TAPSA: Ahona Panda, doctoral candidate in South Asian Languages and Civilizations
Arguably the most successful poet and music composer appealing to both Hindus and Muslims equally in undivided and divided Bengal, Kazi Nazrul Islam was the singular voice of an anti-separatist and unified Bengal. This paper explores how Nazrul, the national poet of Bangladesh, began to craft a political language from the 1920s that was anti-separatist, socialist and referring to a philological landscape including centuries of Islamic and Hindu literary traditions. The paper examines the many lives of Kazi Nazrul Islam during the tumultuous decades of anticolonial nationalism, separatism and Partition, and East Pakistan.
Dates:
Thursday, November 1, 2018 – 5:00pm
Foster 103