LITERARY CULTURES IN PAKISTAN AND POST-COLONIAL INDIA

This course continues the pattern set by precedent teachings in the context of the bachelor study program concerning Indian studies. It aims at deepening students' knowledge of South Asian cultural and literary environment during and immediately after the Partition that took place in 1947 sanctioning the end of the colonial period. Particular attention will be given to modern developments and their consequences in the contemporary world of those aspects of the Subcontinents' cultural life that has decisively contributed to shaping the mentality and culture of the people in the two major nations of the post-colonial order in South Asia, namely India and Pakistan.

The knowledge and notions acquired in the context of this course want to offer students a more complete vision of the cultural and literary context that determined the political and social developments of South Asia during the XX and XXI centuries, in the aftermath of the prolonged and determining impact of European colonial rule over South Asia. This should provide students with major autonomy in analyzing and assessing the cultural history of those years and enable them ultimately to sharpen their opinion and judgement of the historical period concerned through direct access to literary and other source in the languages of the Subcontinent.

A good working knowledge of English and a basic understanding of the historical, social and cultural context of South Asia. Some notions of the Hindi language are desired and basic notions of Urdu language are desirable though not essential.

-Analysis of the political and social situation in the Indian subcontinent in the years immediately following the Partition (1947-1956): the literature of Partition in India and in Pakistan;
-the years of the progressive movement, in particular the Progressive Writers Movement: poets and novelists;
-the process of Islamization of Pakistan in the 70s and 80s of the 19th century and the relations with Sufi movements;
-national and official languages in the constitution of India and Pakistan and the relations with 'minor' state/provincial languages, i.e. gujarati, kashmiri, sindhi and panjabi;
-the case of Bangladesh and the urdu-speaking minority there;
-the hindi novel in the 60s and 70s: the anchalik novel and its linguistic implications.

-Bodh, Prakash (2009): Writing Partition: Aesthetics and Ideology in Hindi and Urdu Literature, New Delhi: Dorling Kindersley.

-Iftikhar Arif (a cura di, 2010): Modern Poetry of Pakistan, London: Dalkey Archive Press.

-Nazir M. Gill (2013): Development of Urdu Language and Literature Under the Shadow of the British in India, XLibris.

-Muhammad Qasim Zaman (2018): Islam in Pakistan: A History, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Written (with the main teacher) and oral (with the mother tongue collaborator)

Frontal classes, complemented by regular common reading and translation sessions, offered in a seminarial context

Italian

Students are strongly advised to attend classes regularly.

written and oral