PATNA: A galaxy of scholars of Bihar drawn from various streams including English literature, beating the emerged monotony due to coronavirus lockdown, dwelt upon "Corona, Literature and Society" at a Webinar on Wednesday.
The department of English of Hajipur-based RN College organised a Webinar on Wednesday in which the scholars partcipating said that corona has given birth to new "binaries" such as social distancing vs greater emotional affinity.
An eminent scholar of English and former HOD of Patna University's English department, Dr Shankar Dutt said that the outbreak of COVID-19 has provided ample time to go through the literature of any kind and have a struggling gut a scholar of literature keeps. "Communication through the crisis of corona is getting polished apart from exploring the reading habits.Many of those with Tsundoko habits have got time to go through books waiting to be read," he said.
RN College principal Dr. Vibhash K Yadav, Dr RK Verma from Department of Political Science, Dr RK Thakur and faculties from the Department of English and around 66 students in the same participated in the Webinar.
Introducing the theme of the Webinar, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Bihar University convenor Dr Ravi Kumar Sinha said that the coronavirus has "given birth to new 'binaries' culture of materialism with the new awareness about importance of Nature".
He added that the time has come when human society has to be sensitive to redefine its needs and priorities. Dr. Suman Sinha said that in this time of crisis literary sensibility will create new hope for life.
In the part of Presidential address, Prof Vinay Kumar appreciated the efforts of the faculty members and students of English Department for arranging the Webinar said that the human society has faced such situations earlier also and literature is a testimony to it. "And the literature creates hope for life in when life starts becoming lifeless," he said.
About 22 PG and 18 UG Students namely among them being Nisha Bharati, Shivam Kumar, Rakesh Soni, Pushmita, Sweta Prabodhi, Akanksha, Divya Jaiswal, Anu Sharma, Pushpesh, Avinash, Preeti Gungun, Tanuja, Abhishek Thakur, Khushboo, Swati Priya, Kishan and Aradhaya presented their papers also.
The participants critically examined different aspects of the crisis of coronavirus. The health problems faced by old people, social and psychological constraints faced by women and children, acute economic challenges of the daily wage earners, the helplessness of the capitalist and developed countries to contain the deadly impact of COVID-19 were the major issues that came up for discussion.
The most remarkable thing was that many of these teenaged students were matured enough to realize the serious challenge that coronavirus has thrown up and they vowed to break the barrier of the 'self' to contribute positively for the Society.