Papers by Judhajit Sarkar
Journal of South Asian History and Culture, 2024
This paper delineates the socio-historical imagination underpinning the works of Miraji, one of t... more This paper delineates the socio-historical imagination underpinning the works of Miraji, one of the pioneers of Urdu poetic modernism. It argues that the 'modernism' attributed to Miraji's poetry is best understood as the culmination of, as well as a veritable departure from, a specific diachronic movement internal to the history of modern Urdu literature. Presenting the idea of 'naturalness' as one of the principal catalysts of this internal movement, this paper demonstrates how Miraji attempted to reorient the trajectory of modern Urdu poetry by adopting an equivocal poetic language, which challenged the moral, social, and political imports of this politicoaesthetic discourse of 'naturalness'.
Muktibodh und andere moderne Hindi Dichter, 2020
Drafts by Judhajit Sarkar
Translation of an Urdu short story by Mansha Yaad
This article offers a detailed analysis of an āzād naz̤m by Miraji, titled ‘Raīl Meīñ’, and proce... more This article offers a detailed analysis of an āzād naz̤m by Miraji, titled ‘Raīl Meīñ’, and proceeds to show how the intentional structure of this poem corresponds with some of the most famous āzād naz̤ms that Miraji wrote. Through a close reading of the emergence of the lyric voice in this poem, in the context of Miraji’s overall poetics and the lifeworld of late colonial India, the article argues that a central aspect of Miraji’s ‘lyric modernity’ is the constant questioning of the apparently self-evident notions of subjectivity, expression and identity, and the incorporation of this criticality in the domain of the ‘modern Urdu lyric’.
This essay is a chapter in the book "Indian Literary Historiography: Concepts, Languages, Histori... more This essay is a chapter in the book "Indian Literary Historiography: Concepts, Languages, Histories," edited by Harish Trivedi and published by Sahitya Akademi (New Delhi, 2024). Unfortunately, due to editorial mishaps, the essay appears in a truncated form in the book, and without the correct bibliography. Here is the full version of the essay.
Books by Judhajit Sarkar
Translations into German: Muktibodh, Shrikant Verma, Dhoomil, Nagarjun
Conference Presentations by Judhajit Sarkar
In this presentation on the Hindi poet and aesthetic thinker Gajānan Mādhav Muktibodh, we explore... more In this presentation on the Hindi poet and aesthetic thinker Gajānan Mādhav Muktibodh, we explore the internationalist context of his literary and political life and discuss some translation issues related to the conceptual language he developed in the course of his extensive deliberations on the aesthetic question, where he combined and reworked insights from various sources such as Marxism, Kantian aesthetics, and Sanskrit Rasa Theory. We highlight the importance of the notion of critical subjectivity in Muktibodh's writings and explore its role as the connecting link between the kind of aesthetic and political praxis he envisaged.
Paper presented at the Zweiter Deutscher Südasientag, University of Heidelberg, October 28-29, 2022
Paper presented at the 27th European Conference on South Asian Studies (ECSAS) at the University ... more Paper presented at the 27th European Conference on South Asian Studies (ECSAS) at the University of Turin, Italy, from 26 to 29 July 2023
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Papers by Judhajit Sarkar
Drafts by Judhajit Sarkar
Books by Judhajit Sarkar
Conference Presentations by Judhajit Sarkar