Preface

Summary

This volume is the first publication to be generated by the International Occident-Orient Research Network, which was established in 2008 by Anil Bhatti and James Hodkinson. The network arose out of a collaborative arrangement between Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and Warwick University, UK, and it originally had a solely German Studies focus. The project expanded rapidly to include Delhi University and the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW), Vienna, as its other key locations. The group has subsequently attracted scholars from Europe, Asia, and North America, who have also brought a wide range of expertise to the project: these include literary scholars of all persuasions, historians, social scientists, as well, of course, as specialists in the field known problematically as “oriental studies.”

The resulting text is an edited volume of chapters that has been developed by members of the network, working in close collaboration. Thus far the project has spanned a period of four years from January 2010 to the date of publication, and has been driven forward by three symposia, held in Delhi, Vienna, and Birmingham, UK. The editors would like to thank a great many institutions and people who have assisted the production of this volume and the research group underlying it since late 2009. These are too numerous to list in their entirety here, though others should not go without mention.