CQU Press Director Professor David Myers is just back from 10 days in India where he delivered the keynote address at the International Conference for Commonwealth Studies.

At Roorkee, a British hill station near the Ganges, he thanked New Zealand High Commissioner Heather Ward for opening the Conference and then delivered the keynote conference address entitled “Empire, Commonwealth and Fashions in Literary Criticism”.

Professor Myers was also selected to be on a 5-member panel to speak on Neo-Feminism in Commonwealth Literature. His own paper was on the Indian novelist Salman Rushdie and his new novel 'Shalimar the Clown'.

There were over 250 delegates from all over India who attended the conference. Many had travelled for 2 days and 2 nights on the extraordinary Indian train network.

The Vice-Chancellor of Roorkee University remarked that at any given time the equivalent of the entire population of Australia is being transported on the Indian train system.

While in Delhi, Professor Myers had discussions with the First Secretary and the Cultural Attache of the Australian High Commission about ways to give a higher profile to Commonwealth Literary Studies and academic communications between Australian and Indian universities and publishers.

At the University of Delhi, Professor Myers gave a public lecture on “Amitav Ghosh’s The Glass Palace and The Hungry Tide: The Oppressed Dalits and Utopian Communalism in the Sundarbans”.

The Conference excursion in Roorkee was to a Hindu puja ceremony at sunset at Haridwar on the banks of the sacred Ganges.

Photo above: (Standing) Dr Serge Liberman, Melbourne, Dr Suman Bala, Dr Ram Sharma, Professor David Myers and (seated) Professor D.K. Pabby, Principal of Ram Lal Anand College, University of Delhi.

Photo below: The fire torch ceremony for evening puja on the banks of the Ganges in Haridwar.