From what I am able to gather, American scholarship on India, which blossomed in a big way in the enthusias¬tic 1950s, has gone through an interesting change during the 1970s. The earlier concern with the sociology and politics of contemporary India has declined somewhat, and more and more scholars are turning to religion, literature, folklore, the performing arts, tradi¬tional cognitive systems, etc. This reflects, I would like to believe, something of the dis¬enchantment with moderni¬zation which affects the Indian scene as much as the American academia, and not merely the research visa policy of the government. Among the scholars who have played a significant role in contributing to the kinds of studies that have emerged, A.K. Rama¬nujan is one of the most out¬standing. He is a Professor in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civili¬zations, the Department of Linguistics, and the Com¬mittee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. He is one of the leading Indo-Anglian poets today and has earned a great and well-deserved reputation as a translator of Tamil and Kannada poetry into English.
Sept-Oct 1983, volume 8, No 2