Studies in Indian Literature

A vast body of literature starting with translations of the Bhagavad Gita in the nineteenth century to the award winning novel Jasmine Days in 2019 characterises “Indian literature in translation.” It would be difficult to say what gives unity, if any, to this body, and whether this “body” is discursively formed through its users who read literature from Indian languages in English. The course examines the politics around such archives; and also the interrelationship between English and the bhashas. While the politics of language and translation underpins the instructor’s theoretical approach, the course is committed to understand India’s history, region, community, caste and region making politics also. It may be able to show how Indian literature become specious as a label on a closer examination of different regions and linguistic-caste based configurations.

Primary Texts:

1. Dharmvir Bharti, Andha Yug (play)
2. Sachin Kundalkar, Cobalt Blue (novel)
3. Girish Karnad, Hayavadana (play)
4. Poetry by Arun Kolatkar, Namdeo Dhasal, Jibanand Das etc
5. Speech and Silence : Literary Journeys by Gujarati Women, trans. Rita Kothari (short stories)

Theoretical texts:

1. Nikhil Govind, Affect and Action in Modern Indian Literature
2. E.V.Ramakrishnan, Indigenous Imaginaries : Literature, Region and Modernity
3. Hephzibah Israel, History, “Language and translation : Claiming the Indian Nation”
4. Rosinka Chaudhuri: “Cutlets or Fish Curry?: Debating Indian Authenticity in Late Nineteenth-Century Bengal”
5. A.K.Ramanujan: “Is There an Indian Way of Thinking”
6. Fransesca Orsini: “India in the mirror of world fiction.”
7. Mini Chandran: “Dancing in a Hall of Mirrors:Translation between Indian Languages.”(Pages 273-290)
8. Ashis Nandy, The Ambiguous Journey to the City
9. Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy
10. Gopal Guru and Sundar Sarukkai, Experience, Caste and the Everyday Social