The McMaster Air India Conference 2016

Conference Videos

The conference featured keynote addresses, research panels and roundtables, creative performances and artists’ talks, some of which are available below.

Conference Program

Day 1: Friday, May 6

1:30 – 2:15pm: Registration Desk Open for Badge and Conference Program Pick Up

2:15 – 3:15pm: Opening Forum

• Conference Welcome
  • Chandrima Chakraborty (McMaster University)
• Opening Remarks
  • Patrick Deane, President (McMaster University)
  • Bal Gupta (Air India Victims’ Families Association)
  • Amber Dean (McMaster University)

3:15 – 4:30pm: Keynote Address and Discussion, Introduction by Sarah Wahab (McMaster University)

• Stef Craps (Ghent University), “Travelling Trauma”

4:30 – 4:45pm: Break

4:45 – 6:00pm: Artist Readings and Q & A, Moderator: Malissa Phung (McMaster University)

• Farzana Doctor, Eisha Marjara, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Padma Viswanathan

6:00 – 7:30pm: Dinner

Day 2: Saturday, May 7

8:30 – 9:00am: Breakfast

9:00 – 9:15am: Welcoming Remarks

• Mary O’Connor, Chair, Department of English & Cultural Studies (McMaster University)

9:15 – 10:15am: Keynote Address and Discussion, Introduction by Daniel Coleman (McMaster University)

• Susheel Gupta (Air India Victims’ Families Association),“Families’ Voices, Communities’ Grief: Victims of Air India”

10:15 – 10:30am: Break 

10:30 – 11:45am: Concurrent Panels

• Room 1AB: “Canadian History and Creative Remembrance” Chair: Ralph Callebert (Virginia Tech)
  • Nandi Bhatia (Western University), “Chance and Coincidence in Anita Badami’s Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?”
  • Teresa Hubel (Huron University College), “Classifying Ethnicity for a Multicultural Nation: Representing the Air India Tragedy”
  • Ruth Maxey (University of Nottingham), “‘Prosthetic’ Memorialization: Revisiting Bharati Mukherjee’s Literary Responses to the Air India Flight 182 Bombing”
• Room 1CD: “State Violence and Citizenship” Chair: Danielle Wong (McMaster University)
  • Constantine Gidaris (McMaster University), “Precrime and Preemption: ‘The Minority Report’ in Bill C-51”
  • Maya Seshia (University of Alberta), “A Critical Examination of Governmental and Public Responses to the Bombing of Air India Flight 182”
  • Milan Singh (Simon Fraser University), “Acts of Citizenship: A Critique of the Air India Inquiry”
• Room 2: “Memory, Memorialization, Imagining Community” Chair: Emma McKenna (McMaster University)
  • Paul Barrett (McMaster University) and Asha Varadharajan (Queen’s University), “Remembrance of Things Past: The Air India Saga and the (Un)Making of Identity and Community”
  • Lopamudra Basu (University of Wisconson-Stout), “Oak Creek Tragedy: The Limits of Memorialization and Community Activism”
  • Manjeet Ridon (University of Nottingham), “No Place Like Home in Srinivas Krishna’s Masala”

11:45 – 12:00pm: Break 

12:00 – 1:15pm: Air India Family Perspectives: A Conversation, Moderator: Amber Dean (McMaster University)

• Rob Alexander, Anita Dhanjal, Rajiv Kalsi

1:15 – 2:15pm: Lunch

2:15 – 3:30pm: Keynote Address and Discussion, Introduction by Sharifa Patel (McMaster University)

• Sherene Razack (University of Toronto), “Anti-Brown Racism Today”

3:30 – 3:45pm: Break

3:45 – 5:00pm: Concurrent Panels

• Room 1AB: “Care and Loss in The Ever After of Ashwin Rao” Chair: Nisha Eswaran (McMaster University)
  • Joel Guillemette (McMaster University), “‘Infantilism by Loss’: The Ghostly Child, Loss, and Embodied Witnessing in The Ever After of Ashwin Rao”
  • Shamika Shabnam (McMaster University), “Food, Palatability and Socio-Political Discourses around the 1985 Air India Tragedy in The Ever After of Ashwin Rao”
  • Respondent: Padma Viswanathan, author of The Ever After of Ashwin Rao
• Room 1CD: “Mourning and Public Memory” Chair: Kasim Husain (McMaster University)
  • Farah Moosa (Vancouver Island University), “‘Another version of this moment exists’: Renée Sarojini Saklikar’s children of air india and the Air India Saga”
  • Raji Singh Soni (Virginia Tech), “Grieving States, Mourning Time: Sikh Memory and Post-National Justice”
  • Jessica Young (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), “‘Tell the World How 329 Innocent Lives Were Lost and How the Rest of us are Slowly Dying’: The Transnational Legacy of 1985 Air India Tragedy”
• Room 2: “Trauma, Pedagogy, and Critical Publics” Chair: Elysée Nouvet (McMaster University)
  • Deborah Bowen (Redeemer University College), “Teaching Bharati Mukherjee’s ‘The Management of Grief’: The Recuperative Power of Fiction”
  • Zarah Khan (McMaster University) and Alexandra Marcaccio (McMaster University), “Re-membering the Air India Bombings: Towards a Creative Approach”
  • Veronica Thompson (Athabasca University), “‘Kanishka’s Souls’: Air India and Farzana Doctor’s All Inclusive”

5:00 – 5:15pm: Break

5:15 – 6:15pm: Artistic Remembrances, Chair: Terri Tomsky (University of Alberta)

• Eisha Marjara (filmmaker), “Remember me Nought: Fixing Memory on Frames of Film”
• Angela Failler (University of Winnipeg) and Renée Sarojini Saklikar (Simon Fraser University), “Creative Remembrance: Poet and Critic in Conversation”

6:15 – 7:45pm: Dinner

7:45 – 8:45pm: Dance and Grief of the Air India Tragedy, Introduction by Rama Singh (McMaster University)

• Lata Pada (Sampradaya Dance Creations)

8:45 – 8:50pm: Closing Remarks

• Jessie Forsyth (McMaster University)

* Books by participating artists will be available for purchase on-site through Bryan Prince Bookseller.