TSC 2012 Poster
The world’s largest annual Tamil Studies Conference will draw hundreds of leading international scholars, activists and students to the University of Toronto from May 11 to 12, to discuss questions of Tamil history, politics, arts, identity and gender.
In its seventh year, the Conference will focus on “Traces of the Past.” Specifically, scholars will examine how people understand and reflect upon the past, and how this in turn shapes the contemporary world.
According to a news release today, over 30 presenting academics from different disciplines, attendees will have access to a wide range of perspectives and topics, such as:
- Magazines and the Poetics of Literary Criticism;
- Second World War and plantation Tamils in Malaysia;
- The Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam and the Routinization of Charisma: Problems and Projections;
- Tracing a Literary History for Postcolonial Tamil Poetry from Sri Lanka; and
- Absence of Nostalgia in the Writings of Immigrant Tamil Women
“Since the virtual demise of the International Association for Tamil Research (IATR), the annual Tamil Studies Conference of Toronto has become the academic forum for Tamil studies in a globalizing world,” stated A.R.Venkatachalapathy, ICCR Chair Professor of Indian Studies at the National University of Singapore.
The Conference is turning Toronto into a hub for Tamil Studies in North America, allowing Tamil diaspora and the broader community to engage with scholars from academic institutions around the world. This year’s conference includes academics from Canada, Sri Lanka, India, United States, United Kingdom, Japan and many more. Organized by the Universities of Toronto and Windsor, the conference also encourages students to develop a deeper interest in Tamil Studies.
