VOL 3 (2018)
BITACORA
Dr. Shatarupa Sinha Dr. Sinha is a long-standing member of Gargi‟s English department faculty. Her work in Comparative Literature culminated in a doctoral thesis on „Indian English Literature: A Critical Inquiry into Reading Strategies and Pedagogy‟ in 2015. In this interview with Bitacora she discussed expanding canons, expanding approaches to new literatures, and expanding conceptualizations of gender. Q. Does a student‘s perspective about a text alter your approach towards it? A. A text comes alive for me when I begin teaching it. As I keep reading the text for myself and to teach in class, new perspectives emerge. It ought to serve the students the same way for the students as well - that‘s what I feel. When my students begin thinking actively about a text, it becomes lively for them too… and meanings start emerging. Newer approaches to any text excite me. I feel happy and intellectually simulated when students come up with new perspectives. If the argument and critical analysis is substantial, I have no qualms about altering my approach towards the text. Q. How do you think transliteration affects the original aesthetic of the text? A. Translation, or even transliteration, is a process of creation. I would rather call it a process of transcreation. It is a process of creating a text using a new paradigm. Since it is creating/adding a different perspective to the text, it certainly affects the original aesthetics of the text. The perspective or approach to a transliterated text is different. We may approach it using different theories of translation, but the idea of reading that new text definitely goes beyond theorisation. It needs to be seen in the light of the aesthetics of the target language. The linguistic-cultural aspect of the translated/ transliterated text determines its reception to a great extent. Every such text is an original text in that sense. Q. How does the coming up of terms like feminism, queer theory, and post-colonialism affect the reading of texts written way before these terms were coined? A. Reading a literary text does not always necessarily indicate or require a borrowed theoretical terminology. It is true that literary theory has been established as a discipline in the last 100 years, but criticism has been in practice since antiquity. Literature is a reflection of the ways and times of people. As newer perspectives emerge in society, newer approaches to literature emerge as well. This has been a flaw in modern literary theory - to read everything from the perspective of any particular theory rather than contextualising in its own socio-linguistic-cultural space. The pedagogy of literature requires reading and studying literature within its socio-cultural location. I believe literature can be read and taught from the point of view of aesthetics and its contemporary politics, rather than transposing theoretical terms from different cultural locations. Q. How does coming up of new psychological concepts affect the understanding of texts in the Indian setting?
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