Agyeya (1911-1987)

In his time and ours

Speakers


Renata Czekalska (Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland)

Renata Czekalska is Associate Professor at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland. She specializes in South Asian Culture, 20th Century Hindi Literature, Modern History of South Asia, and Intercultural Communication. Dr. Czekalska’s recent publications include two books, Rodowody nowoczesnej poezji hindi (Origins of modern Hindi poetry, Krakow 2008) and Traktat o sztuce celebracji (Treatise on the art of celebration, Krakow 2009). She has also published several book-length translations of Hindi poetry into Polish and Polish poetry into Hindi. 

Vasudha Dalmia (U.C. Berkeley)

Vasudha Dalmia is Professor of Hindi and Modern South Asian Studies. She is on the Advisory Committee of the Group in Religious Studies, of which she has also been Director, and she is a member of the core faculty of the PhD Program in Performance Studies. Her monograph, The Nationalization of Hindu Traditions: Bharatendu Harischandra and Nineteenth Century Benaras (1997), studies the life and writings of a major Hindi writer of the nineteenth century as the focal point for an examination of the intricate links between politics, language, culture, religion, and nationality. Her work on drama, Poetics, Plays and Performances: The Politics of Modern Indian Theatre (2006), traces the genealogies of theatre as it sought to constitute itself anew after independence. Of her edited works, The Oxford India Hinduism Reader (2007) appeared most recently. 

Greg Goulding (U.C.Berkeley)

Greg Goudling is a Ph. D candidate in the Department of South and Southeast Studies at UC Berkeley. His areas of interest are Twentieth Century Hindi Literature and Critical Theory. 

Nikhil Govind (Manipal University, Karnataka, India)

Nikhil Govind is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Humanities in Manipal University, Karnataka. His main areas of research are mid-20th century Hindi literature and political philosophy of South Asia. His article on The Hindi Novel is being published in The Oxford Handbook of Hindu Literature, edited by W.J. Johnson and James M. Hegarty, Oxford University Press. He earned his Ph.D from UC Berkeley in 2011. 

Sanjeev Kumar (Deshbandu College, Delhi University)

Sanjeev Kumar is Associate Professor in the Department of Hindi at Deshbandhu College of Delhi University. He was recently awarded the 15th Devi Shankar Awasthi Samman for his book Jainendra aur Agyay: Srijan & Saidhantik Nepathy 

Barbara Lotz (University of Wuerzburg)

Barbara Lotz teaches Hindi language and literature at the Chair of Indology, University of Würzburg. She has taught Hindi at the University of Heidelberg and was Director of the New Delhi Branch, South Asia Institute Heidelberg from 1994 to1999. She wrote her doctoral dissertation on Muktibodh (Heidleberg, 2000) and has published widely on Hindi literature. She has many translations from Hindi to her credit. Her present research focuses on the Mission History of European Mission Societies in Chota Nagpur. 

Francesca Orsini (School of African and Asian Studies, University of London)

Francesca Orsini is Reader in the Literatures of North India in the School of African and Asian Studies, University of London. Her widely acclaimed monograph The Hindi Public Sphere 1920-1940: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism was published in 2002. Her most recent book, Print and Pleasure: The genres of commercial publishing in nineteenth-century north India, has been published by Permanent Black, and her edited collection Hindi and Urdu Before the Divide has been published by Orient Blackswan.

Uday Prakash (Hindi poet and Short Story Writer)

Uday Prakash is an eminent scholar, and a prolific Hindi poet, journalist, translator and short story writer. His writing spans fiction, non-fiction, and critically acclaimed films and documentaries. He has worked as an administrator, an editor, a researcher, and a TV director. Now a free-lance writer, he writes for many major dailies and periodicals and takes part in seminars and reading programmes. Uday Prakash won the 2010 Sahitya Akademi Award in Hindi for his collection of short stories, Mohan Das.

Alok Rai (Professor, Department of English, University of Delhi)

Alok Rai is Professor of Literature at the Department of English, Delhi University. He has specialised in Victorian, post-Victorian English Literature, George Orwell, language and cultural politics in modern India. His recent publications include, the translation of Premchand’s Nirmala into English and Hindi Nationalism.

Simona Sawhney (University of Minnesota)

Simona Sawhney is Associate Professor of South Asian literature and literary theory at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Sawhney’s main areas of research are South Asian literature, Sanskrit literature, Post-Colonial Literature and Theory and Literary Theory. Her most recent publication is The Modernity of Sanskrit, published in 2008 by the University of Minnesota Press (US), and Permanent Black (India).

Ashok Vajpeyi (Director, Lalit Kala Akademi)

Ashok Vajpeyi, Hindi poet-critic, translator, editor and culture-activist, is a major cultural figure of India. With more than 13 books of poetry, 7 of criticism in Hindi and 3 books on art in English to his credit, he is widely recognised as an outstanding promoter of culture and an innovative institution- builder. He has been awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Dayawati Kavi Shekhar Samman and the Kabir Samman, and has been decorated by the governments of France and Poland for his cultural contributions. He has translated into Hindi four major poets of Poland namely Czeslaw Milosz, W. Szymborska, Z.Herbert and T.Rozewicz. He lives in Delhi after retiring from the civil service. Currently, he is Chairman, Lalit Kala Akademi, Ministry of Culture, Govt of India, New Delhi.