THE EXPANDING UNIVERSE: SCIENCE AND LITERATURE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, JADAVPUR UNIVERSITY
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ‘THE EXPANDING UNIVERSE:
SCIENCE AND LITERATURE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY’
6TH – 8TH FEBRUARY, 2010
VENUE: H. L. ROY AUDITORIUM (GATE NO. 3)

6 FEBRUARY 2010 (SATURDAY):
10.00 – 10.30: Registration
INAUGURAL SESSION
10.30 – 11.00: Inauguration by Professor Ashoke Ranjan Thakur, Vice-Chancellor, West Bengal State University
11.00 – 12.00: Keynote Address: Professor Gillian Beer (University of Cambridge): ‘“The Backbone Shiver”: Darwin and the Arts’
12.00 – 12.15: COFFEE
SESSION II
12.15 – 1.00: Samantak Das (Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavapur University): ‘Written on the Body’
1.00 – 2.00: LUNCH
SESSION III
2.00 – 2.30: Christel R. Devadawson (University of Delhi): ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Darwinian Legacy’
2.30 – 3.00: Shilpy Malhotra (Miranda House, Delhi): ‘Science and Literature in the
Nineteenth Century: The Case of Sherlock Holmes’
3.00 – 3.20: Shantanu Majee (PG 2, Jadavpur University): ‘On the Origin of the New Woman: Reading Darwin’s Influence on Sarah Grand’s The Beth Book’
3.20 – 3.30: TEA
SESSION III
3.30 – 4.00: Debarati Bandyopadhyay (Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan): ‘Science and Crime: “Recognizable Realities” of the 19th Century in the Novels of Wilkie Collins’
4.00 – 4.30: Prodosh Bhattacharya (Jadavpur University): ‘Bestseller Science: Some novels of Marie Corelli’



7 FEBRUARY 2010 (SUNDAY):
SESSION I
10.00 – 10.30: Phillip Mallett (University of St Andrews, Edinburgh): Thomas Hardy
10.30 – 11.10: Gowan Dawson (University of Leicester): ‘Literary Megatheriums and loose baggy monsters: Palaeontology and the Victorian Novel’
11.10 – 11.50: Sambudha Sen (University of Delhi): ‘Visuality, Technology and the Making of a Modern Urban Imaginary’
11.50 – 12.00: COFFEE
SESSION II
12.00 – 12.30: Nivedita Basu (St Stephen’s College, Delhi): ‘Staging Technology:
Nineteenth Century Melodrama and the Modern’
12.30 – 1.00: Nishi Pulugurtha (Brahmananda Keshab Chandra College, Kolkata):
‘Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Early Nineteenth Century Science’
1.00 - 2.00: LUNCH
SESSION III
2.00 – 2.30: Rimi B. Chatterjee (Jadavpur University): ‘The New Great Work: Frankenstein and the Transmutation of Alchemy’
2.30 – 3.00: Dhrubajyoti Sarkar (Vidyasagar College, Nabadwip): ‘Hind Swaraj to
Copenhagen: John Ruskin’s Lasting Legacy’
3.00 – 3.20: Pusapati Teja Varma (MPhil, University of Delhi): ‘Prescribing/ Proscribing Reform: Gender Prejudice and Medical Knowledge in Middlemarch’
3.20 – 3.30: TEA
SESSION IV
3.30 – 4.00: Saswati Halder (Jadavpur University): ‘“Ascendancy of a New Order”: The Rise of Professional Science in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters’
4.00 – 4.30: Shanta Dutta (Jadavpur University): ‘The “Terrible Muses” and Victorian Fiction’

8 FEBRUARY 2010 (MONDAY):
SESSION I
10.30 – 11.10: Madhav Gadgil (Agharakar Research Institute, Pune): ‘Genes, memes and machines: Samuel Butler’s evolutionary insights’
11.10 – 11.50: Jayanta Bhattacharjee (S. N. Bose Centre for Basic Sciences, Kolkata): ‘The Story of Light’
11.50 – 12.00: COFFEE
SESSION II
12.00 – 12.40: Carlo Vecce (University of Naples): ‘The rediscovery of Leonardo da
Vinci’s manuscripts in the nineteenth century’
12.40 – 1.00: Anirban Ray (MPhil, Jadavpur University): ‘Exploring the Heavens: Space-Travels in the works of Jules Verne’
1.00 – 2.00: LUNCH
SESSION III
2.00 – 2.30: Abhijit Gupta (Jadavpur University): ‘Scientific Publishing in 19th century Bengal: an overview’
2.30 – 3.00: Arpa Ghosh (Vivekananda College for Women, Barisha, Kolkata): ‘Bankim Chandra Chattopadhay’s Krishnacharitra and Jagadish Chandra Bose’s Obyakta: The correlation between Science and Literature in two 19th century texts’
3.00 – 3.20: Abhishek Sarkar (JRF, Jadavpur University): ‘Thematizing Science on the 19th-century Kolkata Stage: Girish Chandra Ghosh’s Mayabasan’
3.20 – 3.30: TEA
SESSION IV
3.30 – 3.50: Ramit Samaddar (MPhil, Jadavpur University): ‘Ambivalence in Constance Naden: Science, Gender and “Evolutional Erotics”’
3.50 – 4.20: Chandreyee Niyogi (Jadavpur University): ‘Some call it Imagination and others call it God: dream, trance, and spirit communication in Victorian women’s battle for the soul of man’
4.20 – 4.45: VALEDICTORY