“Texts in Motion”
Literary Film Carnival 2010 at State University of Bangladesh

A week-long film festival was organized by the department of English Studies of State University of Bangladesh. The inaugural ceremony was held on April 4 at the seminar room of the university. Professor Iftekhar Ghani Chowdhury, Vice Chancellor of SUB graced the ceremony as chief guest. Eminent scholar Professor Syed Manzoorul Islam presented the keynote paper titled “Texts in Motion: The Visual Aspect of Literature”. He pointed to the differences of the kinesthetic aspect used in literature with the advent of photography. In delineating the dominance of the world of images which is virtually impacting the modern lives, he also reminded of its potential of contestations. The gendered aspects of texts, the plurality of its interpretations, and the popularity of interdisciplinary approaches have widened the limits of visual culture making it an important segment of cultural studies, he observed. The speaker enthralled the audience by his astonishing amount of references and his usual repartee and Professor Islam also encouraged the students to enjoy the reading rather than unpleasantly struggling with the texts.

iThe programme was chaired by the adviser of the department professor Dr. Nevin Farida. On the first day, Roman Polanasky’s “Tess” was screened which is an adaptation of the much-acclaimed Victorian novel by Thomas Hardy. A total of five movies will be shown in this gala event which will end on April 8.