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.