MLA 8th edition or APA 6th Edition must be enclosed at the end of the paper
1. Name.
2. Education/qualification.
3. Institution/organization/job/affiliation.
4. full address.
5. Mobile Number.
6. Email Id.
· The E-mail address to which the paper should be sent is csgabseminar@gmail.com
· The Demand Draft must be taken in favour of: (COLLEGE STUDENTS AND GRADUATES ASSOCIATION OF THE BLIND) payable at: (CHENNAI).
· Phone Numbers: 044-24348628, & 044-48548628.
· Web Address: www.csgab.org