Graduate Indology Seminar, Week 8

Francesca Orsini

In conversation about her book

East of Delhi

Multilingual Literary Culture and World Literature

with

Faisal Devji, Imre Bangha and Pranav Prakash

East of Delhi examines literature produced, practiced, and circulated in and out of North India, focusing on the region of Awadh, from the beginning of recorded vernacular literature in the late fourteenth century to the colonial era of the early twentieth century. This book considers texts in a wide range of genres – courtly, devotional, and popular-composed in the main languages of the region: Hindavi, Persian, Brajbhasha, Urdu. Author Francesca Orsini suggests that this multilingual and multi-genre approach is better suited to capturing the texture, complexity, and dynamics of literature in the world, and of literary history, than approaches that focus only on global circulation or models that draw centres and peripheries on a single global map.

4.15pm on 5 March 2024 in the Spalding Room, 1 Pusey Lane