Quest of a Discipline: New Academic Directions for Comparative Literature

329 Pages·2012·2.77 MB·English

by  Rizio Yohannan Raj

Quest of a Discipline
New Academic Directions for Comparative Literature
Edited by
Rizio Yohannan Raj
Bengaluru • Chennai • Delhi • Hyderabad • Kolkata • Mumbai
• Pune • Thiruvananthapuram
Published by
Cambridge University Press India Pvt. Ltd. under the imprint of
Foundation Books
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First published 2012
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To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves,
To let go the means, to wake.
Muriel Rukeyser
“Poem” (I Lived in the First Century of World Wars)
The idea of bringing out a volume such as
this originated during the organisation of the
international workshop on Curriculum Development
for Comparative Literature: Scope and Challenges held
at the Central University of Kerala, Kasaragod,
25–26 March 2010.
Contents
List of Contributors ...............................................................................viii
Acknowledgements ................................................................................xvi
Prologue to the ‘Quest’ ..........................................................................xix
Introduction ............................................................................................1
Jancy James
PART I
Traditions and Manifestoes: Reflecting on Perspectives
Introduction
1 The Comparatist as Teacher: Teaching Indian Literatures
through a Comparative Methodology ......................................13
Ipshita Chanda
2 Comparative Literature: Methodology and Challenges in
Europe with Special Reference to the French and German
Contexts .........................................................................................29
Sieghild Bogumil-Notz
3 ‘Lone Starring’ Comparative Literature in US English
Departments ..................................................................................49
Kanika Batra
vi Quest of a Discipline
PART II
The Quest Motif: Redefining the Scope of Comparative
Literature
Introduction
4 Beyond ‘Other Words’: The ‘Relevance’ of Translatology as
Comparative Literature ..............................................................63
Rizio Yohannan Raj
5 Intertextual Lores and the Play of Language: Folklore/Orality
in the Comparative Context of Literature .................................94
K. M. Anil
6 Towards a Comparative Performance Studies ......................110
Mundoli Narayanan
7 Media Studies and the Academic Elite....................................121
Julian Vigo
8 Comparative Film Studies: The Culture Studies Turn in
Comparative Literature .............................................................130
Meena T. Pillai
9 Finding Space in the Margin: Teaching Women’s Literature in
a Comparative Perspective .......................................................143
Hema Nair R.
PART III
The Dynamics of Exchange: Genres, Areas and Disciplines
Introduction
10 Text and Performance: A Study in Cultural Symbiosis with
Special Reference to Kathakali .................................................157
V. Kaladharan
11 The Indian Cartoon Art: A Paradigm for the Emerging Text
and Image Experience ................................................................171
E. P. Unny
Contents vii
12 Text and Alter Text: Chinese Literature in Indian Translations
.......................................................................................................182
Zeng Qiong
13 Arabic Literature in Diaspora: An Example from South Asia
.......................................................................................................191
Abdullah Hassan Al-Saqqaf
14 Literature, Arts and Social Sciences: Interdisciplinary
Comparative Advantage ...........................................................213
Chandra Mohan
PART IV
India: A Curious Comparative Space
Introduction
15 Towards a Compoetics in India: Alternative Frameworks for
the Comparative Study of Poetics ...........................................225
Avadhesh Kumar Singh
16 The Relevance of Dalit Studies in the Creation of an Inter-
discipline ......................................................................................247
M. Sridhar and Alladi Uma
17 Mother Tongue, The Other Tongue: Indianising English ....257
K. Satchidanandan
Afterword: Comparative? Literature? ............................................280
David Damrosch
Index .....................................................................................................290
List of Contributors
Al-Saqqaf, Abdullah Hassan
Assistant Professor in Linguistics at Dhofar University, Salalah, Sultanate of
Oman. He holds a BA and Ed degree from the University of Aden, Yemen,
an MA in Translation from the University of Salford, UK; and a PhD in Arab
and Islamic Studies from the University of Exeter, UK. Dr Al-Saqqaf’s main
interests are Arabic linguistics, especially phonology and translation. He
has published in a number of international journals on Arabic linguistics
and dialectology and has contributed to many collaborative publications
on Arabic like the Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics (Leiden:
Brill) and Wortatlas der Arabischen Dialekte (Word Atlas of Arabic Dialects
– WAD), also published by Brill. Currently he is involved in advanced
research on Arabic linguistics, and is working on a dictionary on Hadhrami
Arabic dialect and Hadhrami Arabic literature in diaspora. He has taught at
the Universities of Aden, Aden; King Abdul-Aziz University, Jeddah; and
Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat.
Anil, K. M.
Assistant Professor in the Department of Malayalam, University of Calicut,
Kerala, India. He presently holds the position of Director-in-charge for the
Institute of Tribal Studies and Research established by the University of
Calicut. He is considered one of the major scholars in Folklore Studies
in Kerala. He has two Masters Degrees – in Malayalam and Linguistics
– and has a PhD from Mahatma Gandhi University. He has taught in
the department of Folklore and Tribal Studies, Dravidian University,
Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh, and continued there as Associate Professor
in the department of Malayalam, and officiated as Assistant Director for
Prasaranga. He has more than 20 research articles to his credit and a book
in Malayalam, Folklore: Janussu, Siddhantham, Raashtreeyam.
Batra, Kanika
Assistant Professor in Postcolonial Literatures at the Department of
English, Texas Tech University where she teaches courses in Postcolonial
Theory, Feminist Studies and Queer Studies. Her book titled Feminist
Visions and Queer Futures in Postcolonial Drama was published by
Routledge, New York in 2011. Her articles have appeared in journals such
List of contributors ix
as Feminist Review, Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies and
Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies. She was an invited
Visiting Faculty Research Fellow at the Central University of Kerala, and
taught Postcolonial Drama and a specially designed course in Remediated
Theatre with her colleague and partner, Dr Rich Rice.
Bogumil-Notz, Sieghild
Former Chair of German and Comparative Literature at University of
Wuppertal and of French and Comparative Literature at University of
Kassel. She has a PhD in Romance Literature (French, Spanish, Italian) and
Education Science from the University of Cologne, and also has a senior
doctorate (Habilitation) and qualification for heading research groups
(HDR), Paris/Sorbonne III. She was a co-opted member of the Institute
of Theatre Studies, Ruhr-University of Bochum. Her publications include
Rousseau und die Erziehung des Lesers (Rousseau and the Education of the
Reader), (1974); Bernard-Marie Koltès au carrefour des écritures Contemporaines
(Bernard-Marie Koltès at the Crossing of contemporary writings) (2000,
co-edited). She has written many articles on Comparative Studies in
French, German, and Spanish Poetry and Poetics of the eighteenth to the
twentieth Century, with special reference to Paul Celan; on German and
French theatre of the twentieth century, with special reference to Heiner
Müller; on women’s theatre; Literary Theory; relationship between
Indian and Western poetics and thought; and methodological aspects of
globalization.
Chanda, Ipshita
Professor of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University, Kolkata,
West Bengal. Comparative Literature is a way of life for Professor Chanda
who has lived it to the full for the last twenty odd years: it has enabled her
to explore exciting avenues in representation and life-practices, oral and
scriptal. She is a serious connoisseur of popular culture, and literature is
a constant support and a source of wonder for her as it prompts her to
connect continuously with the world with much curiosity; and students
are, in her final analysis, among the most tolerant and sensible of teachers.
She has a PhD degree from the Faculty of Arts, Jadavpur University,
Kolkata. She has done many projects and published works in the areas of
Literature and Theory, and Media and Cultural Process. Apart from her
membership in various National Committees, she is a member of Faculty
Team in the International Faculty Exchange Programme of the Virginia
Council for International Education and the Virginia Community College
System, 2008–2009, tenable at the John Tyler Community College at
Midlothian and Chester, Va, USA. Her works include books, translations
from Bangla, and other publications in both Bangla and English.