[Reader-list] Seminar: `The magic of Prithviraj, Padmini and Pratap in the vernacular imaginaire'

[Rajesh Ramakrishnan]

Tuesday, 30th September, 2008


Shail Mayaram will speak on

The magic of Prithviraj, Padmini and Pratap in the vernacular
imaginaire: revisiting the interface of Colonialism, Orientalism, and
Nationalism

At 2:30 PM, Seminar Room, CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi – 110 054

Chair: Professor Namwar Singh


The paper seeks to explore a moment that was constitutive of
Hindu-Muslim difference. It uses as its point of entry the work of
James Tod (1782-1835) and reviews recent interventions in the debate
on colonialism, orientalism and nationalism. Tod had a phenomenal
impact on the Indian popular nationalist imagination through the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His work was inspirational to the
literary modernity of several Indian languages including Bengali,
Rajasthani, and the "new vernacular" Hindi. Ironically, although Tod's
persona exemplified colonialism, it shaped powerfully the aesthetic of
anti-colonial praxis and continues to inspire militant nationalist
ideologies including that of the Visva Hindu Parishad.

Shail Mayaram is Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of
Developing Societies, Delhi. Her research and writing has been in the
area of state formation, subaltern perspectives of the state,
philosophy of history, multiculturalism and Muslim identities,
religion conversion, transnational religious civil society, spirit
possession and shamanism, oral epics, and gender and governance. Her
current interest is in inter-ethnic relations in cities. Her
publications include Against History, Against State:
Counterperspectives from the Margins (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2003; Delhi: Permanent Black, 2004); Resisting Regimes: Myth,
Memory and the Shaping of a Muslim Identity (Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1997); and (coauthored with Ashis Nandy, Shikha Trivedi, Achyut
Yagnik) Creating a Nationality: The Ramjanmabhumi Movement and the
Fear of Self (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995). She is a member
of the Subaltern Studies collective and has co-edited Subaltern
Studies: Muslims, dalits and the fabrications of history, Vol. 12
(Delhi: Permanent Black, 2005). A forthcoming edited volume is The
Other Global City: Living Together in Asia (Routledge).

Professor Namwar Singh retired from JNU as Professor Emeritus and is
Chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University. A critic
and scholar of eminence, he has been a leading critical voice in Hindi
for the last many years. His well-known works include his book on
Kabir and Doosri Parampara ki Khoj Mein, in addition to his
prestigious journal, Aalochna. Namwar Singh has delivered a great
number of lectures and talks all over the country on different aspects
of literature.