Comparing Hindi Literature: Then and Now in the World

Bhavya Tiwari & Sucheta Kanjilal
ACLA 2025

Comparing Hindi Literature: Then and Now in the World

Hindi literary texts, authors, and movements are often pitted against other South Asian literary traditions, especially Indian literature in English. The goal of this panel is to take a comprehensive view of Hindi literary and cultural texts in conversation with literary theory and literary traditions from around the world. Seminar papers that examine Hindi as a dynamic language engaged in a robust dialogue with local and global literary traditions in South Asian and non-South Asian languages are encouraged. Such interventions will assist in critically thinking about the issues of caste, gender, sexuality, language politics, technology, translation studies, literary movements, aesthetics, literary theory, and literary history from a comparative perspective, thereby making Hindi texts as a rich repository for critically assessing comparative literature and world literature as disciplinary frameworks.

In short, this panel is interested in all things Hindi, from past to the present. We are especially interested in discussing the local and global position of Hindi texts, its authors, and cultural production. We also welcome papers that focus on a broad range of topics that address the themes of literary movements, social media, literary canon, literary theory, literary history, modernism, postcolonialism, translation, gender, Indian literature, language politics, and global south in comparative and world literary traditions.

Selected papers from this seminar will be considered for a special issue on Hindi literature in a peer-reviewed journal.