Botanical Memory and Imagination in Postcolonial Indian Poetry
School: Literatures, Languages and Cultures
Supervisors: Dr Sourit Bhattacharya(University of Edinburgh) and Prof Alan Gillis (University of Edinburgh)Â
Keywords: Plants, Poetry, Phytopoetics, Postcolonial, Ecocriticism, Nationalism
About Karishma’s Research:
This research examines how poetry by domiciled and diasporic Indian anglophone writers — namely, Bhanu Kapil, Nabanita Kanungo, Agha Shahid Ali and Sumana Roy — challenges understandings of plants as passive resources in the contexts of colonialism and postcolonial nation-building. In addition to the physical and affective impacts of state projects on plant lives, this research investigates the roles of plants in identity construction, the limitations of interpreting non-human entities and the influence of plant-thinking on the imagination of decolonial futures. Through close reading, this project offers new insights into the dynamic and political lives of plants in postcolonial Indian poetry.
CONNECT WITHÂ KARISHMA
E-mail: s2588429@ed.ac.uk
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