About this Event
How did writers reimagine self and nation in the postcolonial moment? After the brutalities of partition and the triumph of Independence, decolonization in South Asia unfolded in a dramatic sense of disillusion and alienation. In this transnational study, Toral Jatin Gajarawala explores the cultural afterlife of decolonization in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh and its profound moment of existential reckoning. In new genres and forms, artists registered a growing sense of estrangement from nation and nationalism, and crafted a new aesthetic landscape.
This book reconsiders modernism in the subcontinent, charting the unlikely affiliations and aesthetic experiments it generated. Each chapter discusses a distinct artistic experiment – Hindi novels set in snow and ice, and a Pakistani painter’s Paris moment; the existential novel of Bengal, and absurdist plays on famine and extinction – in light of key philosophical concepts of the moment: askesis, responsibility, commitment. The result is an illuminating microanalysis of the 1960s that reshapes our understanding of postcolonial aesthetics.
The event will feature Toral Jatin Gajarawala (Associate Professor of English, NYU), Leela Gandhi (John Hawkes Professor of the Humanities and English, Brown University), and Robert Young (Julius Silver Professor of English, NYU).
Brought to you by the Postcolonial, Race and Diaspora Studies Colloquium and Department of English
This venue has an elevator and is accessible for wheelchair users. There are single-stall, all gender restrooms available. If you have any access needs, please email [email protected]
Event venue & nearby stays
20 Cooper Sq, 20 Cooper Square, New York, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.