national seminar on personal Narratives

A Three-Day National Seminar on

Personal Narratives of Dalits and their Religion(s)

(18th October 2007 to 20th October 2007)


Religion is one of the problems for Dalits in India. It is the question of its being implicit and explicit, inclusive and exclusive, an insider and outsider for Dalit life. Dalits have been in dilemma as to which religion they have to follow in the Post- Colonial period. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar has made a statement that he will not die as a Hindu. It had an impact on several Dalit Hindus. Moreover, his conversion to Buddhism has influenced thousands of Dalits to follow. However, there may be a few Dalits who are in Hinduism, Christianity, Sikhism, Islam and some others have considered Ambedkarism as one of the religions. The Dalits who are in the religions of Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism have constitutional benefits and others who are in Christianity and Islam are denied the same. This could be one of the debates that the seminar is looking forward to address.


This seminar is more concerned about the narratives of the well established people in different fields such as Students, Teaching Faculty, Creative Writers, Administrative officers, Social Activists, Politicians and if possible Ministers and others to share their experiences to the audience who could be graduate, post-graduate students and research scholars of course and faculty of different subjects.



Topics of the seminar


Personal narratives


Examining Dalit Autobiographies


Dalits and their Religions


Constitutional benefits gained or lost due to religion



Call for Papers


The papers are invited from academics, scholars, administrative officers, Politicians, Ministers and others to share their views and strengthen the efforts of the seminar. It is a promise to all the paper readers that the papers presented will be brought out in the form of a book. Hence, paper readers are requested to send full-length papers and not a rough or a working paper. It is difficult to manage to put them together after the seminar.



Submission of Abstracts


The contributors are requested to submit their detailed outlines and abstract of the paper in about 500 words to Dr. D. Murali Manohar, Department of English, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad-500 046 on of before August 31, 2007. The selected participants will be intimated by email.




Deadline for submitting the full paper



The participants are requested to send their full paper in Times New Roman, 12 point size in MS Word to the Coordinator either by post to the following address Dr. D. Murali Manohar, Department of English, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad-500 046 or by email on dmmsh@uohyd.ernet.in or dmbm_vs@yahoo.co.in before September 30, 2007.