Varieties of Cultural Chauvinism and the Relevance of Comparative Studies
Tilottoma Misra
The archival material used by social scientists is often inadequate to preserve the disturbing memories of traumatic events. Only an analytical approach to literary texts would illuminate the process by which, in Gramsci’s words, “every real historical phase leaves traces of itself in succeeding phases.“ History becomes relevant for the present only because of such traces of the past embedded in people’s memory, and literary texts can effectively preserve these traces in the most unlikely of places. Notes 1 Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities, Verso, London, 2006, p.184. 2 Foreword to L.N. Bezbaroa’s Ratan Munda, translated from the Asamiya original by Bina Misra, Sahitya Akademi, 1973. 3 Afterword to Saraswativijayam by Potheri Kunhambu, 1892, translated from Malayalam by Dilip Menon, New Delhi, 2002. Pages: 1 2 3 4 |
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Essays in this Forum
Rethinking the Global South
by Mukoma Wa Ngugi From Indian Literature to World Literature: A Conversation with Satya P. Mohanty by Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar and Rajender Kaur Asia in My Life by Ngugi wa Thiong'o The Global South and Cultural Struggles: On the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization by Duncan Mceachern Yoon The Fault Lines of Hindi and Urdu by Sanjay Kumar Reframing Colonialism and Modernity: An Endeavour through Sociology and Literature by Gurminder K. Bhambra Varieties of Cultural Chauvinism and the Relevance of Comparative Studies by Tilottoma Misra Literature to Combat Cultural Chauvinism: A Response by Shivani Jha Is There an Indian Way of Thinking about Comparative Literature? by E. V. Ramakrishnan Modernity and Public Sphere in Vernacular by Purushottam Agrawal West Indian Writers and Cultural Chauvinism by Jerome Teelucksingh Oral Knowledge in Berber Women’s Expressions of the Sacred by Fatima Sadiki |
