Modernism, Postcolonialism, Multilingualism: India and Urban Theatre as Global South Paradigms

As robust fields of contemporary scholarship, modernist studies and postcolonial studies have struggled in similar ways with the problems of Anglocentrism and Eurocentrism because of the intellectual, cultural, and political contexts of their development since the mid-20th century. Euro- American “high” modernist works, many of them created originally in English, dominated our understanding of modernist theory and practice until the 1990s, while postcolonial theory and literature have been produced mainly in languages such as English, French, and Spanish, which are in fact the premier languages of former European colonies in Africa and the Caribbean. Forms of modernism as well as postcolonialism that exist outside the circuits of Europhone textuality and performance appear either on the margins of global overviews or are entirely invisible.

This course proposes modern and contemporary urban literature and theatre in India as cultural forms that present perhaps the most sustained challenge to existing methods in modernist studies and postcolonial studies. India’s historic tradition of multilingual literacy made more than sixteen fully developed non-Europhone languages available to authors from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, initiating forms of modernity that have evolved continuously for almost two centuries. Modernist studies and postcolonial studies are not equipped to deal with multilingualism on this scale, and the lacunae in these fields prompt us to approach India as a Global South paradigm that poses a series of questions scholars have largely failed to address so far. What happens when we move away from Anglophone fiction-centered models of postcolonial cultural production and tackle the post/colonial thematics of multilingual modern Indian writing, with the textual/performative field of urban theatre as our primary case study? How can we identify and understand forms of modernism that combine a thoroughly cosmopolitan engagement with contemporaneous movements around the world with a deep commitment to the historically continuous literary cultures of Indian languages? What does “postcolonial modernism” look like under these conditions, especially in drama and theatre that deal with the topoi of myth, history, the urban present, and the powerful legacies of “tradition”? How does multilingualism function at the levels of writing, print, and performance in a polyglot national space? What “theories of theatre” do these complex conditions generate, and how are the theories embodied in practice?

The objective of the course, therefore, is to develop complex models of modernism and post/colonialism that can enable us to actually understand and interpret less familiar but no less vital cultural forms in the postcolony. The primary materials are drawn from the richly diverse field of modern Indian drama that is widely recognized now as a major component of contemporary world theatre; created originally in six different languages, including English, these materials are available for study in the uniform target language of English because of the continuous activity of translation.

However, the specific plays and performance histories also serve as “case studies” for theoretical approaches/analyses that draw broadly on postcolonial studies, modernist studies, theatre and performance studies, theories of translation and transculturation, media studies, subaltern studies, gender studies, and the critique of ideology. In this respect, the course is relevant to graduate students working in a range of disciplines and pursuing one or more among these diverse methodologies. For students focusing specifically on drama, theatre, and performance, the course provides an intensive introduction to all aspects of a singular but neglected non-Western tradition. For students specializing in India/South Asia, it covers a prominent modern subcontinental form, fully contextualized in relation to literary, cultural, and political history since the mid-19th century. Both the primary and secondary materials for the course will be in English.

TENTATIVE LIST OF PRIMARY WORKS

Rabindranath Tagore, The Post Office (1913)

Mohan Rakesh, One Day in the Season of Rain (1958) Badal Sircar, Evam Indrajit (And Indrajit, 1962) Utpal Dutt, The Rights of Man (1968)

Girish Karnad, Hayavadana (Horse-Head, 1971) Vijay Tendulkar, Constable Ghashiram (1972)

G. P. Despande, A Man in Dark Times (1974) Satish Alekar, Begum Barve (1979)

Mahesh Elkunchwar, Old Stone Mansion (1985) Manjula Padmanabhan, Lights Out (1986)

Stree Shakti Sangathhan, A Street Play on Dowry (Nukkad Janam Samvad, April-September 2007, 98- 102)

Erin Mee, ed., Drama Contemporary: India (2001) [Contains Usha Ganguli and Mahasweta Devi,

Rudali; Mahesh Dattani, Tara; and Datta Bhagat, Routes and Escape Routes].

Additional information about the course is available on Faculty Centre. If you have questions, please contact Professor Dharwadker at adharwadker@wisc.edu