“The Ghazal Among the Nations”
The novel has come to dominate our understanding of South Asian writing in English and even of aspects of world literary relations as such. This lecture moves away from that terrain in order to examine the problems of poetic expression in contemporary South Asian Anglophone writing, especially the ghazal, and its place in the long history of vernacular commitment—the vast cultures of poetic expression in the Indian languages. It highlights what present-day trans-border lyric writing in English has taken from a South Asian poetic tradition, the ghazal in Urdu, and the broader literary cultures of the region, and how such aspects of modernity are mediated through this form.
Professor Aamir Mufti of UCLA teaches in the Comparative Literature Department at UCLA and is the author of influential books including Enlightenment in the Colony: The Jewish Question and the Crisis of Postcolonial Culture (Princeton University Press). He has published widely on topics such as exile and migration, minority cultures, secularism, and the politics of language. His current work includes The Idea of Minor Literature, which explores colonial and postcolonial literatures, and The Question of the Nation, which examines nineteenth- and twentieth-century South Asian literary cultures. His essays have appeared in journals such as Frankfurt School and Critical Theory, and he has written on refugees and the rights of stateless persons. His research combines English and the vernacular literatures with anthropology.
Special thanks to the following sponsors: SAS Dean and Vice Dean’s Office, The Centers for Global Advancement and International Affairs, Program in Comparative Literature, Program in South Asian Studies, Center for African Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies.