Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East

Chanda, I.;Hashmi, B.;

doi: 10.1215/1089201X-1891478pmid: N/A

Dev, A.;

doi: 10.1215/1089201X-1891487pmid: N/A

Dev’s article discusses the Mahābhārata as world literature in the context of the epic tradition, including Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey and the German epic poem Nibelungenlied ( The Song of the Nibelungs ).

Adebayo, A. G.;

doi: 10.1215/1089201X-1891496pmid: N/A

Adebayo’s article examines the diffcult road that African literature had to take toward becoming acceptable in its own right between the 1930s and the 1950s. In the 1960s, after political independence in most African states, African literature found a central place in world literature. In Nigeria specifically, notable writers like Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Flora Nwapa, J. P. Clark, Christopher Okigbo, and Buchi Emecheta gave Nigerian literature worldwide acclaim. However, because the criticism of African literary criticism developed to a large extent as a reaction against negative Eurocentric appraisal of the creative works of Africans, it was not compared favorably to other foreign literatures. There was acute protectionism of African literature from perceived foreign incursion and supplanting, which led to a call for an Afrocentric criticism. The 1980s and 1990s witnessed a surge of universalism in creation and criticism. It saw the rise of well-known professors of comparative literature who encouraged opening up African literature to other literature and also founded the first Nigerian journal of comparative literature. However, it was not until the beginning of the twenty-first century that comparative literature reappeared as a serious area of discourse in Nigerian universities. The discipline has entered a new era of fertile international academic exchange.

Anushiravani, A.;

doi: 10.1215/1089201X-1891507pmid: N/A

Anushiravani’s essay is a historical and critical survey of comparative literature in Iran that discusses its present challenges and potentialities for development in the context of new directions in the field. It is divided into three parts; the first examines the origins of comparative literature in Iran. The second deals with the present state of comparative literature programs and journals at Iranian universities and academic centers. This section investigates the main challenges facing this discipline in Iran. The last part speculates on the future trends and directions of comparative literature in Iran in the light of younger scholars’ and graduate students’ interest in interdisciplinary studies, translation, and world literature.

Baidya, A.;

doi: 10.1215/1089201X-1891516pmid: N/A

Baidya’s essay explores certain aspects of cultural exchange and the modes of reception and adaptation of any cultural product in the context of popular culture in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The article concentrates on the zone of popular culture of larger Bengal, i.e., the areas in East India including Bangladesh, where Bangla is the official language. Here the history of a popular song, “Tuni’r Ma,” is used to exemplify the holistic understanding of the dynamics involved in the process of cultural reconciliation. The song leads to a discussion of aesthetics and gender theory that explores the conflict between popular and serious culture on the basis of taste. Conventional academic ideas generally link progressive thinking to serious cultural practice. But this essay confronts the hegemonic concept of culture and sheds light on an eclectic area of popular culture that is more prevalent in society. Thus, it might instigate a rational alternative to conventional criticism.

Garnier, X.;Hashmi, B.;

doi: 10.1215/1089201X-1891525pmid: N/A

According to Garnier, neither the sociohistorical grounding of postcolonial studies nor the more explicitly linguistic and cultural one of francophone studies helps direct a satisfactory critical reading of literature in African languages. The ambition of this essay is to show the potential for theoretical renewal African-language literature is likely to bring to these two disciplines.

Figueira, D.;

doi: 10.1215/1089201X-1891534pmid: N/A

In this essay, Figueira discusses how the Aryan past can be studied as a myth , meaning a form of discourse that can be employed in the construction or the deconstruction of society. In particular, this examination focuses on the discourse concerning the Aryan race as a shared myth in nineteenth-century India and in Germany. Myths concerning the Aryans gave historical value to ancient Indian history, contributing to the ideological concerns of India during the colonial and nationalist periods. They also served the political and ideological interests of Europe: The history of India could be appropriated as a means of expressing nineteenth-century European concern with origins. An examination of the Aryan myth thus addresses a fundamental concern of postcolonial criticism, namely that the West needed to constitute the Orient as its Other in order to constitute itself and its own subjective position. Finally, Figueira examines how analogous notions regarding identity resurface in modern critical theories of ideal readers and spokespersonship. A comparative analysis of representations of the Aryan in India and in the West can shed light on how South Asia is constructed today in global academe. The conclusion, therefore, investigates how Indian racial ideology continues to resonate in current-day identity politics. Understanding such an ideology necessitates a comparative literary evaluation, particularly if such an analysis can unmask the repetition of hegemonic race relations in current “liberatory” theories and pedagogies.

Ojwang, D.;

doi: 10.1215/1089201X-1891543pmid: N/A

East African Indian fiction, or rather fiction by East African writers of South Asian origin, presents memorable images of ceaseless wandering through strange territory, flight from home-spaces, violent expulsions, and the networks—imaginative and literal—that link the resultant diaspora communities. Ojwang’s article accounts for the different ways in which three key writers, M. G. Vassanji, Bahadur Tejani, and Peter Nazareth, have responded in their fiction to the experiences and exigencies of migration, African nationalisms, and alienation. In doing so, it draws attention to the contribution that these writers, in providing imaginative accounts of one of the classic diasporas of colonialism, make to scholarly understanding of exile in colonial and postcolonial culture.

Kumar, S. S.;

doi: 10.1215/1089201X-1891552pmid: N/A

Kumar’s essay explores Indian classical music and the language in which it is conceived, apprehended, and received. He seeks to understand the historical processes that have gone into engineering the changes not just in the form of Indian classical music but also in, perhaps, its essence. Finally, this article examines the apparent continuities and discontinuities—and even the ruptures and renovations — within the system of classical music of the subcontinent.

Beard, M.;

doi: 10.1215/1089201X-1891561pmid: N/A

Beard’s essay contends that specialized journals with limited readerships encounter similar problems. Independent of the subject there are material conditions that limit, shape, or color a journal’s possibilities. These conditions become especially vivid to editors. In the case of journals and book series dealing with the literatures of the Middle East, the constraints are in part political. (Readers bring to the area preexisting commitments and expectations.) In part they are methodological. (Writers trained in Middle East Studies are likely to come to literature from different disciplines other than literary analysis.) In part they are regional. (Contributors usually have specialized in a particular culture or language — Turkish, Persian, or Arabic, in addition to lesser-taught languages like Uighur, Urdu, or Uzbek.) Beard describes his experiences as an editor of two projects: the journal Middle Eastern Literatures and the series “Middle Eastern Literatures in Translation.” In both cases the primary value is generating dialogue between specialists from different backgrounds.