21st INTERNATIONAL MELOW CONFERENCE

We are going through a traumatic period that has been unprecedented in human history, with the COVID 19 pandemic raging uncontrollably across the globe. In such circumstances, what does one do? Do we sit and lament, bewailing our fate? Or do we find ways of coping with the catastrophe? Since March 2020 the world has moved into cyber-space and much of our activities are conducted in the virtual world. Seminars and conferences, too, have been transformed into virtual events. Our organization MELOW, too, has moved into the virtual world, at least for the time being. The 2021 Conference, hosted by Shoolini University, Solan, HP, will be in a blended format, online as well as in real time.

The 2021 Melow International Conference on “Illness, Healing, and the Literary Imagination” aims to bring together scholars from different disciplines to debate on the literary culture of sickness and recovery from Giovanni Boccaccio and T. S. Eliot to the Bible and the Lotus Sutra. Outbreaks of diseases, epidemics and pandemics generate emotions of fear, melancholy, and sadness, encapsulating a social experience through a language that often proves inadequate for the given task.The fear of contamination further destroys the moral fibre and corrupts the imagination, giving rise to melancholy and sadness, and at times resignation and scepticism. The journey to recovery and healing can be long and slow but the resilient human spirit will work towards that goal without losing hope. Suffering and its aftermath together give a new life force to language and society.