Books by Daniela Cappello
Transgression in the Bengali Avant-Garde: The Poetry of the Hungry Generation, 2024
https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/catalog/book/1320
Transgression in the Bengali Avant-Garde ... more https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/catalog/book/1320
Transgression in the Bengali Avant-Garde wants to introduce the Hungry Generation movement to a global audience through its poetry, manifestoes and other literary materials. Emerged from the cities of Patna and Calcutta in the early 1960s, the Hungry Generation gained international attention after the poets' arrest on charges of obscenity in 1964. Fiercely provoking the literary establishment, these Bengali bohemians used poetry and literature as means of cultural radicalism, tackling subjects like sexuality, perversion, alcohol and drug consumption, masturbation, and hyper-masculinity to challenge bourgeois morality and respectability.
The book sheds light on a variety of Hungryalist sources and explores the literature of the Hungry Generation through the filter of 'transgression', showing how this concept unfolded in the language, aesthetics and culture behind this Bengali avant-garde movement. Furthermore, the book will delve into the poetry of some iconic representatives of the Hungry Generation, critically reading their oeuvre in the context of changing models of sexuality, consumption, and modernization in post-colonial India.
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Bengali translation of Antonio Gramsci's 25 Prison Notebook and other writings (with Italian fron... more Bengali translation of Antonio Gramsci's 25 Prison Notebook and other writings (with Italian front text). Translated by Jayasri Chaudhuri and Indrani Das from the Italian critical edition of the Prison Notebooks by Valentino Gerratana.
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Journal Articles by Daniela Cappello
Bhābnāgar Peer-reviewed International Journal of Bengal Studies, vol. 17 No. 20, 2023
Bengali Purāṇas: A Methodological Note on 19th Century Manuscript and Print Culture
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ContactZone: Rivista dell’Associazione italiana per lo studio della fantascienza e del fantastico, 2021
The return of traditional practices as means to cope with the trauma of the pandemic in India sho... more The return of traditional practices as means to cope with the trauma of the pandemic in India shows that people are drawn to existing repertoires of myths and significations associated with epidemic. Yet the global dimension of this viral outbreak is unprecedented, having generated a transcultural imaginary of “pandemic” that is deeply entrenched in the authority of science and rationalism. I analyze three contemporary science fiction stories from the Bengali webzine Kalpabiśva (Phantasy World, 2020) to see how this genre has engaged with ethical and cultural problems related to “pandemic” (atimārī) in India. The stories contain typical ingredients of a transcultural imaginary of “disease”: international scientific collaboration, bio-laboratories testing vaccines in Calcutta, but also man-eating funguses, housemaid robots, and vaccines developed out of ritual offerings to Hindu gods. I argue that these stories reinvent a post-pandemic world in a utopian rather than in a dystopian fashion to help making sense of the trauma of Covid-19 by stressing the power and authority of science and biotechnologies.
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Bhabnagar International Journal of Bengal Studies, Vol. 12, No. 13-14 (June-December 2020), 2020
Phalguni Ray (1945-1981) was a cult figure in the Hungry Generation movement, the group of shocki... more Phalguni Ray (1945-1981) was a cult figure in the Hungry Generation movement, the group of shocking and rebellious Bengali poets who were sentenced for obscenity in their writings. In many ways, Phalguni is perhaps the best representative of the alienation and anxiety of postmodernity which stood behind the symbolic violence and perversion of this avantgarde movement’s language.
In this paper, I critically engage with some poems from his collection “Television of a Rotten Soul” (1973). Unemployed, alcohol-addicted and cirrhotic, Phalguni died prematurely at the age of 36. In his poems, he has revealed the urgency and depravity of his sexuality, as well as the uneasiness with the dominant views and norms of Bengali society, only to expose the crisis of traditional social values and morality in India’s shaping consumer culture. Some of his thoughts on language and heredity can be read as an anticipation of concerns that are typical of later postcolonial critique: with an always ironic tone, he harshly criticizes universal truths, especially targeting the sphere of (Western) scientific theories and their impact on individual experience.
In the same direction goes the poet’s conflictual relationship with his body: his male body and his Bengali language, always in the liminal space of transgression and re-coding, are the focus of his postcolonial interrogation. Through these, the poet wanted to re-write the standard meanings of his ‘Bengali language and culture’, what the Hungryalists wanted to renew and revive, by making fun of hegemonic discourses on sex, caste, class and race that were captured during the 1960s in the Bengali middle-class.
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Interdisziplinäre Zeitschrift für Südasienforschung Nr. 5 (2019), pp. 1-32., 2019
In this paper I look at four examples of Bengali SF (science fiction) comics by two great authors... more In this paper I look at four examples of Bengali SF (science fiction) comics by two great authors and illustrators of sequential art: Mayukh Chaudhuri (Yātrī, Smārak) and Narayan Debnath (Ḍrāgoner thābā, Ajānā deśe). Departing from a conventional understanding of SF as a fixed genre, I aim at showing that the SF comic is a 'mode' rather than a 'genre', building on a very fluid notion of boundaries between narrative styles, themes, and tropes formally associated with fixed genres. In these Bengali comics, it is especially the visual space of the comic that allows for blending and 'contamination' with other typical features drawn from adventure and detective fiction. Moreover, a dominant thematic thread that cross-cuts the narratives here examined are the tropes of the 'other' and the 'unknown', which are in fact central images of both adventure and SF: the exploration and encounter with 'unknown' (ajānā) worlds and 'strange' species (adbhut jāti) is mirrored in the usage of a language that expresses 'otherness' and strangeness. These examples show that the medium of the comic framing the SF story adds further possibilities of reading 'genre hybridity' as constitutive of the genre of SF as such.
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Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Enquiry, 2018
The Bengali ‘obscene’ (aślīl) poetry of the Hungry Generation is heavily pregnant with ‘dirty’ se... more The Bengali ‘obscene’ (aślīl) poetry of the Hungry Generation is heavily pregnant with ‘dirty’ sexual imagery. In particular, the poem “Prachanda Baidyutik Chutar” and its English translation “Stark Electric Jesus” (1964) by the Hungryalist Malay Raychoudhuri concern the description of the female ‘sexual body’, male masturbation and bodily fluids. The use of a Bengali ‘medical’ vocabulary for portraying the ‘sexual body’ achieves a double operation of ‘sanitization’ of the semantic sphere of sex, unsuitable subject of poetry, and of ‘ironic inversion’ where the low dirty content embodied by masturbation and sexual activity attains the higher status of poetry, while downplaying the overtly mechanical Bengali lexicon of medical sciences. My attempt at re-translating some controversial passages of this poem helps laying out some methodological principles for developing a ‘contextual’ practice of translation in resistance to traditional notions such as accuracy and faithfulness.
Keywords: obscenity; sexual body; masturbation; medical lexicon; sanitization.
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Reviews by Daniela Cappello
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Conference Papers by Daniela Cappello
This paper will focus on the elaboration of “genre” in the Hungry Generation, a Bengali avant-gar... more This paper will focus on the elaboration of “genre” in the Hungry Generation, a Bengali avant-garde movement that challenged Calcutta literary establishment by means of an obscene and grotesque aesthetics that spanned from poetry to manifesto writing.
Basing on few examples of Hungry literature (i.e. poetry, manifesto and excerpts from Hungry Little Magazines), I argue that the movement subverted traditional notions of genre through unconventional practices of writing and distributing literary material, such as using an obscene language and visuality in poetry, making fun of traditional tropes of Bengali literature and presenting an innovative lay-out of the texts that were circulated. These practices resulted in the formulation of an overall aesthetics of obscenity that encompassed language, form and materials of Hungry literary production. Therefore, the selected pieces of writing will be analyzed as examples of “subverted genres”.
In the context of my ongoing research on this topic, the Hungry Generation tried to negotiate its place in the Indian literary sphere by mediating between the idiom of Calcutta middle-class and the daring language of the international avant-garde. The outcomes of this paper will thus contribute to framing Hungryalism as a move of emancipation from the Bengali high literary sphere, seen as irreducibly urban, “bourgeois” and still imbued with colonial influences.
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In this paper I argue that the Indian university is acting more than ever as a site of political ... more In this paper I argue that the Indian university is acting more than ever as a site of political resistance by providing space for reading classes, theatre performances and screenings of movies especially in the context of recent student uprisings (i.e. Pinjra Tod in Delhi, Hok Kolorob in Kolkata).
Following the definition of these performances as “interstitial” (cf. Brinda Bose) – in as much as they locate themselves at the very interstices of public space –, I show that the appropriation of Hungry poetry and manifestos in the contemporary contested space of academia contributes to shape “interstitial” sites of critical thinking in the university sphere.
Basing myself on the case study of Souradeep Roy's theatre performance inspired to Hungry Generation radical aesthetics and staged in a seminar hall of JNU in 2015, I argue that this Bengali avant-garde is being appropriated by young students as a significant actor of cultural resistance.
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This paper explores some features of Hungryalist aesthetics to show how this controversial avant-... more This paper explores some features of Hungryalist aesthetics to show how this controversial avant-garde responded to a state of cultural decay and putrefaction by use of an “aesthetics of obscenity” in poetry which was meant to shake and revive the moribund state of Bengali literary and cultural sphere.
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Book Presentations by Daniela Cappello
Presentation of the Bengali translation of Antonio Gramsci's 25th Notebook edited by Daniela Capp... more Presentation of the Bengali translation of Antonio Gramsci's 25th Notebook edited by Daniela Cappello, translated by Jayasri Chaudhuri and Indrani Das. Published by Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, 2016.
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Thesis Chapters by Daniela Cappello
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Books by Daniela Cappello
Transgression in the Bengali Avant-Garde wants to introduce the Hungry Generation movement to a global audience through its poetry, manifestoes and other literary materials. Emerged from the cities of Patna and Calcutta in the early 1960s, the Hungry Generation gained international attention after the poets' arrest on charges of obscenity in 1964. Fiercely provoking the literary establishment, these Bengali bohemians used poetry and literature as means of cultural radicalism, tackling subjects like sexuality, perversion, alcohol and drug consumption, masturbation, and hyper-masculinity to challenge bourgeois morality and respectability.
The book sheds light on a variety of Hungryalist sources and explores the literature of the Hungry Generation through the filter of 'transgression', showing how this concept unfolded in the language, aesthetics and culture behind this Bengali avant-garde movement. Furthermore, the book will delve into the poetry of some iconic representatives of the Hungry Generation, critically reading their oeuvre in the context of changing models of sexuality, consumption, and modernization in post-colonial India.
Journal Articles by Daniela Cappello
In this paper, I critically engage with some poems from his collection “Television of a Rotten Soul” (1973). Unemployed, alcohol-addicted and cirrhotic, Phalguni died prematurely at the age of 36. In his poems, he has revealed the urgency and depravity of his sexuality, as well as the uneasiness with the dominant views and norms of Bengali society, only to expose the crisis of traditional social values and morality in India’s shaping consumer culture. Some of his thoughts on language and heredity can be read as an anticipation of concerns that are typical of later postcolonial critique: with an always ironic tone, he harshly criticizes universal truths, especially targeting the sphere of (Western) scientific theories and their impact on individual experience.
In the same direction goes the poet’s conflictual relationship with his body: his male body and his Bengali language, always in the liminal space of transgression and re-coding, are the focus of his postcolonial interrogation. Through these, the poet wanted to re-write the standard meanings of his ‘Bengali language and culture’, what the Hungryalists wanted to renew and revive, by making fun of hegemonic discourses on sex, caste, class and race that were captured during the 1960s in the Bengali middle-class.
Keywords: obscenity; sexual body; masturbation; medical lexicon; sanitization.
Reviews by Daniela Cappello
Conference Papers by Daniela Cappello
Basing on few examples of Hungry literature (i.e. poetry, manifesto and excerpts from Hungry Little Magazines), I argue that the movement subverted traditional notions of genre through unconventional practices of writing and distributing literary material, such as using an obscene language and visuality in poetry, making fun of traditional tropes of Bengali literature and presenting an innovative lay-out of the texts that were circulated. These practices resulted in the formulation of an overall aesthetics of obscenity that encompassed language, form and materials of Hungry literary production. Therefore, the selected pieces of writing will be analyzed as examples of “subverted genres”.
In the context of my ongoing research on this topic, the Hungry Generation tried to negotiate its place in the Indian literary sphere by mediating between the idiom of Calcutta middle-class and the daring language of the international avant-garde. The outcomes of this paper will thus contribute to framing Hungryalism as a move of emancipation from the Bengali high literary sphere, seen as irreducibly urban, “bourgeois” and still imbued with colonial influences.
Following the definition of these performances as “interstitial” (cf. Brinda Bose) – in as much as they locate themselves at the very interstices of public space –, I show that the appropriation of Hungry poetry and manifestos in the contemporary contested space of academia contributes to shape “interstitial” sites of critical thinking in the university sphere.
Basing myself on the case study of Souradeep Roy's theatre performance inspired to Hungry Generation radical aesthetics and staged in a seminar hall of JNU in 2015, I argue that this Bengali avant-garde is being appropriated by young students as a significant actor of cultural resistance.
Book Presentations by Daniela Cappello
Thesis Chapters by Daniela Cappello
Transgression in the Bengali Avant-Garde wants to introduce the Hungry Generation movement to a global audience through its poetry, manifestoes and other literary materials. Emerged from the cities of Patna and Calcutta in the early 1960s, the Hungry Generation gained international attention after the poets' arrest on charges of obscenity in 1964. Fiercely provoking the literary establishment, these Bengali bohemians used poetry and literature as means of cultural radicalism, tackling subjects like sexuality, perversion, alcohol and drug consumption, masturbation, and hyper-masculinity to challenge bourgeois morality and respectability.
The book sheds light on a variety of Hungryalist sources and explores the literature of the Hungry Generation through the filter of 'transgression', showing how this concept unfolded in the language, aesthetics and culture behind this Bengali avant-garde movement. Furthermore, the book will delve into the poetry of some iconic representatives of the Hungry Generation, critically reading their oeuvre in the context of changing models of sexuality, consumption, and modernization in post-colonial India.
In this paper, I critically engage with some poems from his collection “Television of a Rotten Soul” (1973). Unemployed, alcohol-addicted and cirrhotic, Phalguni died prematurely at the age of 36. In his poems, he has revealed the urgency and depravity of his sexuality, as well as the uneasiness with the dominant views and norms of Bengali society, only to expose the crisis of traditional social values and morality in India’s shaping consumer culture. Some of his thoughts on language and heredity can be read as an anticipation of concerns that are typical of later postcolonial critique: with an always ironic tone, he harshly criticizes universal truths, especially targeting the sphere of (Western) scientific theories and their impact on individual experience.
In the same direction goes the poet’s conflictual relationship with his body: his male body and his Bengali language, always in the liminal space of transgression and re-coding, are the focus of his postcolonial interrogation. Through these, the poet wanted to re-write the standard meanings of his ‘Bengali language and culture’, what the Hungryalists wanted to renew and revive, by making fun of hegemonic discourses on sex, caste, class and race that were captured during the 1960s in the Bengali middle-class.
Keywords: obscenity; sexual body; masturbation; medical lexicon; sanitization.
Basing on few examples of Hungry literature (i.e. poetry, manifesto and excerpts from Hungry Little Magazines), I argue that the movement subverted traditional notions of genre through unconventional practices of writing and distributing literary material, such as using an obscene language and visuality in poetry, making fun of traditional tropes of Bengali literature and presenting an innovative lay-out of the texts that were circulated. These practices resulted in the formulation of an overall aesthetics of obscenity that encompassed language, form and materials of Hungry literary production. Therefore, the selected pieces of writing will be analyzed as examples of “subverted genres”.
In the context of my ongoing research on this topic, the Hungry Generation tried to negotiate its place in the Indian literary sphere by mediating between the idiom of Calcutta middle-class and the daring language of the international avant-garde. The outcomes of this paper will thus contribute to framing Hungryalism as a move of emancipation from the Bengali high literary sphere, seen as irreducibly urban, “bourgeois” and still imbued with colonial influences.
Following the definition of these performances as “interstitial” (cf. Brinda Bose) – in as much as they locate themselves at the very interstices of public space –, I show that the appropriation of Hungry poetry and manifestos in the contemporary contested space of academia contributes to shape “interstitial” sites of critical thinking in the university sphere.
Basing myself on the case study of Souradeep Roy's theatre performance inspired to Hungry Generation radical aesthetics and staged in a seminar hall of JNU in 2015, I argue that this Bengali avant-garde is being appropriated by young students as a significant actor of cultural resistance.