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News Release
Contact: Julia Lamb, NIU Center for Southeast Asian Studies
(815) 753-1595
May 6, 2005
Second International Ramayana Conference slated for June 4-5
DeKalb, Ill. — The Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University is gearing up to host the Second International Ramayana Conference, expected to draw about 100 scholars to campus to discuss the epic literary work.
The conference will be held Saturday, June 4, and Sunday, June 5, at Holmes Student Center. Thought to have originated in north India during the 10th to 12th centuries B.C., the Ramayana is one of the greatest Sanskrit epic poems ever written. The story follows the noble prince Rama, who forfeits his rights to the royal throne on moral grounds and retires to the forest with his wife, the princess Sita, who is later kidnapped.
The Ramayana has been a powerful theme in Indian arts, literature and religion since its inception. It also spread throughout much of Southeast Asia in the first millennium A.D. While there are many versions of the epic, the virtues expressed in the Ramayana provide for the ideals of everyday life.
The conference at NIU will include presentations and workshops on various themes of the Ramayana. The event is being sponsored in cooperation with the International Ramayana Institute of North America, based in the Chicago metropolitan area. The organization was founded in 2000 to facilitate and promote the exchange of the literary, artistic, cultural and scientific aspects of Ramayana among different countries worldwide. (See www.ramayanainstitute.org/ for more information.)
The Ramayana Conference will include a workshop for K-16 teachers, focusing on the literary aspects of the story, as well as art and dance forms of the epic. More information about the conference and registration forms for teacher workshops can be found online at http://www.niu.edu/cseas/outreach/ramayana05/panel.htm.
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