The Mithila Studies Network

12 October 2022

Conference on South Asia

University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA)

This symposium aims to generate interdisciplinary conversations about the importance of contemporary scholarly study of Maithil society, culture and language. How has the study of Maithili-speaking peoples shaped humanistic inquiries and intellectual discourses locally and globally? From Alphabetum Brammhanicum (1771) to George Abraham Grierson (1851–1941) to Radhakrishna Choudhary (1921–1985), how has the study of Maithili cultures been framed by localised discourses about the region, its language(s) and people(s)? In turn, how has the academic study of Mithila outside of the region received, interpreted and framed these narratives? In light of its disciplinary past, can we envision new research agenda and methods for challenging hegemonies within the academy and in the wider society?

Although colonial-era missionaries and Orientalists took a keen interest in Maithili language, art and culture, the study of Maithili has not maintained the same academic focus in modern universities. Nevertheless, a variety of scholars from a range of disciplines have engaged in the study of Maithili and Mithila into the present. The field as it exists today is dominated by upper-caste, male scholars and littérateurs, who have privileged certain forms of historical knowledge production. Their engagement with Hindu philosophies and what they construed as “high-culture” has—in effect—marginalised contributions by Maithil women, lower-caste communities and religious minorities.

Against this backdrop, our symposium brings together an eclectic group of scholars, who reflect critically on the history, politics and future of Maithili Studies. This symposium is—to the best of our knowledge—the first ever attempt in the history of modern universities to evaluate the status, significance and prospects of Maithili Studies. We anticipate the publication of symposium papers as a peer-reviewed volume. Our symposium—both in framing its research agenda and in selecting its participants—remains steadfastly committed to the ethics of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Speakers:

• Coralynn V. Davis (Bucknell). Collaborative Scholarship and the Politics of Participation in a Project Linking Expressive Arts and Social Change in Mithila.
• Christopher Diamond (ANU). A Torrent of Songs: Locana Das’ Rāgataraṅgiṇī, the Darbhanga Raj, and the Making of the Maithili Tradition.
• Hélène Fleury (Université Paris-Saclay). Transnational discursive shifts on Mithila paintings: towards a (postcolonial) inclusive feminism?
• Mithilesh Kumar Jha (IIT-Guwahati). Vidyapati’s Purush Pariksha and its rediscoveries in early twentieth-century.
• Rani Jha (Poet and Scholar). Expanding Poetic Voice in Contemporary Madhubani.
• Makoto Kitada (Osaka University). Jagatprakāśa Malla’s grief to his bosom friend: Affection expressed in Maithili and Newari.
• Ufaque Paikar (Ashoka University). Muslim Singes of Maithili Mars̱īya in Nineteenth Century Bihar.
• Dev Nath Pathak (South Asian University). A Ghummakad of Modern Mithila: An Interpretative Reading of Nagarjun’s Literary and Socio-Political Personhood.
• Pranav Prakash (Oxford). The Ethics of Literary Historiography: As Revealed by a Cowherd Playwright’s Chapbook.
• Paula Richman (Oberlin College). Mithila ritual Painting and Modern Indian Painting: When Does a Handicraft Become Modern?