BASE CONFERENCE 2020
26 & 27 (Saturday & Sunday) December 2020
ONLINE using GOOGLE MEET
Theme
Crisis and After: Society, Culture and Politics
Bengali Academia for Social Empowerment (BASE) is a developmental organisation, registered as a trust by a collective of academicians, scholars, professionals and other like-minded people working for community and social development. In the last couple of years BASE has been doing ground-breaking works on various segments and is being regarded as one of the prestigious organisations in Bengal.
BASE Conference is an excellent initiative which aims to understand marginal societies and issues. It tries to promote critical thinking on relevant subjects and intends to develop language for democratic engagements. In 2019, BASE has successfully organised an international conference on the theme of “Bengali Muslims at the Crossroads: Possibilities and Challenges”. In this rapidly changing socio-political context, BASE tried to academically engage and discuss various issues related to Bengali Muslims with the larger questions of constitutional democracy, substantial equality, social, political and economic justice as enshrined in the Constitution of India.
In 2020, the world is going through a pandemic. The corona and crisis has pushed the whole humanity in severe threats in different ways. The present crisis has occasioned, apart from the ontological anxiety and gloom, a rethinking of some of our established social, cultural, economic and political ideas. Not only it has exposed the incompetence and apathy of the political regimes across the globe, it has sharpened the existing fault lines between communities, social groups and classes. India in particular witnessed deaths and despair among lakhs of stranded migrant labourers all across its major cities. While fake news led to vilification of minorities. Owing to the precautionary moves undertaken by the government, education has taken virtual mode thereby furthering the digital divide. The shift has also given space to innumerable stories of frustration and desperation among the rural and downtrodden students and their caretakers. The digital service providers have become the big players reaping maximum benefit in the name of this transformation in dissemination of education, media content and even entertainment.
Democracy, thus, seems to have given way to ‘Pandemocracy’ where security for people’s lives is replaced with ‘Coronopticon’, generating fears of stabilisation of the authoritarian regimes. However, there also have been talks of a post-capitalist future that is sensitive to ecology and a complete rethinking of our livelihood and modes of being. The Black Lives Matter Movement, too, makes us hopeful of a common fight for justice. So the pandemic has made it pertinent to rethink our common destiny as humans.
BASE Conference 2020 proposes to lay bare these conundrums by exploring the ‘after’ of the crisis- philosophically, politically, culturally and economically. However, the thinking of the ‘after’ would also necessitate a critical inquiry on the unfolding present, and similar crises in the past and the cataclysm they brought to people’s lives. Our focus, thus, is on attempting a critical social enquiry to understand how the world might integrate or disintegrate after the crisis and what are our conceptual wherewithal at hand to imagine a better world.
The following sub themes can be kept in mind while sending abstracts. However, the list is not exhaustive and authors might propose to write on any topic that helps us to understand the ‘after’ of the present crisis in a fresh and critical way.
SUB THEMES
Pandemic and Work Cultures
Pandemic and the New Normal
Pandemic, Lockdown and Economy
Literatures of Crisis-Past and Present
Corona, Vaccine & New Medical World
Crisis and Populist Politics: Past and Present
Pandemic and New Modes of Online Activism
Crisis and Inequality: The Migrant and the Homeless
Cultures of Lockdown: Sociality during and after the Pandemic
Media & Pandemic: Misinformation, Prejudice and Scapegoating
Rethinking Our Common Destiny: Towards a New Politics of Hope
Censoring Online entertainment platforms post pandemic: boon or bane
Pedagogy after the Pandemic: Online Teaching, Class Divide and Classroom
Ecological justice after the Pandemic: Anthropocene/Capitalocene and Beyond
New Economic Imaginaries: Degrowth, Postcapitalism and Returning to the Land
TECHNICALITIES
The conference will be on online mode using Google Meet.
Digital certificates will be provided to all presenters and participants.
All lectures and discussion will be recorded and uploaded on BASE YouTube.
Speakers should be dressed properly and in sitting position at the time of presentation.
Speakers would be responsible for the contents of the papers presented in the conference.
Anyone can send papers on the related theme. BASE will take final decision about its presentation.
One speaker will be given fifteen minutes for presentation followed by five minutes for discussions.
After the conference, selected papers will be published in our upcoming Journal of Bengali Academia for Social Empowerment (JBASE).
Mail Us: office@basebengal.in OR Contact: 8777792807, 8926173531