Ashoka University in collaboration with the University of Chicago Centre and Teamwork Arts organised a Two-Day Symposium on Creative-Writing

Writing Across Borders – Globalizing the Creative Writing Program, a symposium on creative-writing, was organized by Ashoka University in collaboration with the University of Chicago Center and Teamwork Arts on 24-25 March, 2018 at the UChicago Centre, New Delhi. The two-day conclave brought together celebrated writers, poets, translators, editors and scholars from India, the US and the UK. The event served as a platform for 20 participating speakers and moderators from across borders, and 150 attendees to discuss and witness global perspectives from various discourse communities in conversation with each other.

“New Delhi, as the subcontinental, hub of publishing is a unique place to initiate an interface between the academy and a larger public. The world of letters and creative writing pedagogy, a relatively new practice in India, appears all set to play a key role in the larger landscape of liberal arts education,” said Saikat Majumdar, Organiser and Professor with the Department of English and Creative Writing, Ashoka University.

The symposium focussed on the interaction and intersection of the present and future of writing programmes, pedagogy, liberal arts education, publishing industry, and the role of the University in bridging the creative writing program with reading publics. At the student reading session at the symposium, 10 students from Ashoka University shared their work — poetry, translations and excerpts from longer prose pieces — with the audience. The symposium ended with three parallel workshops on poetry, fiction and translation conducted by faculty members from the University of Chicago.

Ashoka University recently launched an Undergraduate Minor in Creative Writing and similarly, the University of Chicago also recently launched a Creative Writing Program. The symposium opened up possibilities for exciting opportunities and collaborations with Ashoka University and other South Asian universities in the future.