Organisers of the World Classical Tamil Conference have sent call letters to 500 Tamil scholars, writers and linguists, seeking their participation in the meet to be held in Coimbatore in June. As of now, about 50 persons have given their consent. “As the last date for submission of synopsis of papers is fixed as December 31, we are hopeful of more responses,” M. Rajendran, Tamil University Vice-Chancellor and coordinator of the academic committee of the meet, told The Hindu on Tuesday.
For submission of papers in full, the end of February would be the deadline. The organisers had approached some veteran Tamil experts and Indologists to be part of the academic and advisory committees. George L. Hart of the University of California in Berkeley, Alexander M. Dubianski of Moscow State University and Thomas Malten, Institute of Indology and Tamil Studies, Cologne University, Germany, were among those who had responded positively.
Among the themes chosen for the conference were Tamil and world classical languages, Tamil and Indian languages, Literature-literary theories-criticism, grammar-linguistics and Dravidian linguistics, history-archaeology, epigraphy and numismatics, sociology-anthropology, Tamil in media and traditional science, feminism-dalitiyam-creative literature, translation-comparative literature, Tamil music-architecture and sculpture, religion-philosophy, Tamil and other disciplines, textual criticism and documentation. Separate sub-groups would be formed for review of the synopsis of the papers. Air fare would be provided to foreign scholars invited on the basis of their synopses. A website on the conference would be hosted shortly. There would be a provision for online registration.
The government decided not to levy registration fee for participation in the conference, the coordinator said.
