Ananta Charan Sukla As We Know Him edited by Professor Bishnu Charan Dash

Ananta Charan Sukla is a name to reckon with in the world of scholarship and institution building. The Vishvana- the Kaviraja Institute of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics was founded by him in 1977 to publish the Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics (inception 1978), an international half-yearly journal. He had the privilege of collaborating with renowned international scholars like René Wellek, Mircea Eliade, Monroe Beards- ley, M. H. Abrams, John Hospers, Harold Osborne, John Boulton, John Fisher, and many renowned Indian scholars. The journal aims at promoting multidisciplinary studies and research in comparative literature, aesthetics, literary and cultural theory, philosophy and criticism of the arts, and history of ideas. He is also a founder member of the editorial board of the International Yearbook of Aesthetics and Comparative Aesthetics. 

A cross between a felicitation volume and a Festschrift, this book was precipitated into birth by the sudden and alarmingly downward spiral in the health of the person at its centre: Prof. Ananta Charan Sukla. The book's purpose is to galvanise Prof. Sukla into getting started on his few remaining dream projects that are essential to the completion of his life's work. As the book materialises, one is able to see the most astounding compilation of the labours of love of his many peers, collaborators, friends and scholars from home and abroad. They have show- cased Prof. Sukla's astonishing scholarly range within the unified field of comparative aesthetics in their memoirs, appreciations, assessments and impressions. Almost every single essay in this volume has touched upon that marvel, namely Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, which Prof. Sukla created in 1978 and has sustained sin- gle-handed for forty long years. Read in its right spirit, the book is not merely a personal profile but an exemplary story of an intrepid and passionate comparatist who has suc- cessfully negotiated between the East and the West.

About the Editor

Dr. Bishnu Charan Dash is a Professor of English,  Assam (Central) University, Silchar at Diphu Campus, Assam. He did his Ph.D in Comparative Literature as J.R.F and S.R.F (1984-86) at Sambalpur University, Odisha. After having served as Assistant Professor and Associate Professor in English for more than two decades in Assam since 1986, he joined the Diphu Campus of Assam University as its founder teacher in October 2007. He has guided twenty-two M.Phil Scholars, and eleven PhD Scholars and four Ph.D  Scholars  are under his active supervision. He has attended several International and National Seminars and has published more than fifty research papers in International and National journals like the Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, Transactions (Journal of the Institute of Indian Geographers), Annual Research Journal of Folklore society of Assam, Rock Pebbles and Transcript (Journal of Literature and Cultural Studies), IOSR, Literary Endeavour. Besides being associated with the Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics as its Editorial Associate, he is also on the Editorial Board of Rock Pebbles and Transcript. He has published three books under the title a) "Mystic Eros: Troubadours and Vaishnava Poets of Medieval India" (2010) b) "Dynamics of Subaltern Consciousness: Critical Perspectives" (2015) and c)"Negotiating Subaltern Consciousness: A North-East Perspective (2015)- all published by  Abhishek Prakashan, New Delhi.  He has also edited a book titled "A.C. Sukla: As We Know Him" which was published by Coole Grove Publishers New York in 2019. Three other books titled   (a) “Troubadours and the Philosophy of Tantricism and Sahajiya Vaishnavism”, (b) "Tryst with the Orient: Essays in Comparative Literature and Culture", (c) “Sahityarathi Lakshminath Bezbaroa and Sambalpur: A Study in Ethos" are in press. His area of research interest encompasses American Literature, Comparative Literature, Religion and Philosophy, Medieval Studies, Oriental Studies, Shakespeare Studies, Cultural Studies, Diaspora and Subaltern Studies.