New Delhi: Sarojini Naidu Centre for Women’s Studies (SNCWS), Jamia Millia Islamia hosted the prestigious 11th Annual Sarojini Naidu Memorial Lecture. Professor Rita Kothari, a renowned multilingual scholar and translator delivered the lecture titled "Memories and Movements: Fieldwork and Gendered Narratives," at Mir Anis Hall of Jamia Millia Islamia.
The Annual memorial lecture was chaired by Professor Veena Sikri, an eminent academician and former Ambassador. The welcome remarks were delivered by Dr Suraiya Tabassum. Professor Nishat Zaidi, the Hony. Director of SNCWS delivered the opening remarks and introduced the speaker. She underlined that the Sarojini Naidu annual Memorial Lecture, hosted annually by Sarojini Naidu Centre for Women’s Studies is to honour the legacy of the "Nightingale of India”. The Centre continues to serve as a platform for distinguished scholars to share insights on crucial feminist, social and cultural issues. The lecture underscored SNCWS’s dedication to promoting critical academic discussions on gender and cultural studies. It provided a valuable platform for exploring the dynamic intersections of gender, geography and identity within the Indian ethnographic context.
Professor Rita Kothari, who currently serves as Professor of English and Co-director of the Ashoka Centre for Translation at Ashoka University, brought her extensive expertise in cultural studies and translation to this significant academic event. Her lecture explored the intersection of gender, memory, and fieldwork narratives, drawing from her rich experience of ethnography in studying communities across Gujarat, Kutch, and Sindh. She talked about how the field is not only gendered but also constructs the researcher in a gendered way. She brought alive the lives of the Sindhi Muslims residing in Banni, Gujarat and began the talk by saying, “Silence is a distinct language women speak.”
Professor Kothari's academic portfolio includes several influential works, among them the edited volume A Multilingual Nation and monographs The Burden of Refuge and Uneasy Translations. These works have significantly contributed to the understanding of cultural translation and community identity in the Indian subcontinent
The talk was followed by the insightful comments by the Hony. Director of SNCWS, Prof. Nishat Zaidi, which was followed by the remarks of the Chair of the session, Prof. Veena Sikri. The session was concluded by a formal vote of Thanks delivered by Dr. Suraiya Tabassum.
The lecture was attended by an overwhelming number of students and faculty members from across the disciplines. Among the senior members present were Professor Mohd. Muslim Khan, Dean, Faculty of social sciences, Prof. Sunita Zaidi, retired Professor of history and former Dean, Faculty of Humanities, and the award-winning Urdu fiction writer Dr. Khalid Jawed.
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