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Possible institutions: literature festivals and talk-culture in India

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TitleInfo
Title
Possible institutions: literature festivals and talk-culture in India
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Sivaram
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Sushil
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1978-
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Sushil Sivaram
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author
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Lakhi Mangharam
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Mukti
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Mukti Lakhi Mangharam
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chair
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Robolin
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Stéphane
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Stéphane Robolin
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co-chair
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Goldstone
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Andrew
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Andrew Goldstone
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Advisory Committee
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internal member
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Walkowitz
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Rebecca
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Rebecca Walkowitz
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Advisory Committee
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internal member
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Nerlekar
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Anjali
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Anjali Nerlekar
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Advisory Committee
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outside member
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Rutgers University
Role
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degree grantor
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School of Graduate Studies
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school
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Text
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theses
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ETD doctoral
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2020
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2020-10
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English
Abstract (type = abstract)
This dissertation sets out to understand the proliferation of literature festivals in India since the mid-2000s. These festivals serve cultural, economic and political functions in a dynamic field characterized by varying degrees of competition and co-operation between different literary cultures in multiple languages, the uneven legitimation and reception of culture by different class formations, and the multiple locations where the humanities are practiced. Against this complex setting, I demonstrate that the literature festivals attempt to find unique ways to connect and in turn reimagine a fragmented and plural literary field in the public sphere. This work specifically turns to the producers, managers and the writer-curators of three festivals to understand what drives them and the festivals they curate to produce a network of legitimation for literature in India. The festivals I engage with are the “Jaipur Literature Festival,” the “Indian Languages Festival: Samanvay” and the “Almost Island Dialogues.” I claim that these festivals connect and reimagine the field via a mode of interaction that I call “talk-culture.” As a form of purposeful and conscious (re)turn to conjunctural networks of literary sociality and older forms of public communication, talk-culture is an intimate, face-to-face practice that is a combination of the literary and the critical. In other words, talk-culture is a type of connectivity and framework to reconstitute community.

Each chapter locates dispositions and attitudes that emerge out of interactions between writer-curators, the guest speakers, the topics of discussion, audience responses, interviews I conducted with writer-curators, and participant observation. At all three festivals, the possibility of change lies in performing different versions of literary histories and producing knowledges without objectifying or institutionalizing them. This I claim makes their practices ephemeral and engenders attitudes towards literature and literary culture that do not aim towards explicit rulemaking, objectivity and systemization, but at the same time offer a sense of community that performances simulate. That is why I call these events “possible institutions.”

The significance of this dissertation rests in the possibility of new academic and non-academic approaches to literature and literary cultures in India. In turning to practices on the ground, the project demonstrates that the often unrehearsed and unintentional practices of writers-curators and the festivals offer alternative ways to approach the complexities of a fragmented, plural, and multilingual literary field. Moreover, this work, attempts to learn from and at the same time support the knowledges that the writer-curators and the festivals produce in the public sphere. The specific literature festivals in this dissertation are spaces where new ways to practice an alternate relationship to literature and literary culture could emerge.
Subject (authority = local)
Topic
Criticism
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Literatures in English
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Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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ETD_11026
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application/pdf
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text/xml
Extent
1 online resource (vii, 213 pages)
Note (type = degree)
Ph.D.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
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School of Graduate Studies Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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rucore10001600001
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Identifier (type = doi)
doi:10.7282/t3-3kp0-wf72
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Rights

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The author owns the copyright to this work.
RightsHolder (type = personal)
Name
FamilyName
Sivaram
GivenName
Sushil
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RightsEvent
Type
Permission or license
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2020-06-24 18:50:29
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Name
Sushil Sivaram
Role
Copyright holder
Affiliation
Rutgers University. School of Graduate Studies
AssociatedObject
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License
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Author Agreement License
Detail
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.
Copyright
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Copyright protected
Availability
Status
Open
Reason
Permission or license
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Technical

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2020-06-24T17:16:39
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2020-06-24T17:18:29
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