Pashto folklore literature conference today

PESHAWAR: The Department of Sociology, University of Peshawar, with the financial support of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) is holding today an international conference on Pashto folklore/oral literature at Sir Sahibzada Abdul Qayyum Khan Museum of Ethnology, University of Peshawar.

The theme for the conference is ‘Oral Literature in Pakistan: Past, Present and Future” in which scholars will present research on various aspects of folk literature including proverbs, folksongs (Tappas), folktales, and other genres of folklore.

Dr Noor Sanauddin, organiser of the conference who is assistant professor at the Department of Sociology, said the aim of the conference was to highlight the role of folk literature in the socio-political life of people. “The Pashtun culture is rich with unique genres of folklore which need to be explored, documented and analysed,” he said.

He further elaborated that oral literature represent the collective wisdom of the people, the study of which provides a window to the worldview of a group. It is high time to collect and preserve oral literature which is quickly dying out as a result of modern means of communication and entertainment.