A Wilderness of Possibilities - Urdu Studies in Transnational Perspective

Author: Kathryn HansenDavid Lelyveld/Editor(s): Kathryn Hansen / David LelyveldPublisher: Oxford University PressYear: 2005Language: EnglishPages: 316ISBN/UPC (if available): 0195670205 DescriptionOver the past forty years the study of Urdu literature has played a dynamic role in contemporary discourses on culture and history, reaching out to a far-flung international community of scholars. The ten essays in this volume, assembled for Professor C M Naim, a pioneer of Urdu studies in the United States, exemplify the changing place of Urdu in the world today. They discuss diverse aspects of Urdu and Persian literature and poetry, between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. The focus is mainly on Urdu poetry offering a comprehensive introduction to the sociology, culture and politics of its enchanting and complex world but it also includes essays on travelogues, print journalism and a play. In the first part, contributors explore the divergent social and political spaces that Urdu lite