1st Edition
Tagore beyond Borders Essays on His Influence and Cultural Legacy
This book looks at Rabindranath Tagore’s creative art, social commitment, literary and artistic representation and his unique legacy in the cultural history of modern India – as a blend of the quintessentially Indian and the liberal universalist.
Tagore’s genius, which he expressed through his poetry, songs, paintings, drama and philosophy, is celebrated across the globe. In 1913, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his volume of poetry, Gitanjali (Song Offerings), making him the first Nobel laureate from Asia. This volume of essays celebrates his intellectual engagements and his incredible legacy by discussing the diverse ways in which his works have been reinterpreted, adapted and translated over the years. It analyses his perspectives on modernity, nationalism, liberation, education, post-colonialism and translatability and their relevance today. The leitmotif is a Tagore who, while imaginable as made possible only within the Indian tradition, eludes attempts aimed at identification with a national culture and remains a "cosmopolitan" in the best sense of the term.
This volume will be of interest to readers and researchers in the fields of literature, philosophy, political science, cultural studies, Asian studies, South Asian studies and Tagore studies. Fans of Tagore will also find this an interesting read as it presents many little knows aspects of the poet’s work.
List of Contributors
1. Introduction
Mihaela Gligor and Elisabetta Marino
2. Cultural Transfer, Rabindranath Tagore’s Travels and Travel Writing
Fakrul Alam
3. Travelling Fictions: The English Stories of Rabindranath Tagore
Radha Chakravarty
4. Du Bois and Tagore: Between Transnational Solidarity and Cultural Appropriation
Elisabetta Marino
5. Tagore’s Educational Paradigm and Its Relevance to Modern Teaching
Eleonora Olivia Bălănescu
6. Tagore and Gandhi: Their Deep Thoughts about Their Country
Uma Das Gupta
7. The Mysterious Inner World. Remarks on Representation of Religion in Rabindranath Tagore’s Sādhanā, and The Religion of Man
Mihaela Gligor
8. ‘All broken truths are evil.’ Rabindranath Tagore on the life-transforming freedom (mukti)
Halina Marlewicz
9. Women’s ‘Voices’ in Rabindranath Tagore’s Later Poetry: A Postcolonial Perspective
Bashabi Fraser
10. Strangeness and the ‘New Woman.’ Rereading Rabindranath Tagore’s The Laboratory
Paromita Mukherjee
11. Cinematographic Adaptations of Rabindranath Tagore’s Short Stories – Between Reality, Lyricism, and Visual Poetry
Daniela Rogobete
Index
Biography
Mihaela Gligor is Researcher in the Philosophy of Culture at the Romanian Academy "George Bariţiu" Institute of History Cluj-Napoca; Founder and Director of Cluj Center for Indian Studies, Babeş-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Elisabetta Marino is Associate Professor of English Literature and the Head of "Asia and the West," an International Research Centre based at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy.
"Eighty years have passed since Rabindranath Tagore’s death and the Bengali writer never cease to inspire people, not just in his homeland but beyond its confines. Tagore was the first truly global figure of India and his writings as a poet, prose-writer and cultural thinker are nowadays more and more scrutinised in a postcolonial light. This volume with essays on how Tagore’s poetry, religious or educational ideas, short stories, dialogue with leading intellectuals, and travel writing reached or had the potential to reach beyond Bengal, is an important addition to an ever better understanding of one of the finest minds of modern India."
Imre Bangha, University of Oxford, UK
"Rabindranath Tagore has always travelled, and in his situated universalism he continues to go beyond ‘narrow domestic walls.’ This is an excellent collection of papers on his powerful and increasingly pertinent legacy."
Tabish Khair, Aarhus University, Denmark
"An extraordinary compendium that sheds new light on an extraordinary man, his times, and the profound impact he had on Indian arts, literary culture, and moral imagination."
Namit Arora, author of Indians: A brief history of a Civilization
