Atul V. Nair, a doctoral student in the Department of English, School of Humanities, University of Hyderabad (UoH) has published an essay in the journal South Asian Review published by Taylor and Francis (a Q2 journal with an H-index of 3). Titled “‘India Lay before Us’: The Asiatic Researches, William Jones, and the Orientalist Construction of ‘Indian Literature’,” it examines the construction of ‘Indian literature’ as a distinct category in William Jones’s essays published in the Asiatic Researches (the journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal) between 1788 and 1794.
Atul V. Nair
The other themes that the essay explores include the emergence of a ‘national’ literature in the late-eighteenth century, canon formation, and the link between literature and geography. Atul thanks the Indira Gandhi Memorial Library, which contains much of his primary material, and the Salar Jung Museum Library, Hyderabad. Atul’s doctoral project examines the construction of ‘Indian Literature’ as a cultural category in Anglo-Indian periodicals between 1784 and 1857. He is working under the supervision of Professor Pramod K. Nayar and Professor Anna Kurian.
The link to Atul’s essay: https://doi.org/10.1080/02759527.2023.2234659