Feminism and Its Offshoots: The diversification of women in our world
Brac University’s Department of English and Humanities hosted a student seminar on October 15th that featured a variety of papers and presentations integrating South Asian and European perspectives. This seminar’s presenters included Anindita Provati (Senior, ENH), Prodipta Hasin (Junior, ENH), Anindita Hossain Rhine (Senior, ENH), Raina Isabela (Senior, ENH), and MD. Shahadat Islam (Masters, ENH).
The event began with a cordial greeting to the audience, followed by the introduction of the first speaker, Provati, who presented “Satyajit Ray’s Devi (1960) as a Counter-narrative to the Spiritual Constructs of Women.” Provati began by explaining how the figure Dayamoyee was exploited and nurtured into representing the Hindu goddess Durga, which finally leads to her suffering an existential crisis. Hasin then led the discussion, discussing “Shanti Ghosh and Suniti Chowdhury: Breaking the Concept of New Women for the New Patriarchy.” Her piece drew emphasis on two prominent women who resisted British colonisation and represented women’s active participation in the battle.
Later, Hossain spoke about “Bon Bibi’s Syncretic Influence on Gender Discourse in Amitav Ghosh’s Sundarbans Tales.” She talked about the myth of Bon Bibi, along with the legends and current importance of Bon Bibi among the Hindu and Muslim residents of the Sundarbans. After that, Isabela spoke about “Denaturalised Genders in Pajtim Statovci’s Crossing: Parody of Becoming and Performance.” She discussed how Statovci’s novel’s protagonists, Bujar and Agim went beyond generic sexuality, as well as the non-binary and gender roles concepts.
The event came to a finale with Islam’s discourse, “What is Woman in Video Games.” He offered a brief history of women in video games and how female characters evolved from iconic women to products of masculine fantasy. Afterwards, the seminar concluded with a brief question and answer session for the speakers, focusing greatly on the post-humanistic idea of gender and sexuality, largely in the domain of artificially generated forms of the female character.
