1260375 Bangladeshi BanglophoneLiterature vis-à-vis World Literature: Exploring Comparative Poetics, Comparative Criticism, and Comparative Translation
1260375 Bangladeshi BanglophoneLiterature
vis-à-vis World Literature: Exploring
Comparative Poetics, Comparative Criticism, and Comparative Translation
Organizer(s):
Mashrur Shahid Hossain, Jahangirnagar University
(mashrursh@yahoo.co.uk)
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The panel has three dimensions, which both explain what this panel meant by ‘Bangladeshi BanglophoneLiterature’ and the three modes of comparative reading that this panel employs.
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1. Geographical dimensionof “Bangladeshi”: Each paper addresses writings composed by the Bangladesh-born writers including the ones who settled in Bangladeshand the diaspora. The panel broaches the complicated mix of nationalism, ethnicity, and linguistic identity that the term ‘Bangladeshi’ invokes.
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2. Linguistic dimension of “Banglophone”: In each paper, one of the ‘comparanda’ is composed in Bangla while the other (originally or in translation) in another language: Chakma (the language of a ‘minority’ ethic community in Bangladesh), English, and French. It is pertinent to mention here that this panel delimits its focus on the literary writings originally composed in Bangla. Therefore, it does not include the Bangladeshi Anglophone writings that have recently gained considerable space and currency throughout the world. The reason of this delimitation and exclusion is clear: acknowledging the severely limited recognition of Bangladeshi Banglophone literature in comparison with Bangladeshi Anglophone literature, we intend to explore, first, whether increasing translation into different languages may help Banglophone literature attain the substantial planetary recognition it deserves, and, second, whether Bangladeshi Banglophone literatures, with or without any genetic relation with other literatures, share the transcultural planetary nexus of ideas and praxis.
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3. Thematic dimension of “Literature”: The panel approaches Bangladeshi Banglophonewriters through three disciplinary paradigms of comparative literature: comparative poetics, comparativecriticism, and comparative translation. Thus, it includes Banglophoneliterary criticism and theories, Banglophonewritings ranging from poetry to fiction, and literary translation of Banglophone writings.
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Being small in magnitude, this panel does not claim to be representational nor does it intend to reduce Bangladeshi Literature into any homogenous rubric. Its chief aim is to initiate the necessary task of situating Bangladeshi Literature against a planetary scenario. Therefore, the panel has two broad objectives.
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First, it is premised upon a conviction that it is pertinent in this globalized world with increasing trans-cultural and inter-lingual exchange that we inquire and evaluate the paradigms that affect the recognition and reception of Bangladeshi Banglophonewritings as World Literature. The evaluation takes into account two questions: the first question, ‘Is Bangladeshi BanglophoneLiterature a World Literature’ invites the second, rather unsettling question, ‘What motivations underlie this desire to be a World Literature’?
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Second, the panel explores the status of Bangladeshi BanglophoneLiterature on a planetary scale by reading its relation to the world and world literature on three fulcrums: invisibility(e.g. the range or lack of reception and recognition in the world of Bangladeshi Literature composed in Bangla), inter-animation (e.g. if and how Bangladeshi ideas and writings interact with the ideas and writings of the writers from the other parts of the world either through genetic relations or through polygenetic parallelism),and affinity (e.g. if and how Bangladeshi writings, even ‘minority’ literatures, share any planetary ideology nexus).
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The panel wishes to initiate a dialogue on the potential and problem of situating Bangladeshi BanglophoneLiterature in the wider ambit of World Literature.