Rabindranath Tagore in the 21st Century

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Introduction—Theory and the Performative Politics of Punctuation

   • Debashish Banerji

   Pages 1-13

3. The Rustle of Language

   • Rosinka Chaudhuri

   Pages 15-23

4. Translating Tagore: Shifting Paradigms

   • Radha Chakravarty

   Pages 25-35

5. Two Giant Brothers

   • Amit Chaudhuri

   Pages 37-51

6. Tagore’s Idea of “World Literature”

   • Makarand R. Paranjape

   Pages 53-67

7. “The World in a Nest”: Rabindranath Tagore on Nationalism and Internationalism

   • Sachidananda Mohanty

   Pages 69-81

8. The Bauhaus, Rabindranath Tagore and His Paintings

   • Partha Mitter

   Pages 83-99

9. Why Ratan Fell in Love Unnoticed and Why Ashu was Ashamed: Tagore’s Short Fiction and the Ethics of Feeling

   • Patrick Hogan

   Pages 101-111

10. Remembering Robi: Childhood, Freedom and Rabindranath Tagore

    • Satadru Sen

    Pages 113-129

11. The Educational Efforts of Rabindranath Tagore

    • Nita Kumar

    Pages 131-144

12. The Delineation of the Female Subject in Rabindranath Tagore’s Novel Farewell, My Friend

    • Monali Chatterjee

    Pages 145-156

13. Gender, Nation, and the Vicissitudes of Kalpana: Choreographing Womanly Beauty in Tagore’s Dance Dramas

    • Esha Niyogi De

    Pages 157-171

14. “As Though She Were a Man”: Chitrangada and Contemporary Queer Appropriations of Tagore

    • Sumanyu Satpathy

    Pages 173-187

15. Tagore and the Northeast: Dialectics of Human Intellection and the Nature of Aesthetic Reflection

    • Anuradha Ghosh

    Pages 189-201

16. Rabindrasangeet and Modern Bengali Subjectivity

    • Saurav Dasthakur

    Pages 203-224

17. Tagore and National Identity Formation in Bangladesh

    • Fakrul Alam

    Pages 225-241

18. Tagore Through Portraits: An Intersubjective Picture Gallery

    • Debashish Banerji

    Pages 243-264

19. The Unanswered Question: Some Remarks on Tagore’s Late Style

    • Saranindranath Tagore

    Pages 265-275

20. Back Matter

    Pages 277-288

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This critical volume addresses the question of Rabindranath Tagore's relevance for postmodern and postcolonial discourse in the twenty-first century. The volume includes contributions by leading contemporary scholars on Tagore and analyses Tagore's literature, music, theatre, aesthetics, politics and art against contemporary theoretical developments in postcolonial literature and social theory. The authors take up themes as varied as the implications of Tagore’s educational vision for contemporary India; new theoretical interpretations of gender, queer elements, feminism and subalternism in Tagore's literary and social expressions; his language use as a vehicle for a dialogue between positivism, Orientalism and other constructs in the ongoing process of globalization; the nature of the influence of Tagore's music and literature on national and cultural identity formation, particularly in Bengal and Bangladesh; and intersubjectivity and critical modernity in Tagore’s art. This volume opens up a space for Tagore’s critique and his creative innovations in present theoretical engagements.

• Contemporary approaches to Tagore
• Feminism and Tagore
• Intersubjectivity in Tagore's art
• Postmodern interpretation of Tagore
• Queer theory and Tagore
• Self and subjectivity in Tagore's portraits
• Tagore and Bangladeshi identity
• Tagore and Bengali identity
• Tagore and aesthetics
• Tagore and the Bauhaus
• Tagore's educational reforms
• Tagore's music
• literary diction

• Indian Studies, University of Philosophical Research, Los Angeles, USA

  Debashish Banerji

Debashish Banerji is Professor of Indian Studies and Dean of Academic Affairs at the University of Philosophical Research, Los Angeles. He is also Adjunct Faculty in Asian Art History at the Pasadena City College and Research Fellow in Asian and Comparative Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco. Banerji is the author of The Alternate Nation of Abanindranath Tagore (Sage, 2010) and Seven Quartets of Becoming: A Transformative Yoga Psychology Based on the Diaries of Sri Aurobindo (DKPW and Nalanda, 2012). As an independent art curator, he has curated a number of exhibitions of Indian and Japanese art in the U.S. and India. His articles on South Asian art history, culture studies and consciousness studies have appeared in various magazines, journals and anthologies. To know more about him, visit http://www.debashishbanerji.com.

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