IACLALS
(Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies in India)
CFP: IACLALS Annual Conference (Offline) 2026, co-hosted by Department of English, Bangalore University
on
Food and Food Cultures in the Global South: Aesthetics, Intersections and Mediations
12–14 February 2026
co-hosted by
The Department of English, Bangalore University, Jnanabharathi Campus, Bengaluru – 560056
Food and food cultures serve as crucial sites for performance, story-telling, memorialization, identitarian politics, ritualistic practice and assertions of power and cultural capital. They also facilitate a fertile field of critical inquiry in terms of intergenerational trauma, ecological ethics, colonial and postcolonial structures and resistance, migration and connectivity. The multiple ways of thinking, preparing and consuming food enable one to understand it as a site mediating complex social relationships and self-representation in diverse cultural and literary texts and contexts.
Food and foodways symbolize types of cultural capital which in turn influence larger concerns of identity and identity formation. Food is part of rituals and ceremonies that span almost all occasions of human existence – whether as offering or for consumption. Processes of resistance and resilience also find reflection in multiple food representations. Within an expanding food literacy, both public and domestic spaces highlight the historical politics of food and eating. The realpolitik of food production narrates tales of exploitation, appropriation and marginalization.
Understanding gastro semantics, culinary cosmopolitanism and gastro-tourism enables both informed understanding and a rethinking of one’s relationship with food at local and global levels. Theorizing food requires an interdisciplinary approach involving ethnographic, historical, geographical, political, literary, aesthetic, gender, ethnic, agricultural, economic, nutrition and cultural studies. Food activism focuses on seed sovereignty, farmers’ markets, and eating disorders. An epistemology of embodiment and hierarchy can be constructed in the politics of who cooks, who serves and who eats.
Sub-Themes
- Digital gastronomy and food aesthetics
- Food practices: rituals, ceremonies and offerings
- Food, faith and taboo: religious laws and transgressions
- Gastronomic and taste philosophies
- Gastro-feminism and masculinities: gender, food and culture
- Disability and food practices
- Food and food culture in cinema, literature and art
- Culinary colonialism and the decolonial palate
- Food as semiotic system
- Kitchen as archive
- Kitchen as domestic, commercial, trans or queer performative space
- Carnivalesque food and food practices
- Food sovereignty: hunger, memory, famine, starvation
- Indigenous foodways
- Food writing: culinary histories, recipes, menus
- Food and human rights
- Food distribution and public health
- Food activism and advocacy
- Urban food practices, diet and nutrition
- Food porn and food exotica
Submission Guidelines
- Abstracts of 250–300 words with a bio-note of no more than 50 words may be submitted using the submission link by 18th September 2025.
- Acceptances will be conveyed by 18th October 2025.
- Abstracts submission link: https://forms.gle/nJ3eNEMGZyCdnK8i7
CDN Prize 2026
If you wish to participate in the “C.D. Narasimhaiah Prize” for the Best Paper Presented at an Annual Conference, kindly type “Submission for CDN Prize” in the subject line of the email when you send the full paper to iaclalsbuconference2026@gmail.com .
Last date for submission of complete papers: 24th November 2025
For guidelines and details: https://iaclals.in/cdn-prize/
MMM Prize 2026
IACLALS also announces the next edition of the “Meenakshi Mukherjee Memorial Prize” for the Best Academic Paper published by a member during the previous two years (2024 & 2025).
Submission link:
https://forms.gle/bHbF7ZWyM1yWnHoV8
Last date for submission: 18th September 2025
For guidelines: https://iaclals.in/mmm-prize/
Membership
The conference is open only to members of IACLALS. Participants are encouraged to become members before sending abstracts.
- 3-Year Membership: Rs. 1500
- Life Membership: Rs. 5000
- Annual Membership for Students/Research Scholars: Rs. 1000 (Postgraduate level and above)
For details, contact the Treasurer at: treasurer.iaclals@gmail.com
Registration Fee
- Faculty: Rs. 3500/-
- Research Scholars: Rs. 2500/-
Includes: Lunch, refreshments on conference days, and conference kit.
Mode of payment: To be announced.
Registration dates: 15th November – 15th December 2025
Note: A separate Registration Bank Account data will be shared later.
Contact
For all conference-related queries: iaclalsbuconference2026@gmail.com
Accommodation
Participants will make their own arrangements. A list of nearby hotels, guest houses, and homestays will be provided later.
About the Department of English, Bangalore University
Established in 1964, Bangalore University is one of the most prestigious public state universities in Karnataka, with NAAC accreditation of grade A++ (2023) and NIRF ranking of #81 under the ‘University’ category. The Department of English, with an illustrious history, continues to strive for academic excellence, interdisciplinarity, and social responsibility.
Important Dates
- Submission of Abstracts: 18th September 2025
- Confirmation of Acceptance: 18th October 2025
- MMM Prize Submission: 18th September 2025
- CDN Prize Submission: 24th November 2025
- Receipt of Complete Papers: 31st December 2025
IACLALS Annual Conference (Offline) 2025
(Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies in India)
Annual Conference 2025
on
“Trauma, Resilience and Healing: Representations in South Asian Literature and Culture”
hosted at
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus
20–22 February 2025
NEW CONFERENCE MATERIAL:
🔗 New Conference Report – IACLALS Annual Conference (Offline) 2025 at BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus
https://iaclals.in/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/IACLALS-Annual-Conference-2025-Report.pdf
🔗 Final Conference Schedule 2025
https://iaclals.in/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/IACLALS-2025_-Schedule.pdf
🔗 E-copy of the Book of Abstracts – IACLALS BPHC 2025
https://iaclals.in/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/E_Booklet_IACLALS.pdf
EXTENDED DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS: Midnight, 19th October 2024.
Globally, all cataclysmic events have resulted in corresponding archives of expressive resources, including oral narratives, writings, and performing and visual arts, which memorialize responses of those who have experienced, or are experiencing, ordeals laterally or at first-hand. The South Asian region, owing to its history of commonwealth belonging and decolonization, and its global south categorization, has witnessed, over the years, historical and political crises, economic and ecological disruptions, cultural and sociological disturbances that present grand patterns of trauma. These have shaped or reshaped histories of belonging, hybridized or recreated identities or brought them under contestation, and led to conditions wherein people find themselves in perpetual flux. Significantly, this region has also witnessed instances of peoples’ resilience and forces of healing, at times in unexpected ways and from unanticipated quarters. The history of the South Asian region, in other words, constitutes histories of peoples’ struggles and their dealing with crises, whether as resistance or protest, as forgetting and moving on, as continually learning and resiliently adapting to them, or as coping and healing in spite of them.
Trauma, a key term in psychoanalytic approaches to literary study, has garnered significant interest, with broad applicability to individuals, cultures, and nations. All aspects of traumatic experiences, in their individual and collective dimensions, emphasize the role of peoples’ resilience, overcoming crises, and moving on. Furthermore, memory plays a significant role in both falling into trauma and overcoming it. Both trauma and memory are, in their multifarious manifestations, psychological, social, historical, cultural, philosophical, religious, economic, and political. Artistic representations and memorialisation of trauma constitute acts of resistance, that despite recalling the scarring memories of violence and hurt, highlight the need for healing and rejuvenate the collective consciousness of a community, thereby emphasizing efforts toward resilience. Memory also acts as a safeguard against attempts to silence voices of transgression and dissidence and is, in turn, often implicated in that silencing.
It is important to locate and understand the manifold ways in which traumatic memories of violence and resistance have led to resilience; how their narrativization and depiction in literature, film, theatre, art, and other cultural forms transforms the experiences into aestheticized expressions, thereby accruing layers of meaning and significance. Examining the intricate interplay that exists between these realms and/or in the interstices between them reveals how literary and cultural media not only preserve and reshape personal and collective memory but also serve as powerful acts of resistance and responses to the silencing of traumatic histories and experiences.
What do these multimodal representations tell us about peoples’ experiences and struggles? How does artistic self-expression relate to trauma, survival, resilience, and healing? How do they affect audiences? How do minor artistic expressions of trauma and resilience compare with dominant narratives? This conference seeks to address the above and related issues through readings of oral narratives, literature, performance, art, and sculpture. It seeks to highlight ways in which archives may reflect or resist personal and collective memory and identity and the larger politics of preservation and documentation. It seeks to contribute to the fields of trauma, culture, and memory studies by fostering a rich, interdisciplinary dialogue that will challenge and expand perceptions of the past, present, and future.
Original, unpublished papers centring South Asia are invited for presentation on the following sub-themes:
Sub-Themes
- Theorizing narratives, methodologies and representations: sources, sites, retelling, censorship, and contestation
- Representations/ways of healing, therapeutics, caregiving and/or catharsis
- Pandemic and post-pandemic illness and everyday trauma
- Memorializing trauma: Individual and collective memories; counter-memories and counter-narratives
- Representations of resistance, agitation, and collaboration
- Bearing witness: perpetrators, collaborators, spies, survivors and bystanders
- Aphasia, amnesia, and trauma: memories of territorial occupation
- War, atrocities, genocide, ethnic cleansing
- Digitizing trauma, resilience, and memory
- Trauma and its relation to precarity
- Navigating legacies of colonialism, displacement, cultural erasure, and resistance
- Memory activism and politics of remembrance and forgetting
- Resilience, neuro-plasticity, and coping
- Trans-cultural / trans-national / trans-generational expressions of casteist, sexist, racist and ableist trauma
- Archives and narratives of migrant trauma
- Ecological disasters and trauma
- Role of language and translation in expressing and memorializing trauma, resilience, memory and healing
Submission Guidelines
Abstracts of 250–300 words with a bio-note of no more than 50 words may be submitted using the submission link at the latest by 15 October 2024 – extended to 19th October 2024. Acceptances will be conveyed by 31 October 2024.
Abstracts submission link: https://shorturl.at/T0NLQ
CDN Prize 2025
If you wish to participate in the “C. D. Narasimhaiah Prize” for the Best Paper Presented at an Annual Conference, kindly type “Submission for CDN Prize” in the subject line of the email when you send in the full paper to iaclalshydconference2025@gmail.com .
The last date for the submission of complete papers: 15 November 2024.
For details of the CDN Prize, visit: https://www.iaclals.com/cdn-prize.html
MMM Prize 2025
IACLALS also announces the next edition of the “Meenakshi Mukherjee Memorial Prize” for the Best Academic Paper published by a member during the previous block of two years (2023 & 2024). IACLALS Members can submit their published paper for consideration using the Google Form: https://shorturl.at/bSPLX .
The last date for submission: 15 October 2024.
The author(s) should have been a member of IACLALS at the time of publication of the paper. For MMM Prize submission guidelines, visit: https://www.iaclals.com/mmm-prize.html
Membership
The conference is open only to members of IACLALS. Participants are encouraged to become members before sending abstracts for the conference. Membership at the time of participating in the conference is essential.
IACLALS Membership options:
- 3-year Membership: Rs 1500
- Life Membership: Rs 5000
- Students/Research Scholars: Annual Membership – Rs 1000 (not available below Postgraduate level)
Mode of Payment (Only for Membership of IACLALS)
Name: IACLALS
Bank: State Bank of India
SB A/C: 10851525016
Branch: JNU New Campus Branch
Branch Code: 10441
IFSC: SBIN0010441
MICR: 11000242
Please send a copy of the transfer document/receipt along with your details, including name, affiliation, address, email ID, and contact number to the IACLALS Treasurer only on the official id: treasurer.iaclals@gmail.com
Registration Fee for the Conference
(Includes Lunch, Dinner, Refreshments on conference days, and Conference Kit)
- Faculty (with twin-sharing, non-AC accommodation): Rs. 4500 + 18% GST = Rs. 5310
- Faculty (without accommodation): Rs. 3000 + 18% GST = Rs. 3540
- Research Scholars (with twin-sharing, non-AC accommodation): Rs. 2500 + 18% GST = Rs. 2950
- Research Scholars (without accommodation): Rs. 1500 + 18% GST = Rs. 1770
- Foreign delegates: USD 250 (without accommodation)
Mode of Payment (for payment of Conference Registration Fee): To be announced.
* Weather in Hyderabad during February is generally pleasant with the average day temperature around 28°C and the average night temperature around 17°C. For those who wish to stay on their own, accommodation near the campus is available at:
- Aalankrita Resort and Convention: https://aalankrita.com/
- Celebrity Resorts: https://www.celebrityhospitality.com/
- Leonia Holistic Destination: https://leonia.in/
About Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani
The Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani (est. 1964) is a deemed university recognized by the Government of India as an Institution of Eminence. It offers First Degree, Higher Degree, and Doctoral programmes in Engineering, Science, Management, and Humanities across its five campuses in Pilani, Dubai, Goa, Hyderabad, and Mumbai.
The Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus (BPHC; est. 2008), has faculty members specialising in a range of research areas from various disciplines. The department is committed to promoting value-oriented learning, respect for diversity, critical thinking, development of social-political values and cognitive capacities required for examining the world around, and cultural and aesthetic appreciation of various art forms and literary genres.
How to reach BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus
- From Rajiv Gandhi International Airport: The fastest route is via the Nehru Outer Ring Road (BITS is at Exit 7, Shamirpet). Distance: approx. 75 km; Travel time: approx. 90 mins; Cab fare: approx. Rs 1500–1800.
- From Secunderabad Railway Station: Distance: approx. 25 km; Travel time: 45–60 mins; Cab fare: approx. Rs 600–800.
Important Dates and Deadlines for the Conference
- Submission of Abstracts: 15 Oct 2024 – extended to 19th Oct 2024
- Submission of entries for the MMM Prize 2025: 15 Oct 2024
- Submission of entries for the CDN Prize 2025: 15 Nov 2024
- Confirmation and Acceptance of Abstracts: 31 Oct 2024
- Receipt of Complete Papers: 31 Dec 2024
- Registration: Open from 15 Nov to 15 Dec 2024
15–17 February 2024
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani, K.K. Birla Goa Campus
IACLALS
(Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies in India)
Annual International Conference 2024
co-hosted by
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani, K.K. Birla Goa Campus
“Wit, Humour, and the Carnivalesque in Literature and Performance”
15–17 February 2024
FINAL CONFERENCE SCHEDULE: conference_programme.pdf
Wit, humour and the carnivalesque cover a wide spectrum of literary expressions and have remained integral elements of world literature, from the classical to the modern age. From providing pure delight and entertainment and social criticism to drawing attention to the fundamental incongruities and iniquities of life, writers have deployed wit and humour to great effect. From Aristophanes, Cervantes, Rabelais, Mark Twain to P. G. Wodehouse, from Sukumar Roy, Vaikom Muhammad Basheer to Harishankar Parsai, to take some random examples from literature alone, we see the extraordinary range and scope of the comic imagination these writers possessed and the purposes to which they put it.
It is extraordinary to witness how wit and humour have seamlessly been incorporated as elements of narrative, characterisation, amplification and subversion, within the accepted conventions of various literary genres. Literature and performance can be analysed to explore the role of humour and wit in bringing about positive changes in society, and also how oral and body-centric dimensions of the carnivalesque get reflected in ritual-based performances. By means of seemingly innocuous subjects and styles of presentation, they actually end up challenging oppressive social hierarchies and empowering marginal voices, pointing towards a more egalitarian, equitable and just society. Humour can be both resistance and liberation, and it is also an extraordinary tool of coping mechanism in situations where immediate redress is unavailable.
The liberating potential of wit, humour and the carnivalesque, particularly in the Indian context, has remained understudied. We have a rich treasure-trove of literature in the comic vein in different Indian languages but relatively few critical studies on these texts. The IACLALS Conference 2024 is intended to explore this relatively less-studied field of literature and performance in Indian and global contexts.
If we trace the history of classical Greek and Latin comedies, we find that they dramatized contemporary history and the quotidian. The protagonists were citizens of Rome and Athens from across classes—nobility, slaves, criminals, householders. Humour was topical and relatable while satire and lampoon were critical and often brutal, feared for good reason as they could be savage and unsparing. They exposed the follies of people and held up a mirror to contemporary society. The plays of Shakespeare (more specifically, Shakespearean comedies) or Strindberg perform a similar function.
Some of the most powerful examples of satire in English are Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal and John Dryden’s Mac Flecknoe. It is also important to explore how wit and humour interface with the art of rhetoric. In the light of the literary works of Rabelais and Dostoevsky, it is pertinent to understand in what way rhetorical devices make selective application of the transformative and subversive power of the carnivalesque to sound persuasive.
Modern-day comedy often enters our lives through political caricature. The British magazine Punch (and its multiple Indian avatars) is one of the best examples to show how various subjects can be ridiculed through caricature, drawing laughter as well as providing political commentary. In English writing in India, political caricature has appeared in newspapers and magazines where political cartoons featured in some of the earliest periodicals.
It is also claimed that the Vidūṣaka or the comic figure in Sanskrit drama was the predecessor to the political cartoonist and that such drama in the Indian satirical tradition commented on the nature and purpose of wit and humour in drama. Indeed, wit and humour in their myriad forms are intrinsic to folk forms, literary works, theatre, performance, television, cinema, stand-up, comics and cartoons. The conference provides an excellent opportunity to explore continuities and ruptures in both local and global literary traditions.
Finally, the notion of the carnivalesque has close associations with the idea of “place”—how certain sites around the world like Goa and Rio are associated with subjective possibilities of relaxation and withdrawal of order. The conference intends to explore how the concept of the “carnivalesque” can be invested with therapeutic and recuperative significance.
Sub-Themes
- Wit and humour in classical comedy
- Wit and humour and the carnivalesque
- Wit and humour and resistance
- Wit and humour as parody / pastiche
- Wit and humour and stand-up comedy
- Black humour
- The comic imagination and literatures for children and young adults
- The comic imagination and graphic novels
- Wit and humour in Sanskrit poetics
- Wit and humour in Sangam literature
- Wit and humour in Indigenous literature(s)
- Wit and humour and folklore
- Wit and humour in visual arts
- Wit and humour and caricature
- Parody and satire, pathos and bathos
- Wit and humour and gender
- Wit and humour and catharsis
- Wit and humour and ethnicity and race
Guidelines
The conference is open only to members of IACLALS. All participants are encouraged to avail of membership before sending abstracts for the conference. (Please visit https://www.iaclals.com/membership.html to know how to become a member.)
Abstracts of 300 words with a bio-note of no more than 50 words may be submitted to iaclalsgoaconference2024@gmail.com by 20 October 2023.
CDN Prize 2024
If you wish to participate in the C. D. Narasimhaiah Prize for the Best Paper Presented at an Annual Conference, kindly indicate “Submission for CDN Prize” in the subject line of the email when you send in your full papers to iaclalsgoaconference2024@gmail.com . The last date for submission of complete papers is 30 November 2023. For more details about the CDN Prize, visit: https://www.iaclals.com/cdn-prize.html
MMM Prize 2024
IACLALS also announces the next edition of the Meenakshi Mukherjee Memorial Prize for the Best Academic Paper published by a member during the previous block of two years (2022 & 2023). In accordance with the detailed MMM Prize submission guidelines available on the website, IACLALS Members can submit their published paper for consideration to iaclalsconferences@gmail.com latest by 15 October 2023.
The author(s) should have been a member of IACLALS at the time of publication of the paper. Please indicate “Submission for MMM Prize 2024” in the subject line of the email. For detailed MMM Prize submission guidelines, visit: https://www.iaclals.com/mmm-prize.html
Registration & Accommodation
Registration Fee and Mode of Payment (for registration as well as membership) were sent to selected participants individually.
Accommodation: Participants were requested to make their own arrangements. The conference organizers provided a list of nearby hotels, guest houses and homestays at a later date.
About Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani – Goa Campus
The Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, established in 1964, is an all-India Institute for Higher Education deemed to be a university by the Government of India. BITS offers First Degree, Higher Degree and Doctoral Degree programmes in various disciplines such as Engineering, Science, Management and Humanities. BITS has consistently been ranked as one of the top educational institutions of its kind. The university has five campuses in Pilani (Rajasthan), Goa, Hyderabad (Telangana), Mumbai (Maharashtra) and Dubai (UAE).
The Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the BITS Pilani, K.K. Birla Goa Campus offers courses in English Language and Literature, Professional Communication, Mass Media, Philosophy, Political Science, Ecocriticism, Sociology and Development Studies. The department aims at enriching the knowledge and awareness of students in various areas of humanistic and social studies and enhancing the life-quality of all living beings.
For more details about the department, visit:
https://www.bits-pilani.ac.in/goa/HumanitiesandSocialSciences/HumanitiesandSocialSciences
INDIAN ASSOCIATION FOR COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE & LANGUAGE STUDIES (IACLALS)
in collaboration with
JANKI DEVI MEMORIAL COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF DELHI
ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2023 (ONLINE)
“Metropolis and Margins: Shifting Configurations in Literature and Language Studies”
April 26–29, 2023
Conference Schedule:
2023_schedule–IACLALS Annual International Conference (Online)
Book of Abstracts:
iaclals_conference_2023_book_of_abstracts___bionotes.pdf
Facebook Live Stream:
IACLALS Official Page
The 2023 online edition of the IACLALS Annual International Conference brought together scholars and practitioners to engage with shifting dynamics between metropolis and margins in literature and language studies. Hosted in collaboration with Janki Devi Memorial College (University of Delhi), the four-day event featured panels, plenaries, and discussions on urban imaginaries, marginal voices, and evolving languages of the contemporary moment.
Conference Highlights (Gallery)
INDIAN ASSOCIATION FOR COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE STUDIES (IACLALS)
in collaboration with
JANKI DEVI MEMORIAL COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF DELHI
ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2022 (ONLINE)
“CIRCULATIONS, MEDIATIONS, NEGOTIATIONS: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON TRANSLATION FROM SOUTH ASIA”
2–5 March 2022 · Keynote Address: 2 March 2022
Conference Schedule:
iaclals___jdmc-2022-_online_conference_schedule.pdf
Abstracts Booklet:
iaclals_2022_book_of_abstracts.pdf
All sessions streamed live on our Facebook page:
IACLALS – Official Facebook Page
The 2022 online edition of the IACLALS Annual International Conference focused on circulations, mediations and negotiations in translation from South Asia. Hosted with Janki Devi Memorial College, the conference explored how translational practices shape literary, cultural and political conversations across the region, and how South Asian languages, texts and communities move across borders and media.
Conference Highlights (Gallery)
INDIAN ASSOCIATION FOR COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE STUDIES (IACLALS)
in collaboration with
JANKI DEVI MEMORIAL COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF DELHI
ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2021 (ONLINE)
“UTOPIAS AND DYSTOPIAS IN OUR TIMES”
18–20 March 2021 · Keynote Address: 17 March 2021
Conference Schedule:
iaclals_2021_annual_international_conference_schedule.pdf
Abstracts Booklet:
iaclals_2021_annual_conference_abstracts_booklet.pdf
All sessions are available on our Facebook page:
IACLALS – Official Facebook Page
The 2021 online edition of the IACLALS Annual International Conference examined contemporary utopias and dystopias, exploring how literature and cultural expressions register crises, alternatives and imagined futures. Hosted with Janki Devi Memorial College, the conference brought together scholars to discuss speculative worlds, real-world inequalities and the politics of hope and despair in our times.
Conference Highlights (Gallery)