Modern East Asian Literature Research Cluster presents
Emerging Research on Modern East Asian Literature
Speaker: Adhira Mangalagiri
Assistant Professor | Department of Comparative Literature | New York University
Moderator: Alvin K. Wong
Assistant Professor | Department of Comparative Literature | The University of Hong Kong
DATE: 26 JAN 2024 (FRI) 10:00 am–11:30 am (Zoom, HKT)
REGISTRATION: https://bit.ly/MEALJan26
“States of Disconnect: China-India Literary Relation in the Twentieth Century” studies the breakdown of transnationalism in Chinese and Hindi texts (1900–1965) that express an aversion to pairing ideas of China and India together. Such texts may seem to spell the ends of comparative thought, but “States of Disconnect” shows how literary practice can offer possibilities of relation in the face of insular nationalisms and against globalized habits of thought. The book offers “disconnect” as a critical lens for making sense of severed, interrupted, or absent transnational connection, and for finding in such moments an ethics of relation.
Adhira Mangalagiri is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature at New York University. Her research has appeared in “Comparative Literature Studies,” the “Journal of World Literature,” “China and Asia,” “The Yearbook of Comparative Literature,” among others, and in the edited volumes “Beyond Pan-Asianism” (2021) and “The Routledge Companion to Literature and the Global South” (2023). She has (co)edited special issues on China-India studies for the “International Journal of Asian Studies” (2022) and “Crossroads” (2022). She serves as a general editor for “Comparative Critical Studies,” the house journal of the British Comparative Literature Association.
The series is coordinated by Dr. Su Yun Kim (suyunkim@hku.hk), Dr. Pei-yin Lin (pylin@hku.hk), and Dr. Alvin Wong (akhwong@hku.hk), and is supported by the School of Chinese, School of Humanities, and School of Modern Languages and Cultures.
For registration of the seminar, go to www.meal.hku.hk or https://bit.ly/MEALJan26