Videos by Sachin C . Ketkar
TV lecture delivered for SANDHAN BISAG channel, Gujarat on British Metaphysical poetry on 16.1.2014
Delivered on Maharashtra Studies International Conference, organized by University of Texas at Au... more Delivered on Maharashtra Studies International Conference, organized by University of Texas at Austin, 26 Jan 2019 12 views
I discuss Jacques Derrida, deconstruction and its legacy in a nutshell with Prof. Dilip Barad, He... more I discuss Jacques Derrida, deconstruction and its legacy in a nutshell with Prof. Dilip Barad, Head, Department of English, University of Bhavnagar, Gujarat, India as a part of Workshop on E-Content Development, organized by Department of English, Bhavnagar University, under the project awarded by MHRD under National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology ( NME-ICT), 16-17 June 2012 160 views
E-Conference on "World Classics in English Translation: A Critical Perspective", organized by Dep... more E-Conference on "World Classics in English Translation: A Critical Perspective", organized by Department of English, Sri SRNM College, Sattur - 626 203, Tamil Nadu. in association with Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 5 and 6 Feb 2021 172 views
First part of my attempt to elucidate Heidegger's seminal essay for students of MIT IB school Pun... more First part of my attempt to elucidate Heidegger's seminal essay for students of MIT IB school Pune, Maharashtra, India on 30 Sept 2020 2 views
Second part of my attempt to elucidate Heidegger's seminal essay for students of MIT IB school Pu... more Second part of my attempt to elucidate Heidegger's seminal essay for students of MIT IB school Pune, Maharashtra, India on 30 Sept 2020 1 views
A lecture delivered on World Literature and Literary Historiography with the focus on Marathi Bha... more A lecture delivered on World Literature and Literary Historiography with the focus on Marathi Bhakti at National Seminar on World Literature organized by Faculty of Arts, Communication and Indic Studies, Sri Sri University on 10 August 2020 169 views
A lecture delivered at 7 Days International Workshop on Translation and Research : Contemporary P... more A lecture delivered at 7 Days International Workshop on Translation and Research : Contemporary Perspectives organized by Department of English, Sri Vasavi College, Erode, 21st May 2020 449 views
Translation Studies by Sachin C . Ketkar
Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry, 2022
Keshavasut (1866-1905), one of the earliest modern Marathi poet ‘translated’ the famous Edgar All... more Keshavasut (1866-1905), one of the earliest modern Marathi poet ‘translated’ the famous Edgar Allen Poe poem ‘The Raven’ into Marathi as ‘ghubad’ or the owl. Can the owl be an ‘equivalent’ for a raven? Can this process of transforming the raven into owl be called translation? Whatever name you give for such process of transformation, they definitely have played a crucial role in the development of the language of Marathi poetry towards the end of the twentieth century. Almost half a century later, the noted bilingual poet and translator Dilip Chitre (1938-2009) translated Baudelaire’s poem ‘The Owl ’into Marathi and discussed it by explicitly evoking the Keshasuta’s bird as well as Baudelaire’s fascination for Poe. Chitre called his translations of international modernist poets into Marathi ‘apabhranshas’. These apabhranshas’ were particularly influential and played a considerable role in the development of the language of modernist Marathi poetry. No history of literature or culture is complete if we do not take this process of transforming ravens into owl, the process of apabhransha into account as this is the process of artistic innovation and process of reconstitution of cultural memory.In order to engage with the evolution of Marathi literature and culture, it is critical to move beyond the restrictive understanding of literature as a written or printed object, the notion which itself seems to be a translation of the colonial notion of literature. Literature and primarily poetry in India implied performance, music, retelling, improvisation and transmission of texts through oral traditions. Besides, it was constituted by intensive inter-medial, cross-lingual and cross-cultural intercourse, in short, by translational activity. We also need to revise our restrictive understanding of translation and equivalence as setting up of inter-lingual synonymy hounded by questions of fidelity and freedom. This restrictive notion of translation, too, seems to be a colonial import. We need a theoretical framework which allows us to see translation as inter-medial, intercultural phenomenon inseparable from the questions of cultural memory, artistic innovation and cultural change. The Soviet school of cultural studies known as the Tartu Moscow School of cultural semiotics (or semiotics of culture) developed a full-fledged theory of culture under the leadership of Yuri Lotman (1922-1993) from the late nineteen sixties which seems theoretically addresses these complex questions.In this paper, I intend to propose and lay out the methodological framework for writing and theorizing the history of translation using the model of cultural semiotics rather than merely provide a chronological account of the information regarding translation activity in Maharashtra.
Keywords: Historiography of translation, historiography of culture, Marathi literature, semiotics of culture, Yuri Lotman, translation studies
Loksatta, 24 June 2017, 2017
My review of Aamir Mufti's Forget English: Orientalisms and World Literatures for Loksatta newspa... more My review of Aamir Mufti's Forget English: Orientalisms and World Literatures for Loksatta newspaper Marathi. I summarize significant debates regarding the theory of world literature in Marathi.
Abstract
The current paper explores the poetics and politics of ambivalent phenomenon of self-tra... more Abstract
The current paper explores the poetics and politics of ambivalent phenomenon of self-translation by the bilingual writers writing in Marathi and English in the light of semiotics of culture, a theoretical framework developed by the Tartu- Moscow School of cultural semiotics under the leadership of Yuri Lotman. The paper argues that while bilingualism and translation in broadest semiotic sense of the terms are intrinsic to any creative phenomenon and any communication according to Lotman, the Anglo-Bhasha self-translations of literary texts are distinctive historical products of the post-colonial ‘semiosphere’, hence caught up in the politics of identity, cultural asymmetry and cultural change. The Anglo-Bhasha bilingual writers situated on the boundary separating English and the Bhashas were critical agents in generating not only modernity but also providing ‘self-description’ of who we are culturally. They found themselves embodying this boundary within and without. In a sense, the act of self-translation is an act of what Lotman calls ‘auto-communication’ where though the addresser and the addressee of the communication is the same person; the act subtly transforms the personality of the subject. Self-translation as cultural phenomenon can be seen as involving not just bilingual individuals but the entire culture generating new information for itself, and restructuring its own personality. In the historical context of colonialism and its aftermath, this generation new information and restructuring of personality describes the phenomenon of modernity. As the bilingual writers were the upper caste elites generating ‘self-description’ of the semiosphere, this theorization may help us to understand how emergence of modernity and reformulation of identity in the nineteenth century was a form of self- translation not just by the individuals but by the entire culture. It was by no means derivative, but a creative one involving self-discovery and self reformulation by the culture in conversation with itself. The cultural semiotics perspective would shed further light on the creative or ‘incestuous’ processes of cultural change and modernity.
Keywords: Self-translation, postcolonialism, identity, modernity, cultural semiotics
Translation Studies and Language Sciences' Punya Boomi: A Quarterly of English Literature and Lan... more Translation Studies and Language Sciences' Punya Boomi: A Quarterly of English Literature and Language with a Slat
In this essay, I discuss very briefly some of the philosophical statements on translation by majo... more In this essay, I discuss very briefly some of the philosophical statements on translation by major Western thinkers and in addition, also consider the idea of translation in the context of major Indian philosophies like Brahmanism and Buddhism and propose that translation in the philosophical schemas ought to be studied separately in translation studies.
An attempt is made to provide an historical overview of translation activity in India.
As a practicing poet, critic and translator, I feel that though these are distinct activities, al... more As a practicing poet, critic and translator, I feel that though these are distinct activities, all of them have elements of creativity, critical thinking and intercultural aspects common to them.
Teaching in itself is an act of translation. Teaching of Western literature in non-Western cultur... more Teaching in itself is an act of translation. Teaching of Western literature in non-Western cultures involves translation of not just the words on page but also the whole culture, literary tradition, and aesthetics.
Marathi Literature by Sachin C . Ketkar
Naveenta di Parampara ate Parampara di naveenta: Punjabi Sahit, 2024
Commenting on pioneering modernist Marathi poets like B.S. Mardhekar (1909-1956) , Dilip Chitre (... more Commenting on pioneering modernist Marathi poets like B.S. Mardhekar (1909-1956) , Dilip Chitre (1938-2009) has observed, “The poet Mardhekar was the most remarkable product of the cross-pollination between the deeper, larger native tradition and contemporary world culture”. Chitre notes, “The return to the deeper and larger tradition, combined with the immediate heritage of Western poetry, and the spirit of restless individual experiment, resulted in a remaking of the tradition itself.” choice’ (An Anthology, 2). Chitre points out that the shift from the Romantic and Victorian to the Modernism in Marathi with that of English and remarks that ‘What took nearly a century and half to happen in England, happened within a hurried half century in Marathi literature. During the Second World War, the attitude matured and ripened. It became bold enough to shatter gestalt established by the immediately preceding generations. It began to approach the seven centuries old tradition and see in it a gestalt of its own choice.’ He goes on to add that we see ‘in a tradition, a gestalt of our own choice’ (An Anthology, 3). Something similar happened in most of the Indian languages. The current essay examines how in the effort to ‘see in it a gestalt of its own choice’ modern Marathi intellectuals have reinterpreted ‘the seven centuries old tradition’ of Marathi literature at different moments of Marathi modernity searching for the gestalt of their own choice. For this purpose, I focus on two of the most influential Marathi Varkari poets Tukaram (c. 1608-1659), and his contemporary Samarth Ramdas or Ramdas Swami (c. 1608-1681) and modern contestations over their legacy especially in context of leading modern Marathi intellectuals like renowned judge and reformer Mahadev Govind Ranade (1842-1901) , prominent historian V.K. Rajwade (1863-1926), celebrated activist and thinker Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and distinguished writer, translator and visual artist Dilip Chitre ( 1938-2009) . I will point out how a ‘new’ reading of the tradition was critical to cultural project of modernity and the modernist tradition of newness was in fact based on finding the newness of tradition as it an awareness of simultaneity of broken gestalt and also a search for a gestalt of own choice.
E.V. Ramakrishnan ed. A Cultural Poetics of Bhasha Literatures in Theory and Practice. Orient Blackswan,(ISBN 978-93-5442-987-3), pp. 151-172, 2024
There seems to be an entrenched Eurocentric bias in the Western
discussion on world literature as... more There seems to be an entrenched Eurocentric bias in the Western
discussion on world literature as it appears to conflate literary
processes with the processes of the spread of industrial capitalism. However, I have attempted to develop an argument that the
notion of world literature is not a singular entity or a model; it
has multiple models. Certain models of world literature like those
proposed by Dionyz Durisin and David Damrosch can be useful
for a more nuanced investigation into how individual South Asian
vernacular literary cultures like Marathi interacted dialogically
not only with larger transregional and translocal cultural spaces
like the Sanskrit Cosmopolis to use Pollock’s terms (Pollock 2006,
18) or the Persian Cosmopolis (Eaton, “Persian Cosmopolis”,
2019) on the one hand but also with other literary cultures on
the subcontinent.Using Durisin’s notion of “interliterary communities” defined as “the communities that share interliterary processes”, we can also
speculate whether it is possible to conceptualise Indian literatures
or south Asian literatures as a mega interliterary community made
of a range of linguistic literary traditions that share the interliterary
processes similar to Marathi
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Videos by Sachin C . Ketkar
Translation Studies by Sachin C . Ketkar
Keywords: Historiography of translation, historiography of culture, Marathi literature, semiotics of culture, Yuri Lotman, translation studies
The current paper explores the poetics and politics of ambivalent phenomenon of self-translation by the bilingual writers writing in Marathi and English in the light of semiotics of culture, a theoretical framework developed by the Tartu- Moscow School of cultural semiotics under the leadership of Yuri Lotman. The paper argues that while bilingualism and translation in broadest semiotic sense of the terms are intrinsic to any creative phenomenon and any communication according to Lotman, the Anglo-Bhasha self-translations of literary texts are distinctive historical products of the post-colonial ‘semiosphere’, hence caught up in the politics of identity, cultural asymmetry and cultural change. The Anglo-Bhasha bilingual writers situated on the boundary separating English and the Bhashas were critical agents in generating not only modernity but also providing ‘self-description’ of who we are culturally. They found themselves embodying this boundary within and without. In a sense, the act of self-translation is an act of what Lotman calls ‘auto-communication’ where though the addresser and the addressee of the communication is the same person; the act subtly transforms the personality of the subject. Self-translation as cultural phenomenon can be seen as involving not just bilingual individuals but the entire culture generating new information for itself, and restructuring its own personality. In the historical context of colonialism and its aftermath, this generation new information and restructuring of personality describes the phenomenon of modernity. As the bilingual writers were the upper caste elites generating ‘self-description’ of the semiosphere, this theorization may help us to understand how emergence of modernity and reformulation of identity in the nineteenth century was a form of self- translation not just by the individuals but by the entire culture. It was by no means derivative, but a creative one involving self-discovery and self reformulation by the culture in conversation with itself. The cultural semiotics perspective would shed further light on the creative or ‘incestuous’ processes of cultural change and modernity.
Keywords: Self-translation, postcolonialism, identity, modernity, cultural semiotics
Marathi Literature by Sachin C . Ketkar
discussion on world literature as it appears to conflate literary
processes with the processes of the spread of industrial capitalism. However, I have attempted to develop an argument that the
notion of world literature is not a singular entity or a model; it
has multiple models. Certain models of world literature like those
proposed by Dionyz Durisin and David Damrosch can be useful
for a more nuanced investigation into how individual South Asian
vernacular literary cultures like Marathi interacted dialogically
not only with larger transregional and translocal cultural spaces
like the Sanskrit Cosmopolis to use Pollock’s terms (Pollock 2006,
18) or the Persian Cosmopolis (Eaton, “Persian Cosmopolis”,
2019) on the one hand but also with other literary cultures on
the subcontinent.Using Durisin’s notion of “interliterary communities” defined as “the communities that share interliterary processes”, we can also
speculate whether it is possible to conceptualise Indian literatures
or south Asian literatures as a mega interliterary community made
of a range of linguistic literary traditions that share the interliterary
processes similar to Marathi
Keywords: Historiography of translation, historiography of culture, Marathi literature, semiotics of culture, Yuri Lotman, translation studies
The current paper explores the poetics and politics of ambivalent phenomenon of self-translation by the bilingual writers writing in Marathi and English in the light of semiotics of culture, a theoretical framework developed by the Tartu- Moscow School of cultural semiotics under the leadership of Yuri Lotman. The paper argues that while bilingualism and translation in broadest semiotic sense of the terms are intrinsic to any creative phenomenon and any communication according to Lotman, the Anglo-Bhasha self-translations of literary texts are distinctive historical products of the post-colonial ‘semiosphere’, hence caught up in the politics of identity, cultural asymmetry and cultural change. The Anglo-Bhasha bilingual writers situated on the boundary separating English and the Bhashas were critical agents in generating not only modernity but also providing ‘self-description’ of who we are culturally. They found themselves embodying this boundary within and without. In a sense, the act of self-translation is an act of what Lotman calls ‘auto-communication’ where though the addresser and the addressee of the communication is the same person; the act subtly transforms the personality of the subject. Self-translation as cultural phenomenon can be seen as involving not just bilingual individuals but the entire culture generating new information for itself, and restructuring its own personality. In the historical context of colonialism and its aftermath, this generation new information and restructuring of personality describes the phenomenon of modernity. As the bilingual writers were the upper caste elites generating ‘self-description’ of the semiosphere, this theorization may help us to understand how emergence of modernity and reformulation of identity in the nineteenth century was a form of self- translation not just by the individuals but by the entire culture. It was by no means derivative, but a creative one involving self-discovery and self reformulation by the culture in conversation with itself. The cultural semiotics perspective would shed further light on the creative or ‘incestuous’ processes of cultural change and modernity.
Keywords: Self-translation, postcolonialism, identity, modernity, cultural semiotics
discussion on world literature as it appears to conflate literary
processes with the processes of the spread of industrial capitalism. However, I have attempted to develop an argument that the
notion of world literature is not a singular entity or a model; it
has multiple models. Certain models of world literature like those
proposed by Dionyz Durisin and David Damrosch can be useful
for a more nuanced investigation into how individual South Asian
vernacular literary cultures like Marathi interacted dialogically
not only with larger transregional and translocal cultural spaces
like the Sanskrit Cosmopolis to use Pollock’s terms (Pollock 2006,
18) or the Persian Cosmopolis (Eaton, “Persian Cosmopolis”,
2019) on the one hand but also with other literary cultures on
the subcontinent.Using Durisin’s notion of “interliterary communities” defined as “the communities that share interliterary processes”, we can also
speculate whether it is possible to conceptualise Indian literatures
or south Asian literatures as a mega interliterary community made
of a range of linguistic literary traditions that share the interliterary
processes similar to Marathi
In Marathi, while Eliot’s ideas especially from ‘The Tradition and Individual Talent’ have been influential in formulation of modernist aesthetics in and there are scattered critical comments on his works, a full-fledged translation of The Wasteland appeared only as recently as 2019. However, if we understand translation as a kind of rewriting along with forms of rewritings like commentaries and critical writings, we can understand these scattered comments and articles themselves as being ‘translational’ in nature assimilating a new poetic of modernism into the horizons of the Marathi reader’s horizons of expectations as well as in contesting the claims of prevailing aesthetics norms by breaching its autonomy and authority (E.V. Ramakrishnan, 2017, 239). While modernist poetics in Marathi was developed by renowned writers and literary scholars like B.S. Mardhekar, P.S. Rege, Vinda Karandikar, Dilip Chitre , Mahesh Elkunchwar and Vilas Sarang by substantially drawing upon the international poetic formulations of modernism especially those by T.S. Eliot, with the exception of P.S. Rege, Vilas Sarang and Mahesh Elkunchwar no other writer or scholar has explicitly acknowledged the debt to Eliot.
Though very useful, the recent extant translation and the explanatory paratextual material does not spell out the contemporary relevance of the Eliot’s poem to the Marathi readers and the writers in the second decade of the twenty first century unlike what critical essays by Sarang, P.S. Rege and Elkunchwar did for their periods. The themes of fragmentation of reality and culture, trivialization of erotic life, complex negotiations between tradition and modern talents, relationship between scholarship and creativity , quest for spiritual transcendence, globalization of culture, disillusionment with the political condition and the possibility of violence are still extremely relevant in the era of intensified modernity with its growing digitization( of VR and Meta) and deep mediatization (to use Andreas Hepp’s term ) of contemporary life , the rise of majoritarian supremacism through democratic processes, and the phenomenal growth of toxic il-literacy ( as against less harmful non-literacy of the past) not only through private TV and social media but also through the collapsed educational system in this country.
Keywords: T.S. Eliot, Modernism. The Wasteland, Marathi Literature, Indian modernity, Indian Modernism , World Literature,
Keywords: Modernist avant-garde, Indian modernisms, interliterary theory, B.S. Mardhekar, Marathi poetry
This analysis also reveals the construction of the Bangla cosmopolis through translations and other mediations like Bengali cinema and music. Travel writings of Pu. La Deshpande and Neelima Bhave also reveal the construction of Bangla cosmopolis through nostalgia and memory which is in tension with violent and often disagreeable social and political realities of contemporary Bengali society
However, I seek to demonstrate in my reading of the Dnyaneshwari using theoretical advances in translation studies and comparative literary studies, what seems to happen in this process is not a simple adoption of cosmopolitan models (teeka/bhashya) in the local languages but creation of new models, genres and literary languages, towards different functional ends, that are neither ‘Sanskrit’ nor ‘Marathi’, but interliterary in the sense of the term used by Durisin (1984) and are created through translation, understood as a process of semiotic transformation. The ideological constraints of sectarian ideologies and negation for patronage are critical in not only understanding pre-colonial Marathi literature but also in reading refractions, retellings and pre-colonial bilingualism. In a larger social and cultural domain, we discover that bhakti literature is neither a single or simple political project of social liberation nor of simple continuation of Puranic brahminical hegemony. It is heterogeneous and having many contradictory strands, some of which are radical and many deeply conservative. Instead of seeing it simplistically as ‘vernacularization’, ‘revolution’ or ‘counter-revolution’, the processes have to be approached in more nuanced manner in context of the complex overlapping and conflictual social and cultural formations of sects, patronage of multiple kinds, innovative talents and systems of caste-class-gender intersectionalities of the period within which the literary polysystem is situated.
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Key words: Dnyaneshwari, Marathi literature, the Bhagwad Gita, Commentary, translation, precolonial period
It was one of the earliest literary magazines and a literary movement in Marathi to engage creatively and critically with the potent processes of globalization which were rapidly transforming Indian society, culture and life in the nineteen nineties. Abhidhanantar provided a dynamic platform to the engagement with linguistic, cultural and literary transformations taking place, as well as to the crises they gave rise to. It provided a platform for the emergence of fresh poetic talents like Manya Joshi, Varjesh Solanki, Hemant Divate, Mandakini Patil, Sanjeev Khandekar, Nitin Kulkarni, Sridhar Tilve, Mangesh Narayanrao Kale, Dinkar Manvar, Dnyanada and Sachin Ketkar among others who had started writing in response to the new cultural and social predicament brought about by the compelling and intimidating forces of globalization in the 1990s, and also offered a forum for critical deliberations. This article seeks not just to document information about the Abhidhanantar movement, but situate it, evaluate it and discuss its contribution in the broader comparative social, cultural and historical context.
Keyword: Dalit studies, Namdeo Dhasal, cultural semiotics, Marathi poetry, avant-garde, marginal literature, caste system, literary history
The work which I started with my doctoral research is actually a work in `progress’ and I find it interesting to look back where I was some eight years ago. I would be honoured to hear your critical comments and reactions to my work.
Sachin Ketkar
Baroda, 27 December 2007
“ Valecha” Short Story by Bhupen Khakkar, Indian Literature: Sahitya Akademi’s Bimonthly Journal, New Delhi Sahitya Akademi, ISSN 0019-580-4,Vol. LX, 266, Nov/Dec 2011
URL: http://www.museindia.com/viewarticle.asp?myr=2011&issid=35&id=2427
Keywords: Indian English, Indian English Poetry, Cultural Semiotics, Semiosphere
The period in which it was composed is significant for South Asia as well as Europe as these places witnessed, in Sheldon Pollock’s words, “transformation in cultural practice, social-identity formation, and political order with far-reaching and enduring consequences.” He understands the creation of such a text as part of the process of ‘vernacularization’, or “the historical process of choosing to create a written literature, along with its complement, a political discourse, in local languages according to models supplied by a superordinate, usually cosmopolitan, literary culture (1998:21-26). However, I seek to demonstrate in my reading of the Dnyaneshwari using theoretical advances in translation studies and comparative literary studies, what seems to happen in this process is not a simple adoption of cosmopolitan models (teeka/bhashya) in the local languages but creation of new models, genres and literary languages, towards different functional ends, that are neither ‘Sanskrit’ nor ‘Marathi’, but interliterary in the sense of the term used by Durisin (1984) and are created through translation, understood as a process of semiotic transformation. In social and cultural domain, bhakti literature is neither a single or simple political project of social liberation nor simple continuation of Puranic brahminical hegemony and instead of seeing it simplistically as ‘vernacularization’, ‘revolution’ or ‘counter-revolution’, the processes of emergence of new literatures have to be understood in context of the complex overlapping and conflictual social and cultural formations of sects, patronage of multiple kinds, innovative intellects and caste-class-gender intersectionalities of literary polysystem of the period.
Keywords: Translation studies, Pre-colonial translation, Dnyaneshwari, Marathi literature, Vernacularization, Interliterary processes, comparative literature