Urmila Dasgupta recently attended the Oxford Conference on the teaching of English literature and came away with a strong taste of how people from different cultures approach the subject.
As an editor/publisher, I commission books which are culled out of seminar proceedings, I read essays written for a specific seminar but rarely do I get a chance to be a part of a seminar myself. Getting the opportunity to be part of a seminar in Oxford was something very special as this would give me the kind of international exposure that I had always wanted.
This was my first trip to the UK. The Romantics and the Victorians had previously transported me to England in imagination quite often. I knew where 221 Baker Street was and exactly where the Globe and Hyde Park were situated. So I landed in Oxford feeling very confident.
Nonetheless, the first evening was a little overwhelming, to say the least. There were nearly 60 odd people attending the seminar spanning the globe from Argentina to Philippines. I did not know then that  having dinner with people from Denmark, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Sweden was quite enough of a global experience to handle on the first day of my first Oxford seminar. While, for this reason, carrying on a conversation over dinner proved a little taxing, at the reception earlier I did have a comfortable one to one conversation with Odette (a stunningly beautiful person), discussing the differences and difficulties in the educational systems and publishing in Malta and India.
The seminar’s theme was Life Writing and a number of writers such as Andrew Hagan, Rachel Cusk, Jonathan Bate, Paula Byrne, Victoria Glendinning, W N Herbert and Grace Nichols formed an integral part of the seminar. Their experiences with their publishing houses, agents, editors and their own experiences of writing gave me a lot of insight into the publishing industry of the UK. There was plenty of evidence of a strong reading culture in the UK and that explained the publicity that these writers seemed to be so anxious about.
The conference saw a collection of professionals connected to literature and education discussing British literature from cultures as divergent as African, South American, European and Asian. The true postcolonial nature of the English language could never have been better proved or displayed in any other setting. I especially remember a reading group – consisting of people from Spain, Tanzania, Sweden, Malaysia, Sudan, Colombia, Singapore and India -- where we discussed a short piece containing both prose and poetry. The responses to that one piece of writing gave me a rare insight into the similarities and differences in the methods of teaching literature in these various countries.
Sweden, Sudan and Tanzania seemed to have a lot in common whereas Spain, Singapore and India seemed to understand each other well. This was a combination difficult to find and a linkage difficult to explain. Literature seemed to be taught in two major ways. One was to concentrate on the language and traditional forms of analyzing structure, characters, setting etc. and people from Africa, certain European countries and South America seemed to concentrate on this approach. In contrast, people from Asia, Western Europe and USA favoured a more theoretical approach, bringing in links with history, geography and economics.
More understanding of these different approaches surprisingly came during mealtimes. English literature taught in monolingual countries (European largely), where English is very definitely a foreign language, is seen as a very specialized knowledge system. Being a foreign language they concentrate more on the language and form itself. Asian multilingual countries however took it for granted that teaching English literature is not something that makes them special in any way. They therefore seemed more easily to drift into other contexts such as history and economics while studying literature.
Another reading session, this time in the evening over a glass of wine, (another first for me, in India book club sessions are almost always non-alcoholic!) told me very clearly that the world over academics found it difficult to get publishers to cater to their individual needs -- academics in Oxford too found it difficult to get publishers to provide them with the range of books that they wanted. Coming from the publishing industry myself I knew of the business reasons why most publishers did not really cater to the needs of the academics’ needs and demands. But being an editor -- and not someone from the sales department who usually take such business decisions -- I sympathized with my fellow seminar participants but with far less optimism than most.
Meal times seemed to bring out the most spontaneous reactions from people. I remember a conversation where Beth from USA, Eliah from Tanzania and I discussed feminism. Beth, after slight hesitation, quietly said she was one, I vociferously claimed to be one and Eliah was shocked to hear us both openly proclaiming our preference. This soon led to a very illuminatingly heated discussion on feminism and its implications for our very different countries.
My favourite taste of cultural exchange though happened at the party. Emma, an Englishwoman studying world literatures, wearing an evening gown made out of a sari teaching the traditionally sari-clad Indian editor the Salsa, each with a glass of wine in their hands.
My Oxford sojourn opened my eyes to different cultures across the globe. It gave me a taste of the academia and the social structure of the UK and it gave me some beautiful memories and warm friends I will cherish for a long time to come.

Urmila Dasgupta is Commissioning Editor, Higher Education (Humanities and Social Sciences) with Pearson Education India.

The 21st Oxford Conference on the teaching of literature took place at Corpus Christi College on 1-7 April 2006. The British Council welcomed to the college 43 teachers and practitioners in literature education and in English language. The topic for the week was intercultural awareness in the teaching of language, literature and culture, and the international group of participants brought an incredible range of perspectives and experiences to bear on the discussions.

For more information visit http://www.britishcouncil.org/arts-literature-oxford-conference.htm