The Fourth Ratna Chatterjee Memorial Lecture

On November 21, 2024, the Department of English, Loreto College, Kolkata hosted the fourth Ratna Chatterjee Memorial Lecture. The lecture took place in a hybrid mode, with the audience comprising students from the UG and PG programmes of the Department of English, Loreto College; students from Scottish Church College; faculty members of the Department of English, Loreto College; and family, friends, and former students of Miss Chatterjee. The speaker, Dr. Felicity James, Associate Professor at the University of Leicester and Co-Chair of the Charles Lamb Society, joined online.

The session began with Dr. Sukanya Dasgupta, Head of the Department of English at Loreto College, introducing the late Miss Ratna Chatterjee, a former faculty member and the first Head of the Department of English. Thereafter, Ms. Ayesha Malik, a former student of Miss Chatterjee from the batch of 1989, was invited to share her anecdotes and memories of her professor. Her words not only painted Miss Chatterjee as an erudite teacher but also as a good-humoured person of impeccable, wry wit.

The session was then handed over to Dr. Felicity James, who delivered a lecture entitled The Class of 1775: Jane Austen and Charles Lamb in Conversation. Elucidating on the "portrait of friendship" and the sardonic and self-deprecating voices we find in Austen and Lamb, she masterfully connected the two persons of letters through their writings, mannerisms, and portraits. She drew on this material to establish how both authors hid their "own" selves and did not want an identity forced upon them. She also elaborated on how the authors play with their readers and manipulate the narrative voice to encapsulate the voices of the characters.

The lecture, intriguing and riveting, was as multidimensional as the authors discussed and illuminated the varied aspects of reading and connecting texts. As stated by Dr. James in the concluding note, the lecture was only the beginning of a conversation.