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All Outputs (60)

Fluid Texts (2025)
Book Chapter
Orsini, F. (2025). Fluid Texts. In S. Marzagora, & F. Orsini (Eds.), Oral Literary Worlds (145-168). Open Book Publishers. https://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0405.04

A “model of world literature that does not include orality is comparable to an act of self-amputation: it entails the excision of a huge field of human cultural endeavour”, argues Liz Gunner. As “verbal art, it belongs to a universal practice of maki... Read More about Fluid Texts.

The Emergence of Hindavi Literary Cultures in the Sultanate and Early Mughal Period (2024)
Book Chapter
Orsini, F. (2024). The Emergence of Hindavi Literary Cultures in the Sultanate and Early Mughal Period. In R. M. Eaton, & R. Sreenivasan (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Mughal World. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190222642.013.3

This chapter discusses the main vernacular genres in sultanate and early Mughal north India—romances, versions of the Sanskrit epics, and songs. It focuses on vernacular texts under the broad rubric of Hindavi, but adopts a multiscalar approach to si... Read More about The Emergence of Hindavi Literary Cultures in the Sultanate and Early Mughal Period.

Soft Texts (2024)
Journal Article
Orsini, F. (2024). Soft Texts. Journal of World Literature, 9(3), 357-371. https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-00902006

David Damrosch’s formulation of world literature has energized the field but struggles to include texts that circulate but are not “read as literature.” This essay takes up the case of songs, and particularly Bhojpuri songs, and follows their traject... Read More about Soft Texts.

Against minoritization: five strategies for world literature (2024)
Journal Article
Orsini, F. (online). Against minoritization: five strategies for world literature. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801x.2024.2314277

This essay reflects on the paradox of how the twenty-first-century opening up of comparative literature to non-Western literatures under the aegis of world literature has coincided with the age of global Anglophone and the virtual minoritization of a... Read More about Against minoritization: five strategies for world literature.

Literary Multilingualism in the Age of the Vernacular (2023)
Book Chapter
Orsini, F. (2023). Literary Multilingualism in the Age of the Vernacular. In U. Anjaria, & A. Nerlekar (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Modern Indian Literatures (21-36). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197647912.013.1

Despite the powerful reimagining of the multilingual landscape of South Asia into monolingual regions beginning in the early 19th century, and the aspiration toward one overarching national language, multilingualism has continued to inform South Asia... Read More about Literary Multilingualism in the Age of the Vernacular.

Alphabet Poems and other Urdu Religious Booklets (2023)
Journal Article
Orsini, F. (2023). Alphabet Poems and other Urdu Religious Booklets. International journal of Islam in Asia, 3(1-2), 128-153. https://doi.org/10.1163/25899996-20230015

Religious booklets formed a substantial part of the boom in commercial publishing and print culture in nineteenth and early-twentieth north India, cheaply available and widely reprinted by multiple publishers. This essay considers two popular texts t... Read More about Alphabet Poems and other Urdu Religious Booklets.

East of Delhi: Multilingual Literary culture and world literature (2023)
Book
Orsini, F. (2023). East of Delhi: Multilingual Literary culture and world literature. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197658291.001.0001

East of Delhi is a history of the multilingual literary culture of northern India. It takes a longue durée approach, from the beginnings of recorded vernacular literature in the late fourteenth century to its codification into separate, monolingual h... Read More about East of Delhi: Multilingual Literary culture and world literature.

World Literature as a Special Issue (2023)
Journal Article
Orsini, F. (2023). World Literature as a Special Issue. Journal of World Literature, 8(2), 290-312. https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-00802006

In India, as in other parts of the world, readers’ exposure to the world and to world literatures largely took place through the pages of magazines, via translations, reviews, snippets of information, survey articles, and so on. The 1950s to 1970s we... Read More about World Literature as a Special Issue.

Awqāt/Aukāt (2022)
Book Chapter
Orsini, F. (2022). Awqāt/Aukāt. In D. M. Menon (Ed.), Changing Theory: Concepts from the Global South (325-336). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003273530-29

Awqāt, the Arabic broken plural of waqt or time, has undertaken a remarkable semantic journey in India. From meaning “times”, it has come to mean: 1. State; condition; circumstances; 2. Means; resources; 3. Ability; strength, power. In everyday confr... Read More about Awqāt/Aukāt.

The Post-Colonial Magazine Archive (2022)
Journal Article
Orsini, F. (2022). The Post-Colonial Magazine Archive. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 45(2), 250-267. https://doi.org/10.1080/00856401.2022.2038484

Indian magazines and print culture in general have been studied more thoroughly for the colonial period, but the 1950s–1970s have rightly been called the golden age of magazine culture. In Hindi literary lore, magazines loom large as the main platfor... Read More about The Post-Colonial Magazine Archive.

Significant Geographies in the Shadow Lines (2020)
Book Chapter
Orsini, F. (2020). Significant Geographies in the Shadow Lines. In E. Adami, C. Concilio, & A. Vescovi (Eds.), Crossing the Shadow Lines : Essays on the Topicality of Amitav Ghosh’s Modern Classic (171-185). Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature Straniere e Culture Moderne – Università degli Studi di Torino

Approaches to world literature often think through binaries of local/global, major/minor, provincial/cosmopolitan, taking them as given positions on a single world map. To an extent, this is true of Amitav Ghosh’s prize-winning essay “The testimony o... Read More about Significant Geographies in the Shadow Lines.

From Eastern Love to Eastern Song: Re-translating Asian Poetry (2020)
Journal Article
Orsini, F. (2020). From Eastern Love to Eastern Song: Re-translating Asian Poetry. Comparative Critical Studies, 17(2), 183-203. https://doi.org/10.3366/ccs.2020.0358

This essay explores the loop of translations and re-translations of ‘Eastern poetry’ from Asia into Europe and back into (South) Asia at the hands of ‘Oriental translators’, translators of poetry who typically used existing translations as their orig... Read More about From Eastern Love to Eastern Song: Re-translating Asian Poetry.

Present Absence: Book circulation, Indian vernaculars and world literature in the nineteenth century (2019)
Journal Article
Orsini, F. (2019). Present Absence: Book circulation, Indian vernaculars and world literature in the nineteenth century. Interventions, 22(3), 310-328. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2019.1659169

More books from India in Indian languages circulated in Europe in the nineteenth century than now--partly thanks to the efforts of book importers like Trübner & Co. Trübner’s monthly American and Oriental Literary Record (1865-) shows pages and pages... Read More about Present Absence: Book circulation, Indian vernaculars and world literature in the nineteenth century.