Shifting Paradigms: American Literature in India

The thrust of this essay is threefold. In the first place, it speaks of the advent of American Studies (including American Literature) in India. Secondly, it traces the changing graph of American Literature in Indian universities. Finally, it attempts to explain the shifting paradigms in this field, looking at the road ahead. Investigating these major issues, the essay tackles related matters pertaining to pedagogy, mainstream ideology, and canon-formation. The views expressed are rooted mainly in the author’s personal experience, based on almost four decades of active involvement in American Literature, and an awareness of the fluctuating graph of the discipline in India and the manner in which the discipline is taught in universities within and outside India. Here the attempt is not to isolate “American Literature” 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.