Transcultural Humanities In South Asia

This volume looks at the implications of transcultural humanities in South Asia, which is becoming a crucial area of research within literary and cultural studies. The volume also explores various complex critical dimensions of transculturation, its indeterminate periodisation, its temporal and spatial nonlinearity, its territoriality and intersectionality. Drawing on contributors from around the globe, the entries look at literature and poetics, theory and praxis, borders and nations, politics, Partition, gender and sexuality, the environment, representations in art and pedagogy and the transcultural classroom. Using key examples and case studies, the contributors look at current developments in transcultural and transnational standpoints and their possible educational outcomes. A broad and comprehensive collection, as it also speaks about the value of the humanities and the significance of South Asian contexts, Transcultural Humanities in South Asia will be of particular interest to those working on postcolonial studies, literary studies, Asian studies and more.

According to originalism, the meaning of a text is determined at the time of its writing. Originalism in Theology and Law explores the similarities and differences between the theological application of this idea to the Bible and its legal application to the American Constitution.

The Routledge Companion to Humanism and Literature provides readers with a comprehensive reassessment of the value of humanism in an intellectual landscape. Offering contributions by leading international scholars, this volume seeks to define literature as a core expressive form and an essential constitutive element of newly reformulated understandings of humanism. While the value of humanism has recently been dominated by anti-humanist and post-humanist perspectives which focused on the flaws and exclusions of previous definitions of humanism, this volume examines the human problems, dilemmas, fears, and aspirations expressed in literature, as a fundamentally humanist art form and activity. Divided into three overarching categories, this companion will explore the histories, developments, debates, and contestations of humanism in literature, and deliver fresh definitions of "the new humanism" for the humanities. This focus aims to transcend the boundaries of a world in which human life is all too often defined in terms of restrictions—political, economic, theological, intellectual—and lived in terms of obedience, conformity, isolation, and fear. The Routledge Companion to Humanism and Literature will provide invaluable support to humanities students and scholars alike seeking to navigate the relevance and resilience of humanism across world cultures and literatures.

This book studies the intersection of performance and nationalism in South Asia.It traces the emergence of the culture of nationalism from the late nineteenth century through to contemporary times. Drawing on various theatrical performance texts, it looks at the ways in which performative narratives have reflected the national narrative and analyses the role performance has played in engendering nationhood. The volume discusses themes such as political martyrdom as performative nationalism, the revitalisation of nationalism through new media, the sanitisation of physical gestures in dance, the performance of nationhood through violence in Tajiki films, as well as K-Pop and the new northeastern identity in India. A unique contribution to the study of nationalism, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of history, theatre and performance studies, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, modern India, Asian studies, political studies, social anthropology and sociology.

Culture of Memory in South Asia reconfigures European representations of India as a paradigmatic extension of a classical reading, which posits the relation between text and context in a determined way. It explores the South Asian cultural response to European “textual” inheritances. The main argument of this work is that the reflective and generative nodes of Indian cultural formations are located in the configurations of memory, the body and idiom (verbal and visual), where the body or the body complex becomes the performative effect and medium of articulated memories. This work advances its arguments by engaging with mnemocultures-cultures of memory that survive and proliferate in speech and gesture. Drawing on Sanskrit and Telugu reflective sources, this work emphasizes the need to engage with cultural memory and the compositional modes of Indian reflective traditions. This important and original work focuses on the ruptured and stigmatised resources of heterogeneous Indian traditions and calls for critical humanities that move beyond the colonially configured received traditions. Cultures of Memory suggests the possibilities of transcultural critical humanities research and teaching initiatives from the Indian context in today’s academy.

This wide-ranging volume explores the tension between the dietary practice of veganism and the manifestation, construction, and representation of a vegan identity in today’s society. Emerging in the early 21st century, vegan studies is distinct from more familiar conceptions of "animal studies," an umbrella term for a three-pronged field that gained prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s, consisting of critical animal studies, human animal studies, and posthumanism. While veganism is a consideration of these modes of inquiry, it is a decidedly different entity, an ethical delineator that for many scholars marks a complicated boundary between theoretical pursuit and lived experience. The Routledge Handbook of Vegan Studies is the must-have reference for the important topics, problems, and key debates in the subject area and is the first of its kind. Comprising over 30 chapters by a team of international contributors, this handbook is divided into five parts: History of vegan studies Vegan studies in the disciplines Theoretical intersections Contemporary media entanglements Veganism around the world These sections contextualize veganism beyond its status as a dietary choice, situating veganism within broader social, ethical, legal, theoretical, and artistic discourses. This book will be essential reading for students and researchers of vegan studies, animal studies, and environmental ethics.