Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture Series- Debt and Mourning in South Asia

Abhijeet Paul, C3 Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow, will speak on how oral, literary, and performative texts and practices owe a large debt to mourning. Taking cues from traditional and non-traditional forms of textile work in relation to debt-gift practices in South Asia, I show how mourning mediates loss of nature, ethics, and community. This occasions a closer look at mourning through particular forms like biraha (separation) and bidesiya (foreignness) and other nostalgic forms of representation in three Indian languages: Bengali, Hindi, and Bhojpuri. The talk concludes by suggesting that even television and media spectacles of loss in contemporary South Asia and beyond create opportunities for mourning in contemporary life.