Dr. Asif Iqbal is a Visiting Professor of English and a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Postcolonial World Literature. Originally from Bangladesh, he has taught at Oberlin since 2022, primarily offering courses in postcolonial literature, but also film and the relationship between the West and the Islamic World. His new book, Bangladesh in Anglophone and Vernacular Literature: Cultural Imaginings of a Postcolonial Nation, will be published this year by Routledge.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Your book is titled Bangladesh in Anglophone and Vernacular Literature: Cultural Imaginings of a Postcolonial Nation. In what ways does the book engage with the Anglophone tradition and Bengali literature?
There are no longer these third-world people coming to the West and talking about their formerly colonized countries because we are no longer living in separate spaces, but we are straddling so many different spaces at the same time. One day in New York, the other day in London, the other day, say, in New Delhi. And that’s what is forming the identity of these writers, who are the anglophone writers. You also have literary traditions in Bangladesh, as the nation-state has a very rich tradition of Bengali literature. Bengali literature has a much longer history going back several centuries, but also slowly forming around a particular prose identity during the colonial era, born in the machines of the colonial education system. This is something that the book is also engaging with. In short, the book is engaging with both the anglophone tradition, but also the 20th-century Bengali tradition, which has inherited that colonial literary tradition.
How has teaching at Oberlin contributed to your book?
The last three years I’ve been here have absolutely helped me in navigating my research trajectory, but also in the process of engaging in teaching. The literature and the film courses that I have taught thus far have allowed me to jump into a much broader trajectory in terms of research, which is probably going to be in my future second book, which will go back to the Victorian era. That has only been possible in the very intellectual climate at Oberlin through having conversations with colleagues in Religion and Politics and Comparative Literature, and the general student interest in these different disciplinary concerns that can be brought into a dialogue. If I were working at a bigger school, I would probably not be able to have so many intricate intellectual conversations because our goal to produce knowledge doesn’t exist in isolation. In other words, the 20th century doesn’t exist without the 19th century, and that feeds into the 20th century and the 21st century. And that is something that I am keen to explore in the next book.
We live in an age where the global order is being reshaped. How is this book a reaction to this current geopolitical climate?
I want to go back to the values that the humanities and social sciences can impart in understanding, not only global histories, but human endeavors more intricately and more critically. This understanding should progress beyond the political divides that are often thrown at us with this intensification of new media, or media narratives that are not necessarily dealing with complex questions of identities, whether it be national identities or global identities that we are witnessing unraveling in many ways. The current political climate is one that has anti-intellectualism built into it and seems to be going against a lot of the progress that we have made — decolonization, sexual liberation, LGBTQ+ rights — since the 19th century and the 20th century. We see with this current political climate that there’s a questioning of all these values, and that is something that concerns me as a researcher who is invested in history.
Over the past two years, we’ve seen youth uprisings across the world, but especially in South Asia — Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and, in just these past two weeks, Nepal. What are your reflections on these events?
I have been following these youth uprisings with a lot of interest. The immediate thing that I want to mention is how there has been a generational gap in terms of the young people who are leading these uprisings and upsetting governments that are not only entrenched, but that possess brute military power. It is quite remarkable in terms of what I do as a researcher of postcolonial studies, where we are privy to anti-colonial movements that have historical roots. These uprisings are happening almost instantaneously. But we are also aware of the fact that there has been planning, and new media is also used to stage these uprisings. I think we are at a very early stage to theorize how these movements are occurring — not only occurring, but also successfully maneuvering and fulfilling their goals in terms of overthrowing oligarchs. It also has that tangential relation to the effort to decolonize the canon in a sense of how all the traditions can impinge on new realities within which these youth movements have flourished. And they also have been very determined to overthrow whatever is a remnant of the past in a bad way.
Youth activism contributed to Bangladeshi independence. What do you think Oberlin student activists can take from this historical contribution?
There is a relationship between existing knowledge and activism. And what I have also written in the book is how several kinds of radical student politicians played a key role in successfully maneuvering Bangladeshi independence. But also, these ideas were emerging out of this global engagement. There was a lot of Marxist influence and other political philosophies of decolonization that they were very much privy to in their reading and their education. That played a role in generating that energy in the field of politics. That is something that is very much possible even today. But today, the bigger role is being played by the media, right? It’s very easy to form communities to oppose oppressive regimes, or question ideas and question decisions that are oppressive, not only in the context of the Global North, but also in the context of the Global South. The possibility has become much more generative, as opposed to in the past. There’s a sense that this is a very, very interesting moment for activism in how it can gather people in a very short amount of time, but also fight for the right cause.
