National webinar on Comparative Literature and Indian Perspective held

PATHSALA: Under the aegis of the Department of Assamese, B. H. B. College, Sarupeta, a national webinar on 'Comparative Literature and Indian Perspective' was held on Wednesday on Google Meet.

The webinar was inaugurated by Dr. Birinchi Kumar Das, Principal, B. H. B. College, who gave some preliminary ideas of the concept of comparative literature. He said that Sankardev and Shakespeare were often compared as playwrights, but such comparison should not aim at establishing which one was a better playwright; rather, such comparison should be on the basis of their thematic, technical, social, political and historical contexts. He also mentioned how Dr. Krishna Kanta Handique, in his essay Anubador Katha written in 1920, made a comparison between Russian folk dance Khorovod and Assamese Bihu dance.

The webinar was attended as resource person by Dr. Anuradha Sarma, Associate Professor in the Department of MIL and Literature Study, Gauhati University. She gave an elaborate discussion on the position of comparative literature in the context of globalization and post-colonialism. She said that no activity of the human society, including literature, could ignore the political backdrops, and therefore, comparative literature also could not be studied keeping aside the political perspectives.

Bringing within the purview of her discussion on literature in Sanskrit and other Indian languages, she explained the complexities in the notion of 'Indian literature'. Mentioning Assamese authors like Ambikagiri Roychoudhury and Raghunath Choudhary, she said that it was important to study comparative literature to understand regional literature. She also replied to queries of various participants.

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