Exile Memory and the Last Refuge of the Human Spirit: A study of Ritwik Ghatak and Theo Angelopoulos

Speaker: Dr. Rezaul Islam, Professor of Comparative Literature and Culture at Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh

Venue: Language Resource Center (Stimson Hall G25), Cornell University

Date & Time: January 15th, 10 AM - 12 PM

Description: This talk examines the interconnected themes of exile, memory, and spiritual endurance in the films of Ritwik Ghatak and Theo Angelopoulos. Both auteurs, emerging from distinct geopolitical and cultural contexts—post-Partition Bengal and post–Civil War Greece—construct cinematic worlds where displacement becomes a metaphysical condition. Through fragmented narratives, elegiac imagery, and recurring motifs of return, their works transform historical trauma into a meditation on the last refuge of the human spirit: its capacity for remembrance and resilience. The speaker argues that for both Ghatak and Angelopoulos, cinema itself becomes a site of exile and redemption, where the boundaries between history, myth, and personal longing dissolve.

The talk will be followed by a discussion session and a musical performance.

Discussants:

Sezan Mahmud, filmmaker, & Professor, Medical Sciences, Quinnipiac University.

Salma Bani: Bangla Academy Award-winning novelist.

T M Ahmed Kaysher, Co-founder, Saudha Society of Poetry and Indian Music.

Ahmed Shamim, Academic Programs Coordinator, Language Resource Center, Cornell University.

Musical Performance:

Vidushi Chandra Chakraborty, an expert in Indian Classical Music.

This event will be held in person in G25 Stimson and will also be streamed live over Zoom. Join us at the LRC or on Zoom.

The event is free and open to the public.