JU to hold ‘English JUbilee Lit Fest 2021’

Department of English, Jahangirnagar University (JU) will hold a 3-day online literary festival, "English JUbilee Lit Fest 2021" from 12 to 14 March 2021 through Zoom in order to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the Department of Englis of Jahangirnagar University, and of the Emergence of Bangladesh.

Featuring more than 40 scholars, writers, thinkers, translators, artists, performers, film directors and young talents from Bangladesh and around the world, the festival will be inaugurated by Jahangirnagar University Vice-Chancellor Professor Farzana Islam at 18:15 on 12 March 2021, said a press release.

The Online Lit Fest aims to provide a platform to interact across space, share knowledge and insight through great conversations and promote empathy and understanding in a spirit of learning and hope - in a bid to translate trauma and anxiety into empathic intellectual interaction, the press release added.

The event will be free and open to the public. The lit fest will offer 18 sessions in Bangla and English including 13 conversations on several contemporary aspects of literature, art, film, music and culture, 1 online drama by the Drama Club of Gour Banga University, India, a performance session of poetry by "The Versemongers", docu-presentation on "Rickshaw Art" and the closing musical performance by the students of the Department of English, JU.

Following the Inaugural Ceremony at 18.15 on 12 March, the first technical session will features Professor Harish Trivedi in conversation with Professor Fakrul Alam on "English Studies in the World and the Global South". It will be followed by a panel in Bangla on two literary stalwarts of Jahangirnagar University – Selim Al Deen and Mohammad Rafiq, featuring Masum Reza and Altaf Shahnewaz in conversation with Professor Sumon Sajjad. Ganesh N Devy will join a discussion on "Indigenous Studies" with Mahmudul H Sumon while Raihan Sharif will moderate a session on Bangladeshi poetry from 1971 to 2021, featuring 5 poets – Shamim Azad, Iraz Ahmed, Sohel Hasan Galib, Jahanara Parvin and Sumon Sajjad. The day will come to close at 23.00 with a Bangla online drama, Natoker Moto.

Second day of the event will begin with "The Versemongers"' performance followed by 5 conversations, starting with a Bangla session on Bangladesh Liberation War in Foreign Literatures in which Professor Shafi Ahmed will be in conversation with Professor Syed Manzoorul Islam, Bikach Chaudhuri and Javed Hussen.

The next session will be on "Transducting Akhtaruzzaman Elias' Khwabnama" in which Professor Mashrur Shahid Hossain will talk to Professor Khaliquzzaman Elias and Arunava Sinha whose English translation of the novel is likely to hit the bookstore soon. The next two sessions will feature Professor Lewis R Gordon talking on his latest book on freedom, justice and decolonization with Professor Azfar Hussain and Professor Shireen Huq talking to two Poets Laureate of Canada, John B Lee and Richard M Grove. The day will end with a session on Made in Bangladesh in which filmmaker Rubaiyat Hossain will be in conversation with Professor Firdous Azim.

Rickshaw Art Archive will make a docu-presentation on "Rickshaw Art" at the final day of the lit fest. The first conversation of the day will be in Bangla, moderated by poet Shamim Reza who will talk to Shubhabrata Bandopadhyay and Rafique-Um-Munir Chowdhury on the achievement and legacy of the prominent translator Manabendra Bandopadhyay who expired last year. The next session, moderated by Khan Touseef Osman, will concentrate on "Contemporary Bangladeshi English Fiction" with Shazia Omar, Arif Anwar and Nadeem Zaman on board. It will be followed by a session in Bangla in which Professor Ahmed Ahsanuzzaman will talk to Professor Azfar Hussain on his upcoming book on the politics of word and silence.

The last technical session of the Lit Fest will be on "Chinese, Korean and Iranian Film Aesthetics" and would be moderated by Kazi Ashraf Uddin, an associate professor in the Department of English, JU. It will feature Siying Duan, Michelle Kim and Farshid Kazemi.

The event will close with an online performance "Reflect. Rejoice. Renew" by the students of the Department of English, JU.

The full schedule of the programme along with logo, poster and other details will be available from 9 March 2021 at: www.facebook.com/englishjubileelitfest.