Department of English of the St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata (SXUK) organised a two-day National Conference on ‘War and Literature’ in collaboration with the Father Lafont Centre for Excellence in Research and Innovation (LCERI), the research wing of the university on January 17-18, 2024 in the university campus.

While delivering the inaugural speech, Rev. Dr. John Felix Raj, S.J., Hon’ble Vice-Chancellor of SXUK said, “I am happy to find that the Department of English is organising the conference on such a pertinent theme. I believe that the conference will witness the outcomes of quality research articles by renowned academicians and scholars.”

The keynote speaker was Dr. Kalidas Misra, former Professor, Department of English, Sambalpur University, Odisha. The plenary speaker was Prof. Sumit Chakrabarti, Department of English, Presidency University, Kolkata.

The inaugural ceremony, keynote speech and plenary sessions took place at the Fr. Albert Huart Hall. The other parallel sessions took place at the LCERI Conference Room and LCERI Open Classroom.

The conference witnessed the participation of a huge number of research scholars and academicians from SXUK and many other colleges and universities from different parts of the country.

The conference aimed to address pertinent issues on war from myriad perspectives, with reference to the 20th and 21st centuries. The corpus of work in the ambit of war themed literature took a wide variety of approaches to comprehend the experience through different genres- drama, short stories, novels, journals, diaries, oral histories, memoirs, and letters.

The subject was thought-provoking and relevant given the ongoing conflicts across the world. The conference had been able to successfully address them, engaging mostly faculty members, scholars and students of esteemed institutions.

The convener of the programme was Dr. Indira Chakraborty Bhattacharya and the vote of thanks was delivered by Dr. Ananya Saha.

Dr. Indira Chakraborty Bhattacharya