A wilderness of possibilities : Urdu studies in transnational perspective
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
A wilderness of possibilities : Urdu studies in transnational perspective
Oxford University Press, 2005
Available at 2 libraries
Note
Papers from the conference "Urdu Scholarship in Transnational Perspective," Columbia University, New York, 28-30 September 2001, held in honor of Professor C.M. Naim
Includes bibliographical references (p. [287]-292) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Over the past forty years the study of Urdu literature has played a dynamic role in contemporary discourses on culture and history, reaching out to a far-flung international community of scholars. The ten essays in this volume, assembled for Professor C. M. Naim, a pioneer of Urdu studies in the United States, exemplify the changing place of Urdu in the world today. They discuss diverse aspects of Urdu and Persian literature and poetry, between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. The focus is mainly on Urdu poetry offering a comprehensive introduction to the sociology, culture and politics of its enchanting and complex world but it also includes essays on travelogues, print journalism and a play. In the first part, contributors explore the divergent social and political spaces that Urdu literature has occupied through the centuries. In the second, they critique the paradigms that have informed Urdu literary history and point to new methodologies of reading. Pillars of poetry like Ghalib and Iqbal, women writing from the zanana, popular dramatists, travellers to Britain, and modern novelists form the subjects of this wide-ranging collection.
The contributors are specialists in the field and include such distinguished scholars as Kumkum Sangari, Barbara Metcalf, Gail Minault, and Aditya Behl as well as new scholars in the field doing some really interesting work such as Ramya Sreenivasan. The authors use a combination of approaches: while some articles focus on well-known texts, others focus on individual poets and writers. The book includes lucid new translations of texts not yet available to English readers. It will interest all scholars and students of South Asian cultural history and literary studies.
Table of Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION
- PART I: URDU LITERATURE AND THE POLITICAL IMAGINARY: THE CONFIGURAL MODE: AG KA DARYA
- THE AFTERLIFE OF A MUGHAL MASNAWI: THE TALE OF NAL AND DAMAN IN URDU AND PERSIAN
- GENRE, POLITICS, HISTORY: URDU TRADITIONS OF PADMINI
- FROM AKHBAR TO NEWS: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE URDU PRESS IN EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY DELHI
- BRITAIN IN THE URDU TONGUE: ACCOUNTS BY EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY VISITORS
- IQBAL S IMAGINED GEOGRAPHIES: THE EAST, THE WEST, THE NATION, AND ISLAM
- PART II: THE CRITICAL PROJECT AND ITS REVISION
- THE POET IN THE POEM OR, VEILING THE UTTERANCE
- POET OF THE BAZAARS: NAZIR AKBARABADI, 1735-1830
- FEMININE AUTHORSHIP AND URDU POETIC TRADITION: BAHARISTAN-I NAZ VS. TAZKIRA-I REKHTI
- THE MEANING OF MEANINGLESS VERSES : GHALIB AND HIS COMMENTATORS
- TO YOU YOUR CREMATION, TO ME MY BURIAL: THE IDEALS OF INTER-COMMUNAL HARMONY IN PREMCHAND S KARBALA
- NOTE ON CONTRIBUTORS
- BIBLIOGRAPHY OF C.M. NAIM
- INDEX
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