Time, Doubt and Wonder in the Humanities addresses a serious lacuna in humanities studies. It affirms our commitment to wonder and adventure in living by confronting the subtext that lies within the manifold worldly, social and political vicissitudes and tribulations. The essays in this volume speak to our times and make sense of the idea of temporality in general by using wonder as an inclusive metaphor, which engulfs fortitude, anguish, joy, providence, submission, precariousness and revulsion. Wonder could lead to curiosity to inspiration to doubt to questioning to indignation to seeking of justice.
The book offers a benchmark in thinking about why we must take literature and art seriously in times of great political turmoil. It affirms that the shape and contour of literary studies shall depend on how the coming generation maintains a delicate balance among inspiration, doubt and faith.
About the Author: Prasanta Chakravarty is Associate Professor of English at the University of Delhi and the editor of the web-journal humanitiesunderground.org. His most recent work is The Opulence of Existence, Essays on Aesthetics and Politics (2016)-a set of essays on literary forms and the current political predicament. His other works include Like Parchment in the Fire: Literature and Radicalism in the English Civil War (2006) which deals with early modern radical culture and an edited volume on contemporary writings on humanities titled Shrapnel Minima, Writings from Humanities Underground (2014). Chakravarty nurtures a particular interest in poetry and poetics and enjoys translating significant contemporary literary writings into English.
