Literature Festival Research Articles

Patience and Persistence

On October 4, 2023, author Janae Marks served as the featured writer at the Literature Festival in Topeka, Kansas. Held annually on the campus of Washburn University, the Literature Festival brings together young readers, their teachers, and authors in an effort to celebrate and promote reading and young readers. In this interview conducted during the Literature Festival, Marks discussed a variety of topics on the subject of literature written for young readers, including the importance of storytelling in the lives of students as well as the challenges and rewards related to writing for an audience of young readers. Over the course of her time at the Literature Festival, Marks emphasized the importance of persistence and patience in the life of a writer, and she encouraged young readers to explore a wide range of genres in order to continue to grow throughout their reading lives.

Literature Festival

Literature Festival

ISOH member wins best book prize 2023 at inaugural Olympic & Sports Literature Festival

ISOH member wins best book prize 2023 at inaugural Olympic & Sports Literature Festival

Interview with Gregory G. Maskarinec

Professor Gregory G. Maskarinec (May 16, 1951-June 16, 2022) was a member of the International Advisory Board of the Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology and Professor and Director at the Office of Global Health and International Medicine, Departments of Native Hawaiian Health and Family Medicine and Community Health John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawai'i. He came to Nepal, in 1977, as a Peace Corps Volunteer and served as a mathematics teacher in a school in the Jajarkot District. He explored Nepali society and culture and received his MA and PhD in shamanism. He has published several books and papers on shamanism, including "The Rulings of the Night: An Ethnography of Nepalese Shaman Oral Texts". In 1981, he won Tribhuvan University's Mahendra Scholarship and received a highly prestigious prize (the Birendra Pranyalankar) from the late King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev. In addition to his significant contributions to Medical Anthropology, Prof. Gregory was a nature-lover, peaceful, devoted to generating and sharing knowledge, and supportive. He had good relationships with high-level scholars, literature artists, and politicians of Nepal. He also participated in literature festivals in rural areas and promoted local arts and artists. He had visited more than 70 districts of Nepal. Prof. Gregory suffered from cancer and had several operations done. In August 2020, he passed away from COVID-19. We are grateful to him for allowing us to publish his interview in our Journal. The interview captured his ideas, thoughts, understanding of anthropology, works in Nepal, and personal life. For the sustainability of the Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, at the end of his life, he donated US$ 5000. The journal family is always grateful for his invaluable contribution

Pakistani Literature Festivals and a Scopaesthesiac Consciousness

Abstract This paper seeks to understand and theorize Pakistani literature festivals. In order to do so, I study the programs and schedules of the Karachi Literature Festival from 2010–2020 and the Lahore Literary Festival from 2013–2020. Using Andrew Shryock’s idea of Other-consciousness and building on Ammara Maqsood’s anthropological work done in urban Pakistan, I argue that the conception, programming, and execution of festivals like the Karachi and the Lahore festivals are governed by a “scopaesthesiac consciousness” – a consciousness of being observed and judged by an imagined outsider. As a result, the organizers and producers of these festivals are less interested in showcasing an organic literary production and more interested in portraying a “soft image of Pakistan” to an imagined outsider.

Festival Attendees: A Motivation and Performance Analysis of a Young Adult Literature Festival

This research, with data collected pre-COVID-19, provides insight into an interesting and rarely studied event, the young adult (YA) literature festival. Survey research conducted at a YA festival, with attendees generally from middle school through university age, provided useful insight into the motivations for visiting the festival, determination of the person making the decision to attend (surprisingly, the YA and rarely his/her parent), and the satisfaction and dissatisfaction factors that affected the attendee's attitude toward the festival. In addition, significance performance analysis (SPA) is introduced as an alternative to the widely used importance performance analysis (IPA) model.

KAHRAMANMARAŞ’TA EDEBİYAT TURİZMİ

Literary tourism is a type of tourism that gains importance with visits to real or fictional places, especially to destinations in Europe where writers and their work are associated. It is also of great importance because it ensures that the diversity of tourism is increased and spread throughout the year. Turkey has a very rich literary culture. If its value is fully understood, great gains can be made in the name of literary tourism. Kahramanmaraş is a city with a strong cultural background and many unique values. These lands have produced many poets, writers and bard from past to present. It is the only city in Turkey that has applied to the Creative Cities Network with the theme of literature. The study was carried out through the example of Kahramanmaraş, in order to contribute to the concept of literary tourism and literary tourism practices in the world and in Turkey. In the study, a situation analysis was made by making use of document analysis, one of the qualitative research methods, and the advantages that literary tourism would bring to Kahramanmaraş were revealed. In order to develop literary tourism in Kahramanmaraş, it is important to bring places related to poets and writers to literary tourism in different formats, to make literature museums more functional, to organize literature festivals, and to create literary tourism routes. The development of literary tourism in Kahramanmaraş will contribute greatly to the tourism economy of both the country and the region. Keywords: Geography, Literature, Literature Tourism, Kahramanmaras.

The Craft of Short Story : A Critique of The Habit of Love

Author of several works of fiction and non fiction , Namita Gokhale is a well known name in the field of Indian Writing in English not only as a writer but also as a publisher and as a founder director of Jaipur Literature Festival . Her short stories published under the title The Habit of Love ( 2012) are remarkable for adding a new dimension to the craft of short story writing.
 The Habit of Love is a collection of thirteen short stories encapsulating the myriad experiences of their female protagonists who lay bare before the readers their inner world – their desires , passions, fear , anxiety, happiness, anger , ennui and sadness – in kaleidoscopic lights. Based mainly on the themes of love, lust and death , these stories are interwoven with the motifs of time, memory , dreams travels and mountains. The writer frequently shifts from present to past or vice versa , making several technical innovations like unexpected , abrupt endings; use of startling similes/ metaphors; choice of queer , quirky titles for these short stories. The use of the technique of first person narrative in many of these stories imparts more intimacy to them as if the narrator is engaged in a tete- a- tete with her readers. Gokhale emphasizes the importance of a convincing narrative voice in making a short story effective. In response to a question as to which is the most critical part of a story: the storyline, the characters or the storytelling, she says, “Finding the right voice that convincingly tells the story, whether in first person or otherwise is the most crucial part.”( Recap: Twitter chat with Namita Gokhale,TNN,22 March 2018 )

Application of Teacher Citizenship Behavior (TCB) Theory to the Extra-Role Work of School Librarians

Teacher Citizenship Behavior (TCB) theory categorizes and explains the extra-role professional behaviors of teachers. Although extensive prior research has sought to understand the professional dispositions of school librarians, limited inquiry exists which has extended the TCB theory to the work of school librarians. In this case study, researchers interviewed eight school librarians who actively volunteered with either a regional professional organization or young adult literature festival. Using a coding structure based upon the TCB theory, participant comments were examined for the presence of voluntary deeds and/or kindnesses exhibited during their work. Findings emphasized a relationship whereby participants’ emotional connectedness to their school communities influenced their likelihood to perform behaviors in support of their organization but outside their specified job requirements. Implications include the need for greater mentorship of pre-service librarians as well as additional networking and professional development opportunities for practitioners.

Lighting the Fire

What aspects of reading engage boys? This paper looks at the importance of reading, some of the current thinking about boys and reading, and research carried out among students of St Andrew's Cathedral School, where a reading culture has developed. What implications do these findings have for our profession - for school libraries and teacher librarians? What other strategies can we employ to encourage our students to develop a lifelong love of reading? The strategies include the idea of a Literature Festival, other reading programs, ways of integrating technology into the reading experience and the Literature Circles model at St Andrew's.

Critical Literary Arts in Action: The Decolonial Project of Ba re e ne re within and beyond Lesotho

ABSTRACT In this article we explore the historical construction of literary infrastructure established in Lesotho. Building on an analysis of Sesotho language orthography by Dr Litšepiso Matlosa, we recall the colonial genesis of written Sesotho by Swiss and French missionaries. As a result of this influence, Lesotho’s written Sesotho remains embedded with marks of orthographic inconsistency. The legacies of written language in Lesotho inform the relationships the Basotho have with literature. It is against this backdrop that in 2011, a young Mosotho woman, named Liepollo Rantekoa, organised a series of literary events that she called the Ba re e ne re Literature Festival. We show that through the ensuing dialogues, the Ba re e ne re Literature Festival has since served as a creative outlet and knowledge exchange for Basotho while expanding its reach through additional creative interventions rooted in decolonial theory. Partnerships with peer literary and cultural organisations in other African countries have generated valuable exchanges as well. In mapping out its myriad connections, we argue that through reflexive praxis, the Ba re e ne re Literature Festival unlinks literary culture in Lesotho from colonial institutions and practices by cultivating a new generation of storytellers, readers and cultures.

Two YA Titans Travel to Topeka to Celebrate Readers, Writers, and Great Books: An Interview with Steven B. Frank and Gary Schmidt

This article comprises two face-to-face interviews conducted with prominent young adult authors at the 2019 Literature Festival held on the campus of Washburn University. Writers Steven B. Frank and Gary Schmidt both discuss their approaches to writing, the unique challenges related to writing for young readers, and the important role that truth telling plays in their own writing—among numerous other topics related to young adult literature. Both Frank and Schmidt provide insight into their most recent novels, Class Action and Pay Attention, Carter Jones, respectively. The article concludes with an appreciation for the literacy outreach done by Professor Jack Bushman as the driving force behind the Literature Festival for the past 26 years.

‘Marriage: Freedom or Subjugation’: A Case Study of Paro’s Dreams by Namita Gokhale

The present paper searches to present a modest study of the novel of Namita Gokhale. It can be truly said that Namita Gokhale introduced herself to the world of English Literature through the novel Paro: dreams of passion and got recognition and appreciation as the best seller, as she realistically projected the elite class of Delhi. Her novel made her the talk of the town. It also aims at the exploration of the versatile personality of the author. Namita Gokhale is a world renowned Indian author and novelist known for her works in English language. She is a founder-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival along with the author, William Dalrymple, which started in 2006. Her writings often show a mixture of cultures expressed through the use of various languages. She has received numerous awards for her works. She is the author of several acclaimed novels like Paro - Dreams of Passion, Priya: In Incredible Indyaa, Gods, Graves and Grandmother, A Himalayan Love Story and Shakuntala: The Play of Memory. Her works of non-fiction include Mountain Echoes and The Book of Shiva. Her writings are unique and contributed a lot to Indian writing in English. The novel Paro: Dreams of Passion, created a stir by its frankness in the early 80s, and pioneered the sexually frank genre, which made her famous. It deals with the satire of Delhi’s upper class. Gokhale through her bold women characters talks about such society where woman is not free to lead her life in her own style. She depicts the double standard treatment for male and female, upper and lower class and the hypocrisy of the society. Therefore, Gokhale is known as woman activist and feminine writer. Her novel Paro: Dreams of Passion also deals with the same issues as it talks about the discriminations and identity crisis faced by women in society. She believes in frank narration of incidents and open heartedness. Particularly, the novel has portrayed the urge, necessity and consequences of freedom if not taken care. In a nutshell the novel is about women’s dream, emancipation and their struggle for existence.

ПОЛЬСЬКЕ РОЗТОЧЧЯ: ПОТЕНЦІАЛ УКРАЇНСЬКО-ПОЛЬСЬКОЇ СПІВПРАЦІ У СФЕРІ РЕКРЕАЦІЇ ТА ТУРИЗМУ

The recreational and tourist potential of Roztocze, a region in the south-east of Poland, bordering on Ukraine, its tourist specialization and opportunities for the development of cooperation with Ukraine in the field of recreation and tourism have been revealed. The resource base of the Roztocze region for the formation of its modern tourist specialization, in particular, gastronomic, urban, rural green, pedestrian, literary, historical- cognitive and military types of tourism has been studied. The specifics of gastronomic tourism in the region, which is based on a rather specific agricultural base of Roztocze, are revealed. The poor nature of Polissya and economic underdevelopment in the past led to a low standard of living for the local population, which was reflected in its food preferences. The main ingredients of Roztocze cuisine are porridge, cheese, sauerkraut, and peas, but now they are at a high price due to their health benefits. It is noted that there are no meat and sweet dishes among the delicacies of Roztocze, which reflects the standard of living and nutrition of the population of this region in the past. So, the most famous Roztocze “delicacy” – a cake with onion (Polish – cebularz), but now this dish of local misery has become a Polish pride, as it was the first product of the Lublin Voivodeship, which received the Protected Geographical Indication of the European Union. Today it is the first product that is recommended to tourists upon arrival in Roztocze. Interesting are other dishes of local cuisine – Roztochan borsch, which locals call Ukrainian, cakes made of flour and water, potato pancakes with dough with potatoes and eggs, local dumplings, stuffed with buckwheat porridge and cheese, Roztochan cutlets, which are made from buckwheat porridge, cheese, and potatoes. The simple and healthy nature of Roztocze cuisine included restrictions on the consumption of sweets. The range of gastronomy of Roztocze can be found at local gastronomic festivals, such as Galician Fair “Tastes of Roztocze” in Narol, local product festival in Zamost, Lublin meetings with hunting tradition and culture in Zwierzyniec, the festival of Kresy Meals in Bashnya Dolna, etc. Tourist resources of the main cities of Roztocze – Zamost, Tomaszow Lubelski, Szczebrzeszyn have been revealed. Routes of military and bicycle tourism on the basis of visiting of fortifications of so-called Molotov lines, which have survived in large numbers in Roztocze are offered. The legendary origin of Swedish table style, connected with war experience of the city of Zamosc during Mideveal times is revealed. Tank battle place from II World War near the city of Tomaszow Lubelski is considered a great tourist attraction. The city of Szczebrzeszyn is a place of all Poland Literature Festival. Touristic routes connect Zamosc and Tomaszow Lubelski with the Ukrainian city of Lviv. Local Polish tourist firms propose tours of sentimental tourism to Ukrainian historic cities of Kamianets-Podilskiy and Kremenets and also to Chernobyl zone.

Jaipur Literature Festival, the Gendered Literary Field, and the MeToo Movement in India

As the literary field in India begins to become more complex, layered and diverse in terms of its gender representation despite the stubborn persistence of many aspects of its “tradition” male bastion character, the most celebrated and successful literary festival in the country emerges as a microcosmic manifestation of this tussle for power. Based on an autoethnographic account of the literary festival over eight editions and a close narrative of the sessions in its 2018 and 2019 editions along with a look at how these editions were reported in the media, and placing them within the frame of scholarship researching literary festivals as representations or fragments of “public culture”, this article looks at gender representation at the Jaipur Literature Festival in the immediate aftermath of the two waves of the MeToo Movement in India.

From the Asian American Literature Festival

From the Asian American Literature Festival Jennifer Chang (bio) and Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis We associate lectures with dull erudition and cold, sterile lecture halls. Our associations with history are hardly different: history, we think, exudes importance with broad-shouldered publicity, such pomp. But for marginalized communities, our cultural knowledge has come with far less fanfare. When Juan Felipe Hererra was finishing his first term as US Poet Laureate, he gave a closing lecture on Chicano poetry at the Library of Congress. Rather than a general historical survey, it was an inside, loving look at poems that moved him, poets who’d been forgotten, snapshots lost to time. It was an “intimate” lecture, “intimate” indicating the kind of history: connective rather than individual, away from the public eye, away too from the noisy markers of awards, acclaim, critical attention. The Secret Histories series, launched as part of the 2019 Asian American Literature Festival, borrows the spirit of Hererra’s lecture. By attending to quiet interludes, off-to-the-side exchanges, and personal relationships, we strive to remake what we think of as the ground of American literary history into a more complex and human landscape. Through sharing lost histories and secret knowledge, we might bind the Asian American literary community more tightly together. Secret Histories begins with, opens through the eyes of, mid-career Asian American poets and writers and the question of where they fit in a matrix of inheritance, of veneration, of portaging the things we need to live from one place to another, one time to another. The first commissioned talks from Kazim Ali, Jennifer Chang, Ching-In Chen, and Cathy Park Hong, three of whom you’ll find collected in the pages that follow, take a focus on the lost, the quiet, the under-attended to, those we’ve neglected to honor. These essays trace an imperative the scholar Juliana Chang once signaled in her introduction to the anthology Quiet Fire: A Historical Anthology of Asian American Poetry, 1892–1970 : “I was constantly confronted with the spec-tre of lost history: how many copies of these fragile, dusty books were left in the world? How could we begin to find out about some of the more obscure poets, whose books were published by small presses that have long since vanished? How are these pieces relics of a now-gone life and history? How do we read, in the present, these remains of the past?” [End Page 102] Jennifer Chang Jennifer Chang is the author of two books of poems, The History of Anonymity (University of Georgia Press, 2008) and Some Say the Lark (Alice James Books, 2017), winner of the 2018 William Carlos Williams Award. Her essays on poetry have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, New Literary History, the Volta, and in books on Asian American literature and culture and the Harlem Renaissance. She co-chairs the advisory board of Kundiman and teaches at George Washington University and at Bennington College’s MFA in Writing program. Copyright © 2020 Middlebury College Publications

(Re)Staging the Postcolonial in the World: The Jaipur Literature Festival and the Pakistani Novel

Abstract This article reasons that the Jaipur Literature Festival between 2008 and 2011 attempted to institute via polemics, judgment, and celebration the category of the Pakistani novel in India by importing an alterity industry. By failing to contextualize alterity in a South Asian context, the festival reinforced a national, linguistic, and religious division between India and Pakistan. It produced a category like “Moonlight’s Children” as an “other” to an imagined Indian literature that is confused with a post–Salman Rushdie postcolonial and global anglophone canon. However, this analysis of the discourse produced at the festival by the discussants and the audience shows that a coconstituted South Asian literary history was consistently placed against a regionally competitive model. Importing alterity to produce an Indian or Pakistani literary identity was undermined by an attitude of disavowal toward the literary object and received categories like the global anglophone, postcolonial literature, and world literature. The author argues that this is not postcolonial resistance; rather, it is a trepidation to arrive at a conclusion, because to conclude is also to value, evaluate, and declare the existence of the “other” phantasmagoric literary identity and history.

Demonstration of Teacher Citizenship Behavior (TCB) by School Librarians through Work and Volunteer Service

This paper applies an educator-focused theory of professional behavior to the work of school librarians. The goal was to understand the motivations and dispositions of librarians who choose to perform extra-role work behaviors. The researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with eight school librarians who actively volunteered with either a regional professional organization or a young adult literature festival. Findings emphasized the reciprocal relationship between participants’ emotional connectedness to the school community with their tendency to voluntarily assist and innovate for the well-being of the organization. Implications include the need for greater mentorship of pre-service librarians as well as additional networking opportunities for practitioners.

Powerful Confluence: The Transformative Power Inherent in Young Adult Literature and Young Readers: An Interview with Melanie Crowder

As someone who appreciates young adult literature (YAL) and who recognizes the importance of encouraging and supporting young readers, I think that the best day of the entire academic year may well be the one that occurs annually at the Literature Festival, held on the campus of Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. Every fall the Literature Festival brings together outstanding YA authors from across the country and hundreds of enthusiastic middle and high school readers from around Kansas and Missouri, resulting in a day that both shines an important spotlight on and celebrates readers, writers, and great books.

The Jaipur Literature Festival and Its Critics

SummaryThe Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) has been held in the Indian city of Jaipur for the past ten years. The event has grown spectacularly and has provided an arena for encounters between literary worlds. It has also become a focus of debate and friction within the sphere of Indian writing. This article is based on fieldwork at the JLF 2017.