SHIFTING PARADIGMS: AMERICAN LITERATURE IN INDIA 1

Urbana-Champaign Conference. April 2010Professor Manju Jaidka

Dept of English & Cultural StudiesPanjab UniversityChandigarh, India

[email protected] PARADIGMS: AMERICAN LITERATURE IN INDIA1

The thrust of this paper is threefold. In the first place, I

speak of the introduction of American Literature in Indian

universities. Second, I trace its changing graph, attempting to

explain the shifting paradigms in this field, looking at the

road ahead. Third, I briefly speak of the work that is being

done in India at present. Investigating these major issues, I

tackle related matters pertaining to pedagogy, mainstream

ideology, and canon-formation. I begin with some observations

on the necessity of change and growth in all spheres of life,

including education. The views I express are rooted mainly in

personal experience, based on almost four decades of active

involvement in teaching and promoting American Literature, and

an awareness of the fluctuating graph of the discipline in

India. As a teacher and educationist with some administrative

experience, I am familiar with the manner in which the

1 The arguments in the present paper are based on my personal

research, lectures and publications over the last four

decades. For this reason my views here are likely to echo my

earlier publications on the subject.

1

mailto:[email protected]



[email protected] is taught in universities within and outside India.

I choose to see “American Literature” not as a water-tight

category but to see it as a growing, evolving, permeable system

shot through by different beliefs, ideologies, and other

literatures of the world.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS: THE INEVITABILITY OF CHANGE

“All things fall and are built again, / And those that build

them again are gay.” (WB Yeats)

The twentieth century, as we are aware, has witnessed several

events that have radically changed the world and given the

present age its unique character. I mention just three: in the

first place, decolonization – which is largely responsible for

what is now recognized as the ‘postcolonial’ bandwagon, the

questioning of norms and standards that passed unchallenged

earlier, and that special feeling for emancipation that we have

got accustomed to. “Decolonized sensibilities” emerged during

the 50s-70s in the US, culminating in the Civil Rights

Movement, the Black Power movement, anti-war protests,

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[email protected], gay and lesbian movements, all of which contributed

to the demolishing of the WASP cultural homogeneity and an

inclusion of other voices which were previously unheard. Next

in importance one may itemize (and this is a purely arbitrary

list) the impact of globalization, leading to the widening,

merging, even disappearance of rigid boundaries between peoples

and nations: the level playing field as it has been called.

Thirdly, affecting our thinking in the contemporary times is

the emergence of a new world order following the break-up of

the Soviet empire. The list is endless, but let me stop at this

point to see how the changes mentioned have affected scholars

and critics of American Literature. As new power configurations

emerge, new maps are drawn, new territorial limits are defined

and fresh centres of control come into being. With the de-

bordering and re-bordering, with the changing cultural and

political demarcations, literary boundaries also necessarily

change as the balance of power keeps shifting constantly and

the ground is continually contested. How has the changed

political and cultural scenario over the world influenced the

study of literary texts? In particular how has it affected the

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[email protected] of American Literature? These are some questions that

need to be looked at.

Education involves knowledge / the dissemination of knowledge,

and we know that knowledge is power. The balance of power, the

configurations that determine control and subservience, thus,

are largely responsible for the nature of knowledge that is

disseminated in educational institutions, what is disseminated

and how it is disseminated. How, then, does the changed

political and cultural scenario across the world influence the

study of literatures in the Indian subcontinent? We know that

in Europe first the study of English replaced the study of the

Classics. Then, with the passage of time English Studies itself

underwent changes, to be replaced by subaltern or Oriental or

Commonwealth or Postcolonial studies. The curriculum that is

taught in educational institutions keeps changing as power

blocks change and established canons are replaced by newer

ones.

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[email protected] AMERICAN LITERATURE IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD:

I will digress briefly at this point and refer to a few

concepts that have been buzzing around over the recent past.

These are concepts related to a centrifugal movement, from the

specific to the general, from the national to the

transnational. Extending the centrifugal idea, we may apply it

to America and what lies beyond its geographical borders. Jane

Desmond and Virginia Dominguez, borrowing Benjamin Lee’s idea

of “new critical internationalism” which retains a sense of

nationalism, refer to scholarship on “transnational flows and

affiliations” (ethnic, religious, etc.) as a very useful

antidote to a rigid idea of nation (Desmond and Dominguez

1999), resituating America (the US) in a global context. This

seems close to Homi Bhabha’s concept of “new internationalism”

as a move from the specific to the general. National cultures

are in the process of redefinition following diasporic

movements across the globe. Consequently, there is evidence of

“transnational and translational sense of hybridity of imagined

communities.” (Bhabha 936) The act of “writing the world” may

sound ambitious (ibidem 941) but what Bhabha advocates is the

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[email protected] erosion of barriers, of all narrow notions of

nationalisms that break up the world into little ghettoes.

Characters in literature, he points out, do not speak from

fixed or rigid standpoints but from a space “in-between each

other,” exploring interpersonal relationships which are

“historically framed” (ibidem 943).

Before proceeding further, a question needs to be addressed:

What is “American Literature” and why do we restrict the label

to the literature of the US? Why does it not incorporate

literatures from Canada, Mexico, Latin America, Brazil,

Argentina, and other countries of South America (for why should

they not come under the umbrella of “American Studies”?) –

Fuentes, Marquez, Borges, Llosa, Cortazar; writers of the

“internal margins” as W.J.T. Mitchell calls them. (Mitchell

476) Literature of a country like the US involves several

issues in today’s globalized world where distances do not

matter the way they did once. New cartographic lines replace

familiar old lines. The literary map of America, too, changes

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[email protected] writers from the ‘circumference’ move to the centre. In such

circumstances, is it not desirable that “American Literature”

should be looked at against a broad perspective?

IN THE U.S.:

To begin with, as we know, American Literature courses in the

United States academia were traditionally narrow, biased in

favour of the dominant social groups. The canon was blinkered

and anthologies prescribed for study were not truly

representative before some dedicated scholars made a concerted

effort to change the canon. There was, what Stephen Slemon

called the “adoption of creative revisionism” leading to a

subversion/displacement of dominant discourses. (Slemon, 1988)

Perhaps the first in the marginalized groups to emerge on the

syllabi was the black writer – James Baldwin, Richard Wright,

Ralph Ellison. Paul Lauter speaks of the practical problems

faced by his team while working on his project “Reconstructing

American Literature” which finally led to the publication of

the Heath Anthology in 1990, a collection that includes texts

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[email protected] or neglected earlier, for example, literatures by women

or by marginalized groups, “familiar but undervalued” (Lauter

xxxiv) writers, literature that represents social and cultural

realities of America, deals with issues and subjects that have

been “downplayed, even avoided,” (ibidem) and that which takes

into its purview the extensive multicultural developments of

America. The questioning of the canon thus resulted in cross-

cultural, diasporic perspectives. New realities emerged

following the interface between the dominant and the

marginalized cultures. Were they really new, though? Or simply

newly recognized?

American literature, which once meant the study of ‘mainstream’

writers like Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, or

Hemingway, now means all that and something more: the inclusion

of literatures from ethnic minorities into the rubric of

American literature makes all the difference. Our perspective

now includes writers from the erstwhile margins – Afro-

American, Hispanic, Chicano/a, Native American, Asian-American,

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[email protected] gay, the lesbian, et al. – changes symptomatic of the fact

that boundaries have changed, shifted, expanded, even

disappeared. And why not? Boundaries, after all, are man-made,

are they not? How, then, can they remain rigid? As boundaries

shift, expand and disappear, as the various peoples of the

world uproot and re-root themselves in new lands and climes,

new perspectives take birth, new ideas, new identities are

born. Franz Fanon tells us of travellers from the periphery who

arrive at the centre and adopt imperial cultures – which, in

turn, leads to parallel cultures, multiple belongings, plural

identities, not either/or, but this and that. DuBois, in The

Souls of Black Folk, tells us of the “twoness” of vision,

Rushdie’s Imaginary Homelands speaks of “plural and “partial

identities” straddling two cultures, Gloria Anzaldua’s

Borderlands mentions speaking “a patois, a forked tongue, a

variation of two languages” (Anzaldua 55). Anzaldua refers to

the new mestiza consciousness as one of “crossing over,” of

“perpetual transition,” of plural personality. With a woman

writer, other issues may be involved, other perspectives. Take,

for example, Virginia Woolf’s statement in Three Guineas: “As a

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[email protected] I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a

woman my country is the whole world.” Then, what about the

diasporic writer? Would you place the diasporic writer on the

American soil in the American literature category? Or in the

category of the mother country? So, what is ‘inside’ and what

is ‘outside’? Where is the dividing line? Keeping all this in

mind, how exactly do we define American Literature?

Let us also take a look at developments in American Studies

across the world. Post-1980s, among American Studies scholars,

one becomes acquainted with several new concepts. If, as

mentioned before, Jane Desmond and Virginia Dominguez speak of

“internationalizing” American Studies, Don Pease of Dartmouth

upholds “Transatlanticism”. Tatsushi Narita from Japan and

others write extensively about “Hemispheric American Studies”

playing an indispensable part in seeking a “transnational

direction” for American Studies. (RIAS 1:1, 14). These terms

are telling – what they point to is the desire to cut across

all defining limits and go beyond borders. Whereas

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[email protected]“Transatlanticism” seeks connections and relationships between

America and Europe, “Hemispheric” tries to go a step ahead and

“Internationalizing” of American Studies even farther across

geographical barriers, bringing under its banner diverse

nations and academic forums. One would perhaps agree with

Giorgio Mariani who tells us, “Nations and nationalism (in

literature and elsewhere) are no longer seen in terms of

‘organicism’ and teleological design. Routes are favored over

roots, cross-cultural exchanges are highlighted at the expense

of myths of uniqueness, the study of multi-directional flows

and boundary-crossing replaces the attention traditionally paid

to supposedly discrete identities.” (RIAS 1:1, 8)

As American Studies becomes more and more internationalized, I

strongly believe that what we need today is not departments of

literature which have a course called “American Literature”

that treats its subject like an exhibit in a zoo, caged and

labelled. We need departments of literature which treat

American Literature against a broader framework. We need to

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[email protected] how American Literature measures up vis-à-vis other

literatures of the world. We need to know how Walt Whitman was

different from William Wordsworth, John Steinbeck from Leo

Tolstoy, Norman Mailer from Marquez, and Joseph Heller from

Cervantes. “We have to look at the American experience from

outside as well as from within….” (Davis 47)

AMERICAN LITERATURE IN INDIAN UNIVERSITIES

In India, as elsewhere, the study of American Literature is

inextricably linked with its colonial past: American Literature

programs are invariably housed in Departments of English in

most universities, thus pointing to a strong bias. In the early

stages of its inception, university and college teaching was

structured on the British model, but in the wake of

independence, in 1947, came a questioning of the existing

pattern of education and the need for a broader-based

educational policy. American Studies, by taking the Indian

scholar out of existing confines, seemed to be a step in this

direction. American Literature thus entered Indian Universities

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[email protected] the mid-twentieth century, in the wake of the Indian

National Movement, a time of great intellectual ferment when

the masses seemed to awaken from their long slumber and

questioned the authority of the colonial masters.

Looking for an alternative to English Literature, scholars and

academics turned to American Literature, a move encouraged by

American diplomacy in the mid-fifties and sixties when the US,

in the post-Cold War era, was making a deliberate effort to

build good will across the world, setting up institutions for

cultural and educational exchange, for example the United

States Educational Foundation in India and the American Studies

Research Centre (ASRC) in India which tried to promote American

Studies in India. There was financial support from the State

Department and American Studies (including Literature) was

promoted in a big way. American Literature courses were offered

in post-graduate departments in universities across the

country. These courses taught writers like Frost, Hemingway,

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[email protected], O’Neil, Arthur Miller, and others, all very white,

very male and very traditional.

In the late 1970s the frontiers were radically expanded,

bringing marginalized literatures into university courses. The

ASRC expanded its collection of Black and Ethnic Studies; the

poetry and the women’s studies section expanded under Dorothy

Clarke, the first librarian. Jewish-American literature rose in

popularity while some other ethnic groups – the Native

American, for instance, or the Chicano or the Hispanic –

remained neglected. In the last decade of the twentieth

century, as an off-shoot of the sudden upsurge of interest in

postcolonial/diasporic writing, there was a phenomenal interest

in Asian American writing which became the most sought-after

field, even more popular than African American literature.

Once American literature courses had been introduced in the

Departments of English at Indian universities, its teaching

mirrored more or less the history of teaching American

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[email protected] in the U.S. So, the earliest courses in India too

were traditionally narrow and comprised almost entirely what is

known as “WMAL” i.e., White Male American Literature. In some

universities even today the courses taught follow the

conservative pattern, focusing on mainstream writers like Walt

Whitman, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Nathaniel Hawthorne,

Edward Albee, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams.2 Women

writers find no place in this framework. Nor do the writers

from marginalized ethnic groups. As Women’s Studies gathered

impetus, Emily Dickinson became a part of courses on women’s

writing. With the focus on Confessional Poetry came an interest

in other women poets like Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. In

recent years the syllabus has been expanded to include Langston

Hughes and Ralph Ellison. There are still gaping holes (e.g.,

there is still no representation of Native American or Chicano

or Asian-American writing). Perhaps these are unavoidable,

2 The Panjab University American Literature syllabus until a

few years ago, had the following authors: Walt Whitman, Robert

Frost, Arthur Miller, Eugene O’Neill, R.W. Emerson, Hawthorne,

Henry James and Mark Twain.

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[email protected] in mind constraints of time-schedule and infra-

structure. Other universities in India follow a more or less

similar pattern. While American Literature is being taught at

the postgraduate level in university departments, it is not a

compulsory subject but an optional course of study which fights

for a place with other options like Indian Writing in English,

world Literatures, Australian / African Literatures, etc.

Doctoral research, however, is carried on in areas that are not

covered in the regular curriculum..

During the last decade or so, American Literature, along with

American Studies, has receded to the background in Indian

universities and Indian Writing in English has been fore-

grounded. Not surprising this, as Indian Writing has now come

of age and demands its own place in the academic world. So

American Literature, which earlier had to compete with British

Literature, now has to coexist with Indian Writing in English

and with other New Literatures that emerge on the scene. What

complicates the situation is the cessation of funds from US

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[email protected], the lack of support for the study of American

Literature, and the closure of the ASRC in Hyderabad. Research

in American Literature flourished for about three decades,

right up to the mid-’nineties, thanks to the American Studies

Research Centre in Hyderabad which boasted of the second-best

library on American Studies outside the US borders (the best

collection being at the JFK Library in Berlin). Apart from

reading material and books, the ASRC offered study and research

grants facilitating doctoral dissertations and post-doctoral

research, conducted seminars and workshops, and generally

boosted the study of American Literature in India from the

’sixties to the mid-’nineties when, following a change in the

policies of the State Dept, the funding abruptly came to an end

and all incentives for American Studies / Literature came to a

sudden halt.

Despite the hurdles, a lot of activity still takes place in

American Studies and American Literature: the subject is still

taught and conferences / seminars are held regularly. The

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[email protected] has changed, becoming more comparatist as new critical

perspectives emerge and new literatures appear on the scene.

The frontiers of American Literature have been pushed back.

GAPS AND OMISSIONS:

Missing in the traditional teaching of American Literature was

a connectivity, a “translation” – not just as a literary

exercise but, symbolically, as the attempt to understand,

interpret and reach out to other languages, other cultures and

ethnic groups. Looking back, we note the self-centeredness of

the discipline – a sort of navel-gazing, a self-absorption that

is concerned with matters related to America, by Americans and

for Americans. It is almost as though the system is engaged in

an endless naming or defining of itself, America talking about

itself, American Studies experts dabbling in their own little

sphere, shutting the world out of their debates. American

Literature experts focusing on a select few mainstream writers

to the exclusion of all other voices. The reflection America

sees of itself is predominantly WASP and other ethnic groups

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[email protected] invisible, they do not seem to matter. The attempt to

translate the experience of the Other remained virtually

absent. In other words, there was in traditional American

Studies a marked resistance to other modes of thinking /

speaking. Such an approach would be fine in a unipolar world

but in a global scenario where new powers are emerging all the

time, we need something more than a myopic vision. If one has

to do ‘transatlantic or international’ studies, surely,

something must be done about it. Realizing this, the contours

of traditional American Studies as also of its literature,

needed to be pushed back to include non-US representations and

interpretations of the US. This change was necessary partly

because of globalization and partly because of the emergence of

other voices and nations that figured nowhere in the earlier

scheme of things.

COLLECTIVE VENTURES: MELUS / MELUS-India/ MELOW:

In the US, one of the earliest factors in the opening up of the

frontiers of American Literature was the formation of MELUS:

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[email protected] Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the

United States which led to an expansion of the canon of

American Literature. Beginning as a rebel body of scholars

(working on Afro-American and other ethnic literatures of the

US) who demanded their own panel in an MLA Conference being

held in New York City in 1972, MELUS has grown to be an

important forum for scholars and academics from various fields

and locations. It attempted to view American Literature not as

a single mainstream body but as a patchwork quilt of varied

textures and patterns, a rainbow of a myriad shades. Through a

“re-visioning” of American literature, MELUS has fostered a

recognition and acceptance of diversity and difference among

peoples and places: in art, society, and culture; in perception

and expression; it questioned dominant power structures,

encouraged a comparative perspective, a multi-dimensional

viewpoint, an awareness of intercultural, transcultural, and

diasporic issues. The formation of MELUS was the first step,

moving from the mainstream to the margins. In a vast continent

like the US, we need to keep in mind that instead of a

mainstream, there are a number of rivulets flowing in different

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[email protected], from different directions their gushing,

polyglottic waters creating a well-orchestrated symphony. Even

if the notes seem to jar initially, they are necessary

ingredients of a whole, a part of what Wallace Stevens

perceived as the music of the spheres, the “harmonium” of the

world.

The study of multi-ethnic U.S. literatures quickly spread

beyond the American frontiers and found its way into India.

Roughly since 1998, multi-ethnic literature of the U.S. emerged

as a growing area of interest, particularly after the formation

of MELUS-India, the India chapter of the US-based Society for

the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States.

The idea of “MELUS” caught on because it corresponded with the

demographic and changing world view of the United States.

Today, with a fuller acknowledgement of African Americans in

U.S. history and the gradual "browning" of the U.S. through new

immigrants from many locations other than Europe, multi-ethnic

literary works have begun to jostle for inclusion along with

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[email protected] or WMAL literature, demanding a place for itself closer to

the center.

MELUS-India, like the U.S.-based MELUS, wished to provide a

common forum for intellectual exchange, expand the canon of

American Literature, cut across boundaries, de-center the given

canon, and establish an international network of scholars who

shared mutual interests. At the same time, one of its goals was

to encourage a comparative perspective and turn to multi-

cultural Indian literatures with a keener interest. So, on the

one hand, while scholars in India looked outward, establishing

connections with the wide world, they looked at indigenous

literatures, too, and placed them in a global context, actually

putting into practice the idea of the “double vision”. The

organization also aimed at encouraging the younger generation

of scholars to come out of their shells, many of them fresh

postgraduates eager to begin their doctoral research. For them

MELUS-India provided an international forum where they could

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[email protected] their horizons, meet and interact with senior scholars in

the field.

MELUS moved into India when, in the year 1998, a handful of

academics got together and floated a Society called MELUS-

India, the India Chapter of MELUS. We began to meet at annual

conferences to debate and discuss emerging issues in the

literature produced by minority groups in the US. However,

after a few conferences, the feeling dawned on us that we were

ignoring the “White” segment of American Literature. Why did we

do that? Did we not need stalwarts like Frost or Longfellow or

Whitman? Why leave them out? So we pushed back our limits a bit

to include them. One door led to another. Another conference or

two later we felt we were isolating ourselves from what was

happening in other American countries – why should American

Literature not take cognizance of that? So we broadened our

field to include both the Americas, bringing in Atwood, Llosa,

Marquez and others. Finally, we turned our attention to other

literary traditions outside the Americas and started exploring

commonalities in World Literatures and MELOW came into being –

the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literatures of

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[email protected] World. This is our small contribution, the contribution of

“Americanists” from India, to the international exchange of

scholarship. Together, MELUS-India and MELOW continue to focus

on American Literature but keep track of its shifting paradigms

in relation to global developments. From time to time, certain

voices get emphasized more than others, but every age, every

culture has its own dominant voices. The voices we hear in

India and also our response to them depends on our socio-

cultural ethos.

THE PRESENT SCENE:

The field of American Literature remains active even now.

American Literature continues to be part of the undergraduate

and postgraduate syllabus in institutions of higher learning.

Research in the area continues unabated. The US embassy

occasionally gives grants to support seminars and workshops on

American Literature; sometimes it brings in visiting writers

and academics from the US. Apart from MELUS-India and MELOW,

there are academic associations like the Indian Association for

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[email protected] Studies that holds conferences every year. A major

component of these conferences is literature. Dissertations

continue to be written on American authors although the

approach now is more interdisciplinary. A law school in

Rajasthan has introduced a Master’s Degree in International

Studies and American Studies which has a literature component,

too. Karnataka University's Post Graduate course in English

Studies where teaches a comparative study of cross cultural

Feminist narrative - American and Indian – through textual

interpretations. At an individual level there has been

considerable achievement with scholars making forays into

American popular literature and culture, working/publishing on

Batman and other superhero comics. At Jadavpur University there

is a strong thrust on American Studies in several departments,

including English.3

Speaking of my personal contribution to American Literature, as

the chief functionary of MELUS-India and MELOW, I am3 I am grateful to my colleagues, Pramod Nayar, Ravi Kumar,

Shrimati Das, and Sanjukta Bhattacharya, for their inputs.

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[email protected] for maintaining contact with three hundred and more

Americanists in India, bringing them together (along with many

new faces every year) at international conferences. Through our

website, blog, email, we keep in touch with colleagues across

the world, connect with IASA and other such organizations,

forming a network of like-minded scholars interested in

exchanging ideas on American Studies / American Literature. I

have been part of several American Literature Conferences in

the US and also in other countries. I am often asked to speak

on American Literature / American Studies. I have taught the

subject at the Postgraduate level, written and published on

related topics, and tried to keep abreast of changing

pedagogies. However, my interest in American Literature goes

hand-in-hand with other areas of interest like world

literatures; this is how, rather than isolating myself within

the confines of a discipline, I stay connected with other

developments in literature, too. Cross-connections, for me, are

of the utmost importance.

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[email protected] American Literature no longer enjoys the status it did

two decades ago, over the last two years or so, there has been

a serious effort to revive American Studies (and with it

American Literature) assisted by the US Embassy. Leading

academicians and scholars from across the country have met

several times and drafted a certificate and diploma course on

American Studies with two courses on American Literature. The

curriculum has been circulated to universities and colleges in

India and it may be adopted for teaching as an “Add-on” course

by institutions.

There are still several challenges facing American Literature

in India. As researchers and teachers we need to keep in mind

the need for interdisiplinarity and the necessity of reaching

out, relating the subject to other disciplines. Instead of

treating it as an esoteric category we need to see American

Literature as part of a whole, a component of World Literature.

Further, we need motivation, opportunities and rewards. There

is no dearth of takers but patrons, givers, organizers and

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[email protected] are needed who can bring people together under a

shared umbrella. Funds are an important issue, especially in an

under-developed country like India where scholars do not have

access to financial assistance and the international rate of

exchange is forbidding, making it difficult for a scholar from

India to travel abroad, attend seminars and conferences,

interacting with an international community of shared

interests.

Practitioners in the field need to widen their horizons and

relate their field of inquiry with the world beyond,

highlighting the enduring aspects of American Literature which

transcend time and space, giving expression to the indomitable

spirit of man, the spirit which cannot be labelled or confined

within artificial boundaries, which is all-encompassing, which

is free. The aim of such a broadening of horizons is not to

undermine the study of American literature but to further

strengthen it by forging links outside the domain. This is

imperative, keeping in mind the changing colours of the world.

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[email protected] old order will change. With a little effort, we can make it

change for the better.

REFERENCES:

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‘National Allegory’,” in Social Text 17 (Fall). Reprintd in

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Ashcroft, Bill, Gareths Griffiths, and Helen Tiffins, eds. The

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Routledge, 1997.

Azam, Kousar J. Paper presented at the International Conference

on American Studies, University of Iowa, April 1999.

Bhabha, Homi. “The Location of Culture,” reprinted in Rivkin.

936-944.

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[email protected], Virginia, and Jane Desmond. Paper presented at the

International Conference on American Studies, University of

Iowa, April 1999.

Davis, Allen. 1990. “The Politics of American Studies” in

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York: Routledge, 1993.

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1994.

Marx, Karl. “Manifesto of the Communist Party,” reprinted in

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[email protected], Trinh T. When the Moon Waxes Red. New York, London:

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Mitchell, W.J.T. “Postcolonial Culture, Postimperial

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[email protected], Gayatri Chakravorty, and Sneja Gunew. 1993. “Questions

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<http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200931.txt>

The Author: Professor Manju Jaidka of Panjab University, Chandigarh,India, is the recipient of several national and internationalfellowships including a Fulbright Research Grant to Harvardand Yale Universities, a Rockefeller Residency at the BellagioStudy Centre, a fellowship at the Salzburg Center, aRockefeller Visiting Professorship at the University of Iowa,and the Lillian Robinson Fellowship from the Simone deBeauvoir Institute at the University of Concordia, Montreal. Her research papers have been placed in national andinternational journals. She has also published two novels anda play. She is the Chairperson of the prestigious ChandigarhSahitya Akademi and as the chief functionary of MELOW (theSociety for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literatures of theWorld), she has been organizing international conferencessuccessfully in India every year. She is the ExecutiveDirector of the International American Studies Association andalso serves on the advisory board of several internationalorganizations.

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SHIFTING PARADIGMS: AMERICAN LITERATURE IN INDIA 1

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