A Two-day Seminar on Fashion, Identity and Media

A Two-day Seminar on Fashion, Identity and Media

Kolkata, Feb. 5, 2017: The Department of Journalism and Mass Communication and The Department of Sociology of The Bhawanipur Education Society College organised a two-day seminar on February 3 and 4, 2017 at the Society Hall Auditorium. The seminar came up with the unique topic of “Fashion, Age and Society: Role of Media in the Constitution of Identities”.

On the first day, the seminar was started with the Welcome Address delivered by Dr. Suchandra Chakravarty, the teacher-in- charge of the College. After that Dr. Dalia Chakraborty (Professor, Dept. of Sociology, Jadavpur University) gave a thorough introduction of the entire topic in her Keynote Speech. The two-day seminar was divided into four sessions. The First Session named “Identity Politics” started after the Keynote Speech. The invited speaker of this session was Dr. Sujata Mukhopadhyay (Assistant Professor and Head, Dept. of Journalism and Mass Communication, Hiralal Majumdar Memorial College for Women). She spoke on the interesting topic of “Religiosities and Fashion Novelty: Politics of Ideology and Binary Identities in the Hindu Temples of India”. Dr. Uma Shankar Pandey (Assistant Professor and Head, Dept. of Journalism and mass communication, Surendranath College for Women) was the invited speaker of the Second Session named “Mediated Codes”. His topic was “Socially Mediated Publicness: The Role of Social Media in Construction of Identity”. In each session, the invited lecture was followed by paper presentations of the teachers, research scholars and students from various colleges, universities and institutions.

The second day of the seminar started with the Third Session namely “The Embodiment of Age”. in which the invited speaker Mrs. Moumita Gupta (Assistant Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Govt. College) spoke on “Is Fashion Constrained by Age? An Anthropological Study of Metro Commuters in Kolkata City”. The Fourth and the Last Session was on “Gendered Fashion”. The invited speaker Mr. Saayan Chattopadhyay (Assistant Professor and Head, Dept. of Journalism and Mass Communication, Baruipur College) delivered his speech on “Mediating Fashionable Subjects: Reflections on Gender, Fashion and Performativity”. Both sessions had paper presentations like the previous day. All the papers experimented on the main topic of the seminar with different point of views. Lastly, there was the Valedictory Session, which was addressed by Dr. Sudeshna Basu Mukherjee (Professor, Head, Dept. of Sociology, University of Calcutta). She delivered her speech on Fashion and Age Construction. The seminar came to an end by a vote of thanks delivered by Dr. Suchandra Chakravarty. The two-day seminar proved to be a successful endeavour with active participation of students, teachers, paper presenters as well as resource persons.