Abstract
This paper builds a case for English Studies today on the basis of a non-hierarchical and creative culture-language negotiation with English as the negotiating language and argues that English studies need to expand in its scope in this direction. This expansion had initially happened when we moved from British Literature studies to American Literature and Culture studies. The influx of African American, Native American, Hispanic, Chicano and Asian American voices from the margins to the mainstream brought the vitality of the raw, native and desi into the cooked, civilised and marga canons of the white European culture and languages, creatively fertilising the literary and cultural scenario. Similarly, in the Commonwealth canon, we find the emergence of African, Indian, Sri Lankan, Caribbean, Australian and Canadian voices. Interestingly English was the negotiating language, the fulcrum and site of these negotiations. It is right here that the future of English Studies in India lies.
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Notes
- 1.
The editor’s note says that this is the first full-length translation of “Sahityateel Deshiyata.” The original translation was prepared by Arvind Dixit and published in the volume titled Nativism: Essays in Criticism (1997) edited by Makarand Paranjape.
- 2.
Hayavadana or “horseman” is from a Kathasaritsagara story which talks of incompleteness and imperfection. With the head of a horse and the body of a human being, Hayavadana is symbolic of identity crisis.
- 3.
The story has been recorded by me earlier in the paper “The English Tagore: Restoring a Legacy,” in the volume titled Marginalised: Indian Poetry in English edited by Smita Agarwal, (46–47, 49–51).
- 4.
Agha Shahid Ali repays the loan he took from the English language by giving it the ghazal. It is important for English Studies to examine such negotiations and the richness they create. It expands the scope of the ghazal by bringing within its parameters the cultural nuances of the English language, and on the other hand, it brings into the vocabulary of English the richness of the Arabic, Persian and Urdu language and culture.
- 5.
Arun Kolatkar reincarnates Tukaram and Namdeo in a contemporary postmodern scenario. The correspondence between the pan-Indian Bhakti movement and the postmodern bhakt with his unique faith in God and between the Marathi language and culture and the English language is a creative by-product that English Studies needs to address. Arvind Mehrotra’s work in bringing out these poems in The Boatride and other Poems (2009) is a big step in this direction.
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Dutta-Roy, S. (2019). Negotiating Between Languages and Cultures: English Studies Today. In: Mahanta, B., Sharma, R. (eds) English Studies in India. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1525-1_5
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