The Department of Liberal Arts at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhilai organized a two-day national conference on ‘Gender Modalities of Remembering in South Asian Literature’ on January 15–16, 2026, at the Nalanda Lecture Hall on campus.
The conference aimed to explore memory as a gendered and embodied practice within South Asian cultural and literary contexts, while providing a scholarly platform for sharing ongoing academic research in this field. Faculty members and research scholars from universities across India participated in the event, contributing to rich interdisciplinary discussions.
Delivering the keynote address, Professor Simi Malhotra from Jamia Millia Islamia spoke on ‘Remembering Two Centuries of Women’s Movements in India: Rethinking Memory and Feminist Historiography’. She examined feminist historical writing through the lens of memory, tracing the evolution of women’s movements over the past 200 years and highlighting the critical role of remembrance in shaping gendered histories in South Asia.
On the second day, Dr. Snobar Satarawala, Vice Principal of St. Mira’s College for Girls, Pune, delivered a lecture titled ‘Remembering the Margin: Gender, Minority Memory, and the Politics of Representation in South Asian Literature’. Drawing from cinema, literary texts, and oral narratives, she analysed how memories of minority communities are preserved or marginalized, and underscored literature’s role in recovering suppressed and overlooked histories.
