National Seminar on "Narratives of Mala Dasaris"

Department of English
University of Hyderabad
Hyderabad

A Two-Day
National Seminar on
"Narratives of Mala/Vaishnava Dasaris"
(in Honour of Professor Alladi Uma)
27-28 October 2011

Mala Dasaris are categorized as one of the sub-castes of Scheduled Castes according to the Constitution of India. Mala Dasaris have been the native / aboriginal priests (Thurston 1907) in India especially in the states such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Maharashtra. Even today these Dasaris have been holding, managing, owning temples in which Lord Chennakesava Swami, Lord Venkateswara, Lord Hanuman, Lord Rama and other deities.

The intention of the seminar is to pool up, collate and consolidate the narrations of the Dasaris’ life style, performance, culture, social status, occupation, livelihood, ownership of temples, authenticity of practices etc.

The questions that the seminar would like to raise and deliberate on are the following:

*Ramanujism and Hinduism
*Vaishnava Dasus and Mala Dasaris
*Are Mala/Vaishnava Dasaris Brahmins/Untouchables?
*How can a Vishnava/Mala Dasari be an Untouchable?
*Are Mala/Vaishnava Dasaris marginalized Priests?
*Vaishnavite Dasaris, Shavite and other Dalit Hindus
*Mala/Vaishnava Dasaris as Christian Priests/Pastors/Bishops
*Are Mala Dasaris practising other religions apart from Christianity?
*Deconstructing Dalit Status to Mala/Vaishnava Dasaris
*Re-writing of Mala/Vaishnava Dasaris’ Social Status
*Mala/Vaishnava Dasaris as temple owners and advocates of Hinduism

Call for Papers

Papers are invited from teachers, research scholars and post-graduate students and any body who has knowledge about / heard about / read about / seen them / lived with them to come, participate and share their views on the theme of the seminar. It is a promise to all the paper readers that the papers presented will be brought out in the form of a book. Hence, paper readers are requested to send full-length papers and not a rough or a working paper. It is difficult to manage to put them together after the seminar.


Submission of Abstracts

Contributors are requested to submit their detailed outlines and abstract of the paper in about 500 words to Dr. D. Murali Manohar, Department of English, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad 500 046 on or before September 30, 2011. The selected participants will be intimated by e-mail and post.


Deadline for submitting the full paper


Participants are requested to send their full paper in Times New Roman, 12 point size in MS Word to the Coordinator either by post to the following address Dr. D. Murali Manohar, Department of English, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad-500 046 or by email on dmmsh@uohyd.ernet.in or dmbm_vs@yahoo.co.in or dmmpsh@gmail.com before October 15, 20011 Contact Numbers: 09908569272 (M), 040-23133406 (O).