Rita Banerjee will introduce and lead the discussion for Satyajit Ray’s 1970 film, Days and Nights in the Forest (অরণ্যের দিনরাত্রি ), on Tuesday May 13, 2014 from 6-8:30 pm for the Institute for Indology and Tibetology at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. The screening will take place in Seminar Room 427 (Ludwigstr. 31, Munich). The screening is part of the course Bengali 2: Introduction to the Bengali Language & Art House Film, II at LMU. Anyone interested in Bengali Cinema or South Asian Art House Film is welcomed to join the screening. Ray’s most overtly Renoir-ish film, this might almost be a remake of Une Partie de Campagne, transposed to another time and place and through another sensibility. Instead of the French bourgeois family setting off for a picnic, four young men leave Calcutta for a few days in the country, trailing their westernized careerist attitudes, a middle class indifference to the lower orders, a self-satisfaction that leaves them closed to experience. Out of a series of delightfully funny mishaps as the visitors eagerly try to pursue acquaintance with their two promisingly attractive neighbors, Ray gradually distills a magical world of absolute stasis: a shimmering summer’s day, a tranquil forest clearing, the two women strolling in a shady avenue, wistful yearnings as love and the need for love echo plangently. Elsewhere jobs have to be won or lost, problems faced and solved, but not here; an illusion of course, revealed as time lifts its suspension but leaves one of the quartet a changed man, the other three assailed by tiny waves of self-doubt. Beautifully shot and acted, it’s probably Ray’s masterpiece. – Time Out [Days and Nights in the Forest is based on a story by Bengali modernist writer, Sunil Gangopadhyay]
Literary Taboo Workshop at the Munich Readery – April 27
Literary Taboo Creative Writing Workshop
Sunday, April 27 * 14:00-16:00
The Munich Readery, Augustenstraße 104, 80798 München
Come join Rita Banerjee and the Munich Readery for an afternoon of literary games, riddles and creative writing! Get ready to play Literary Taboo. During the game, you may be asked to describe a person, idea, object, or phenomenon without using certain taboo words. You are welcomed to create poems, short stories, theatrical sketches, first-person narratives, and riddles about the topics you encounter during the game, and everyone is invited to become a true literary detective! So join us for an afternoon filled with creative writing, sensorial riddles, and literary taboos! Workshop fee: €20. To register, send an email to store@themunichreadery.com
Feature in Poets & Writers Magazine
Rita Banerjee, Diana Norma Szokolyai, Elissa Lewis, and Jessica Reidy are featured in the March/April 2014 Writers Retreats Issue of Poets & Writers Magazine for their instruction in the 2014 Yoga & Writing Retreat at the Château de Verderonne. In this special issue of Poets & Writers, the “Conferences & Residencies” section features the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop 2014 Summer Retreat in France. The 2014 Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Summer Yoga & Writing Retreat will be held from August 7 to August 20 at the Château de Verderonne in Picardy, France, located approximately 50 miles north of Paris. The conference features workshops in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, as well as craft seminars, art classes, time to write, and daily yoga and meditation classes. Optional excursions to Paris and Chantilly are also available to participants. The faculty includes poets Rita Banerjee and Diana Norma Szokolyai, fiction writer Jessica Reidy, and yoga and arts instructor Elissa Lewis. – P&W
Vanguard Seattle Featured Event – Feb 28 – A Night at the Victrola Reading
A special thanks to Vanguard Seattle, an arts, culture, and fashion journal, for featuring the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop’s “A Night at the Victrola” #AWP14 Reading as one of their featured #Seattle events for the week of February 25 – March 2. The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop presents many poets from both coasts and several grads of UW’s MFA program. The lienup includes Peter Mountford, Rita Banerjee, Diana Norma Szokolyai, Pattabi Seshadri, Nancy Jooyoun Kim, Kevin Skiena, Jessica Day, Anca Szilágyi, Talia Shalev, Carrie Kahler, Dena Rush Guzman, Leah Umansky, Susan Parr and Johnny Horton. Check out more information here.
A Night at the Victrola, AWP 2014 Reading
Friday February 28, 2014* 8:30-10:00pm
Victrola Coffee & Art
411 15th Ave E, Seattle, WA 98112
The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop presents “A Night at the Victrola,” an AWP 2014 Reading, featuring the talents of Peter Mountford, Rita Banerjee, Diana Norma Szokolyai, Pattabi Seshadri, Nancy Jooyoun Kim, Kevin Skiena, Jessica Day, Anca Szilágyi, Talia Shalev, Carrie Kahler, Dena Rush Guzman, Leah Umansky, Susan Parr, & Johnny Horton. Join us as we celebrate some of Seattle, New York, & Boston’s best writers, and graduates from the University of Washington MFA program.
AWP 2014 Book Signing – February 28
Rita Banerjee will be a featured author at the 2014 Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference in Seattle. She will be signing her book, Cracklers at Night (Finishing Line Press) on Friday February 28 from 10:00-11:30am at the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop table (BB29) in the AWP Bookfair. Rita Banerjee’s writing has been published in Poets for Living Waters, The New Renaissance, The Fiction Project, Jaggery: A DesiLit Arts and Literature Journal, Catamaran, The Crab Creek Review, Amethyst Arsenic, The Dudley Review, Objet d’Art, Vox Populi, Dr. Hurley’s Snake-Oil Cure, and Chrysanthemum among other journals. Her first collection of poems, Cracklers at Night, was published by Finishing Line Press received First Honorable Mention for Best Poetry Book of 2011-2012 at the Los Angeles Book Festival.
Château de Verderonne Yoga & Writing Retreat
Come join the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop for our third annual writing retreat in France. This year, we will return to the beautiful Château de Verderonne & take classes at a lovely and spacious 17th century manor house located on the Château grounds. A French chef will prepare all of our meals on site, and we will dine together in the large kitchen or on the terrace. Enjoy walks through the museum at your leisure, take refuge writing in the drawing rooms, or relax in the sprawling gardens. Writers Diana Norma Szokolyai, Rita Banerjee, and Jessica Reidy will be your guides and help you create the space you need to nurture your writing projects. Certified yoga instructor and visual artist Elissa Lewis will guide participants in daily yoga and meditation exercises. The retreat is tailored for allowing participants to relax and access their creative process. We will offer the following options to those electing to participate: craft of writing seminars, creative writing workshops, manuscript review, yoga, meditation, French conversation groups, fine art workshops, and excursions to Paris, Chantilly, and nearby medieval towns. Apply by May 15, 2014: cww.submittable.com
More Information: Poets & Writers * Cambridge Writers’ Workshop
Evocative Objects Workshop at the Munich Readery [SOLD OUT]
Evocative Objects Creative Writing Workshop
Sunday, February 2 * 14:00 – 16:00
The Munich Readery, Augustenstraße 104, 80798 München
Join Rita Banerjee at the Munich Readery for a creative writing workshop on evocative objects! Participants will encounter unusual and evocative objects, puzzles and odradeks, and will be invited to make these objects come alive in their writing, and create poems, short stories, theatrical sketches, or first-person narratives on the strange, beautiful, or mysterious objects they encounter during the workshop. Workshop fee: €20. To register, send an email to store@themunichreadery.com
Please note that this workshop is currently SOLD OUT. Please contact the Munich Readery at store@themunichreadery.com for information on future writing workshops taught by Rita Banerjee.
Cambridge Writers’ Workshop’s Pre-Thanksgiving Yoga & Creative Writing Cleanse
Rita Banerjee, Diana Norma Szokolyai, Elissa Lewis, and Jonah Kruvant will be teaching at the Cambridge Writer’s Workshop Pre-Thanksgiving Creative Writing & Yoga Cleanse on at the Ashtanga Yoga Studio Manhattan’s East Village. The creative writing & yoga weekend will take place on Saturday November 23 and Sunday November 24 from 2-4pm at the Ashtanga Yoga Shala (295 E 8th Street & Avenue B, New York, NY 1009). Rita Banerjee, Diana Norma Szokolyai, and Jonah Kruvant will teach on playing with odradeks, developing creative writing manifestos, and will feature a variety of in-class writing exercises while Elissa Lewis will teach two hours of intensive introductory and advanced yoga to participants. So before reuniting with family and letting the holidays get underway, treat yourself to a weekend of creativity, yoga, writing, and raw juice cleanses, and transform your mind, body, and page! Registration is now open at: cww.submittable.com
Is this Feministing? The Female Anti-Hero and Protofeminism in 19th-Century Indian Reform Literature
Lecture presented by Rita Banerjee (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
Donnerstag, den 14.11.2013, 18.00 Uhr
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, Raum A 014
Against the backdrop of colonialism, modernization, and literary renaissance, 19th-century South Asia saw an increased interest in social reform literature, narratives involving strong and subversive female characters, and attention to women’s education, civil rights, and social progress in general. Two texts which highlight the progressive and revolutionary roles that women played in society are Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay’s Bengali novel Ānandamaṭh (1882) and Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s English novella Sultana’s Dream (1905). Whether discussing the active role of women in anti-colonial protest movements or envisioning futures in which matriarchal societies govern nation states, both Chattopadhyay and Hussain offer a subversive, protofeminist or, one might argue, strongly feminist take on the function, role, and agency of women in Indian society. This talk will examine how female anti-heroes such as Shanti and feminist re-envisioning of concepts such as purdah helped to challenge and redefine how femininity and feminism could be portrayed in fin-de-siècle South Asia.
Rita Banerjee 