EVENTS

India and China are two of the world’s ancient civilizations. As they evolved with their unique characteristics, these civilizations have also learned from and enriched each other through cultural interactions over the centuries. Literature and Art was one of the realms in which there was significant and sustained interaction. The interest of Chinese scholars continued well into the modern period and beyond, though perhaps with uneven intensity from one period to another. In the first few decades after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, there were a series of political movements that had a great impact on China’s attitude towards foreign cultures and its policies towards translation and publication of foreign literature, including Indian literature. India-China relations also went through ups and downs due to China’s domestic and international compulsions as well as factors directly related to India-China bilateral relations. The seminar will enumerate these factors and analyse how they influenced research on Indian literature in China over the decades since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Asian giants.

About the Speaker

Bihu Ghosh is currently working as an Assistant Professor at the Department of East Asian Studies in University of Delhi. In the past she has also taught Chinese as Guest Faculty in University of Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University, and as Assistant Professor in Amity University Haryana. She has been trained in Chinese language, literature, and culture from the Centre for Chinese and South East Asian Studies, School of Language, Literature & Culture Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). She was awarded a doctoral degree in 2019 for her thesis on “Research on Indian Literature in China: Individual Scholarship and Institution Building (1950-2010)”. She has made presentations in many national and international seminars/conferences and has also published papers on Chinese literature and culture in edited volumes and in journals such as Visva-Bharati Quarterly.

About the Chair

Madhavi Thampi is an Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies, and former editor of China Report. She was an Associate Professor at the Department of East Asian Studies at Delhi University, where she taught Chinese History. Her publications include the monograph Indians in China, 1800-1949 (2005). She has also co-authored Narratives of Asia from India, Japan and China (2005), as well as a book titled, China and the Making of Bombay (with Shalini Saksena, 2009). She edited the volume India and China in the Colonial World (2005). She has coordinated a project to catalogue materials related to modern China in the National Archives of India and is working on the history of relations between India and China during World War II based on archival materials.

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