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Literary histories are more than a mere listing of literary works in a given language. Like general historiography, historiography of literature is founded on a wide range of value judgments, selections, foregoing traditions etc. In order to become narratable, it is bound to be organised with regard to time, contents and form. In many parts of South Asia, the historiography of literature is an important area of cultural production. It is institutionalised in various ways and directly acts upon the design of curricula in universities and schools. In a broader sense it plays an important role in the creation of a general cultural ethos. South Asian historiography of literature originated during the colonial period in the course of cultural contact with the West. It is part of an intercultural transfer that also involved the idea of the nation itself. Nationalist ideology tends to project its postulated nation back into the past. Literature plays an important role in this process: the literary heritage undergoes a canonisation, thus being established as a national literature. This applies also to South Asia. Here, however, the additional need arises of appropriating a literary modernity that is characterised by massive orientation towards Western literary norms. These two aspects -- the canonising appropriation of old literary heritage and the assimilation and nationalist interpretation of literary modernity -- will be investigated in this project with reference to three single regional cases. The literatures in Hindi, Bengali and Tamil each represent different constellations in which nationalism and "subnationalisms" are configurated in South Asia. South Asian historiography of literature is a prominent field of knowledge production in contemporary South Asia, closely related to the idea of the nation both in its origins and development. This project can be considered as a first-time attempt to investigate its ideological premises critically and comprehensively. South Asian historiography of literature has to be analysed and evaluated as a statement about primary literature, but also as a genre in its own right. Working on this project requires a combination of competences in the fields of philology, cultural studies and even ethnography. The comparison between the three South Asian regions that have been chosen promises to open up a detailed perspective on the topic. It should enable us to formulate general statements about the identity-bestowing function, hermeneutical position and institutional role of historiography of literature in South Asia. Dr. Hans Harder - project supervisor |