Tamil Seminar---places still free...

[Dominic Goodall]

Tamil Seminar---places still free...


My colleague Eva Wilden has asked me to forward this announcement to  
the list :

Classical Tamil Winter Seminar in 2008


Organised by the Pondicherry Centre of the École française d’Extrême- 
Orient

from 11th February to 7th of March 2008



The Pondicherry “Classical Tamil Winter Seminar” is back on schedule  
and will take place for the 6th time in February 2008. This time, as  
in 2005, there will be two levels, for beginners and advanced  
students. The text we propose to read for the first week is a little  
known Akam anthology in VeNpaa metre, the AintiNai Aimpatu, one of  
the PatinenkiizkkaNakku, the 18 minor classics. As the title  
indicates, it comprises only 50 verses, so we will easily be able to  
read the whole text. Like many works of its kind, it has not been  
edited often, commentaries are late and meagre and translations do  
not exist at all. Morphology, syntax and vocabulary are somewhere  
between those of the early classical and the bhakti stages of the  
language, and the author takes a certain amount of liberty with the  
older thematic conventions. Since we are fortunate in having access  
to a number of manuscripts, we will try to improve on the transmitted  
text and therefore also have some discussion on what improving an old  
Tamil text might mean. The second week will be dedicated to the 5th  
and v7th decades of the PatiRRuppattu, the small Cankam anthology  
dealing with the deeds of the Ceera dynasty. In the following two  
weeks, we shall return to more familiar territory to examine selected  
episodes from a text every student of Tamil ought to be acquainted  
with, the Kampa RaamaayaNam. The work is a 12th-century late-comer in  
the annals of poetry and has been ignored by the commentators of  
grammar and poetics, but it is one of the most popular classics of  
today.


Detailed program on the EFEO website under: http://www.efeo.fr/ 
ctws_2008/index.htm



Please contact : wilden.eva at gmail.com (putting administration at efeo- 
pondicherry.org in copy).




Dr. Dominic Goodall
Head,
Pondicherry Centre,
Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient ("French School of Asian Studies"),
P.O. Box 151,
16 & 19, Dumas Street,
Pondicherry 605001,
INDIA
+91 413 2334539  /
+91 413 2225689 /
+91 413 2332504
Fax +91 413 2330886
(dominicgoodall at efeo-pondicherry.org)