This seminar problematizes the continual domination of Eurocentrism over the canonized idea of world literature and the resultant exclusivist approach of conducting literary studies. As we engage with this problematic and attempt to decolonize world literature from the methodological premise of Comparative Literature, we must first acknowledge that the emergence of the decolonial method with regards to literary studies is only possible through the adoption of a framework of “interconnectedness”. The domain of literature and culture in South Asia has been accommodative of this framework from its initiation. We have seen how the mode of “telling” has not been divorced from the scribal culture in South Asia. This framework of inclusivity leads us to the development of a renewed approach towards perceiving literatures of the world which is bereft of the Eurocentric exclusivist reading of cultural articulations. I would elucidate on the development of this method by concentrating on the domain of Indian theatre in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Through a reading of Kalakshetra Manipur's theatre production Pebet (1975), I would locate how theatre in the Indian “bhashas” receives oral traditions like the phūṅgā wārī and contests the hierarchized division between aesthetic traditions. By citing instances of embodying “restored behaviour” in Pebet, I would show how the production of modern performance spaces in post-independence India is interrupted with the agential presence of the human and the non-human residue of the pre-modern/ritual performances. By reading the gestures of Kanhailal’s theatre as the “unverifiable” , I would move towards the assertion of “untranslatability” as a method of decolonizing South Asian space of cultural articulations. Moreover, by contextualizing the paradigmatic shifts within the imagination of the “rangamancha” with reference to liminality both in the context of the stage in India and Indian modernity, I would argue how twentieth century Indian theatre has engendered a practice of decolonization informed by the contemporary politics of the Global South.

Comparative Literature, as a method of studying literature in comparison across national and cultural boundaries, has evolved in the 19th century. In India, Scholars like Brojendranath Seal (1864-1938) and Sasankamohan Sen (1872-1928) initially contributed to this field. In 1907, after the Swadeshi Movement, Rabindranath Tagore delivered a lecture on comparative literature that was later published as ‘Vishyasahitya’ in his essay collection ‘Sahitya’. Tagore proposed a vision of Comparative Literature that transcends national boundaries on literature and cultural identities, promoting a universal expression of humanity by making temple of aesthetic. However, traditional interpretations have limited his concept to ‘world literature’ framework, neglecting the potentials to challenge with stereotypical comparative literary practices and also the history of disciplinary practices in India. This paper revisits the historical development of Comparative Literature in India, situating Tagore's Vishyasahitya within the broader contexts of transnationalism and decolonization. It examines the contemporary relevance of Tagore’s ideas, particularly in relation to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s concept of ‘Planetarity,’ which echoes Tagore’s vision of a unified literary spaces that transcends political and cultural borders. By comparing contemporary pedagogical approaches in Comparative Literature of the sub-continent with Tagore’s insights, this study highlights the potential of his approach to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of world literature. The research employs qualitative textual analysis to critically engage with primary texts and secondary literature, underscoring the lasting impact of Tagore’s ideas on comparative literature.

Comparative Literature emerged as an academic discipline in India in 1956 with the establishment of the Department of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University, shortly after Independence. This paper explores how the adoption of comparison as a literary method was not a mere European import but was instead rooted in an ideological effort to challenge colonial educational frameworks. It becomes crucial to understand the creation of the first department of comparative literature within a broader historical and intellectual context. This includes the contemporary trends in literary discourse, the national education movement, and the history of the National Council of Education, Bengal, which sought to construct a decolonial educational structure. These developments collectively influenced the establishment of comparative literature as an academic discipline in post-Independence India.

The paper draws on archival materials related to the National Council of Education, Bengal, as well as contemporary writings on nationalism and its impact on intellectual spheres, particularly literature, as found in periodicals and journals. It also investigates the evolving discourses surrounding the notion of ‘Indian literature’ and how comparative literature in India, with its inherent decolonizing tendencies, emerged in the twentieth century. In addition, the study examines how the search for alternative, pluralistic understandings of ‘Indian literature’ shaped the trajectory of the discipline. By tracing these intellectual currents, the paper seeks to demonstrate how comparative literature in India became a key site for questioning colonial legacies and developing new frameworks for literary scholarship.

After Goethe’s coinage of the term Weltliteratur, the idea has had much iteration. Meltzl, Brandes, Durisin, Guillen, Casanova, Moretti, Apter and several others have explained ‘World Literature’ from respective contexts. In an Indian context, Rabindranath Tagore's idea of Vishwa Sahitya seems to have the most currency. Such a concept cannot be thought of as simply a Bangla equivalent for an idea of World Literature.

Tagores's idea of Visva is conceptualized through his own beliefs of liberal humanism and an understanding of desh/swadesh. More recently, a discussion of World Literature has come to focus on categories such as ‘major-minor’, ‘center-periphery’, and methodologies such as “distant reading” or “literature as system”. However, upon closer examination most practices of World Literature are grounded in explorations of cross cultural and inter-literary relationships. Such practices pose unique methodological challenges in the context of Indian literatures. Any history of modern Indian language literatures demonstrates an interplay between heterogeneity and interconnectedness across such a plurilingual landscape.

In this paper, I will use literary texts by women authors such as Ashapurna Devi, Mahasweta Devi, Nabaneeta Dev Sen, Rashid Jahan and Ismat Chughtai to illustrate how their writing foregrounds the complexity of categories such as gender, caste, class and language in India. More importantly, my analysis of their works problematises categories such as ‘major-minor’ or ‘center-periphery’ through contrasting views of their locations within a canon on "World Literature" and their contextualizations with modern Indian language literatures.