English & Comparative Literary Studies - Events Calendar
Tabish Khair - Digitalisation, Politics and Literature: Or Why Literature Matters?
Partly drawing upon Byung-Chul Han’s philosophical texts, this talk will examine why – and how – creative literature matters in an age of ‘post-truth.’ It will try to formulate a definition of literature that is neither parochial nor relativist, neither left to the ‘market’ nor to the ‘reader’, and that does not depend, finally, on unexamined nationalist or globalist assumptions. It will also look at the impact of digitalisation on literature, and connect both to politics.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Tabish Khair, PhD, DPhil
Associate Professor, Aarhus University, Denmark
Leverhulme Guest Professor, Leeds University, UK
Educated up to his Masters in Gaya, Bihar, India, and then doing a PhD from Copenhagen, after working as a journalist in Patna and Delhi for a few years, Tabish Khair is the author of various books, including novels and poetry. These include the studies Babu Fictions: Alienation in Contemporary Indian English Novels, and The Gothic, Postcolonialism and Otherness. In 2016, he published a study, The New Xenophobia and a novel, Jihadi Jane, to critical acclaim. Winner of the All India Poetry Prize, his fiction has been shortlisted for the Man Asian Prize, the DSC Prize, the Hindu Fiction Prize, Encore Award, etc. He is currently a Leverhulme guest professor at the School of English, Leeds University, UK.