In this talk, Professor Debashree Dattaray, MISC Visiting Scholar from Jadavpur University, discussed the profound paradox that is the North East of India today: a place which simultaneously represents the frontiers of globalization as well as a heritage of Indigenous traditions and cultures. Mainstream Indian films, popular media, and news more than often posit the Northeast as the 鈥渙ther鈥� from patronizing, or limited, perspectives. This talk will examine how Indigenous cinema 鈥榬eturns鈥� the gaze while producing profound art, through its lyrical use of nature and locations and the discussion of hard-hitting issues pertinent to the region.
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Debashree Dattaray听is Assistant Professor in Comparative Literature and Deputy Coordinator, Centre for Canadian Studies at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. She has been the recipient of a CICOPS Fellowship at University of Pavia, Italy, a Fulbright-Nehru Visiting Lecturer Fellowship at UC Berkeley, the Erasmus Mundus Europe Asia Fellowship at the University of Amsterdam and Fulbright Doctoral Fellowship at听State听University of New York, Stony Brook. Her research interests are grounded in Indigenous studies, education, gender, narrative, comparative Indian literature methodology, and folklore. She is author of Oral Traditions of the North East: A Case Study of Karbi Oral Traditions (2015) and has co-edited At the Crossroads of Literature and Culture (2016), Following Forkhead Paths: Discussions on the Narrative (2017) and Ecocriticism and Environment: Rethinking Literature and Culture (2017) and has been Issue Editor for a special volume on Indigenous Studies for Littcrit: An Indian Response to Literature (December 2017). She is currently a Visiting Scholar at the 海角社区 Institute for the Study of Canada on the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute`s Shastri Mobility Program.听
