Plastic Tagore

Description

This book in Tagore studies offers a fresh analysis of Tagorean thought by employing the philosophy and poetics of plasticity and the 'plastic principle.' Ghosh explores Tagore's views on education, identity politics, environment, and literature through what he terms 'plastic reading.' The work challenges rigid perspectives, emphasizing re-education and self-construction. It introduces the concept of plastic figurality to deconstruct models present in our world, and examines him within a historical present, maintaining the contextuality of understanding Tagore in a state of plasticity. Tagore's thinking on 'sahitya', ecosophy, historicity and philosophy of history, and aesthetic education and the notion of the political are reframed within contemporary and critical comparative discourses. It aims to transcend the conventional East-West dialogue, providing a transnational and trans-epistemic reinterpretation of Tagore's ideas. Not a standard intellectual biography or historical study, this book presents a plastic reading of Tagore, expanding the scope of contemporary discourse on his multifaceted thoughts. As a prominent figure in plastic theory, the author aims to radicalize our understanding of Tagore, introducing a novel approach to the reading of his work.

Ranjan Ghosh teaches in the Department of English, University of North Bengal. His extensive publication record includes works featured in renowned journals such as Diacritics, MLN, History and Theory, SubStance, Clio, and more. Noteworthy among his publications are books like Thinking Literature across Continents (Duke University Press, 2016, co-authored with J Hillis Miller), Philosophy and Poetry: Continental Perspectives (Columbia University Press, 2019), and The Plastic Turn (Cornell University Press, 2022), among several others.