A webinar on Detective Fiction organised by the Department of English at Shoolini University, concluded successfully. It was part of the activities held every Friday by Belletristic: Shoolini Loves Literature Society which aims at bringing literature aficionados together over lively discussions of books, authors and different literary genres.
Under the unique title of “Gumshoe Calling” two sessions of the seminar were held with scholars and students discussing various aspects of the detective genre. The first comprised two presentations that focused mainly on Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan-Doyle. In the concluding session, the role of the urban landscape – particularly the city – in the whodunit, the woman question, the female detective, and other related issues were discussed.
The speakers came from different educational institutions: Barnali Saha from Indraprastha University (Delhi), Anup Sharma from Ashoka University (Sonepat), Smitha Verghese and Savitha from Hyderabad, and Manjinder Kaur from Panjab University. Other panelists included Namrata Nistandra from Jalandhar, Charu Ahluwalia from Shoolini, and several students.
The organising team was led by Manju Jaidka, Purnima Bali and Neeraj Pizzar from Shoolini’s Department of English, ably supported by Pratip Mazumdar from the Hospitality Department of Shoolini.
These weekly events have gained a lot of popularity in a short span of time since the inception of the literature society. Immensely popular with students, academicians and others, streamed live on Facebook pages, each event garners a sizable number of views ranging from 1,200 to 4,000. “This simply indicates that in these corona-impacted times people are keen to have some meaningful literary activity that will help them tide over the present crisis,” said Prof Manju Jaidka, HOD, Department of English.
