This volume brings together works by established and emerging scholars to consider the work and impact of Bhai Vir Singh. Bhai Vir Singh (1872-1957) was a major force in the shaping of modern Sikh and Punjabi culture, language, and politics in the undivided colonial Punjab, prior to the Partition of the province in 1947, and in the post-colonial state of India. The chapters in this book explore how he both reflected and shaped his time and context and address some of the ongoing legacy of his work in the lives of contemporary Sikhs. The contributors analyze the varied genres, literary, and historical that were adopted and adapted by Bhai Vir Singh to foreground and enhance Sikh religiosity and identity. These include his novels, didactic pamphlets, journalistic writing, prefatory and exegetical work on spiritual and secular historical documents, and his poems and lyrics, among others. This book will be of particular interest to those working in Sikh studies, South Asian studies, and post-colonial studies.
This volume brings together work by established and emerging scholars to consider the work and impact of Bhai Vir Singh.
1 Introduction: Bhai Vir Singh as author, scholar, and reformist
Anshu Malhotra and Anne Murphy
2 Innovation in Punjabi Literature: Considerations on the Advent of Literary
Modernity
Farina Mir
3 Print publics, literary experiments, and community formation in the work of
Bhai Vir Singh Arti Minocha
4 The Conversion Loop: Gender, Identity, and Storytelling in Bhai Vir Singhs
Sundar
Anshu Malhotra
5 Revisiting Khalsa Samachar (1899-1900): Women Issues and Concerns
Parneet Kaur Dhillon and Jaspal Kaur Dhanju
6 Didacticism and Punjabi Theatre: Bhai Vir Singh's experimental Raja
Lakhdata Singh
Gunjeet Aurora
7 Beyond the Past: Poetry as a Notation the Present
Anne Murphy
8 Intertextuality and Reception History: Connecting Bhai Vir Singhs Sr
Kalgdhar Camatkr to gurbils literature
Julie Vig
9 Vir Singhs Publication of the Gurpratp Sraj Granth
Jvala Singh
10 Bhai Vir Singhs Puratan Janamsakhi: Sikh Book Culture and the Historical
Turn
Harjeet Singh Grewal
11 Transcendence and the Modern Sikh Subject: Analyzing Bhai Vir Singhs
Theology Arvind-Pal S. Mandair
12 The manifold lives of Bhai Vir Singhs Sundri
Doris R. Jakobsh
Anshu Malhotra is a Professor in the Department of Global Studies and Kundan Kaur Kapany Professor and Chair of Sikh and Punjab Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara, USA.
Anne Murphy is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of British Columbia, Canada, and holds the Chair of Punjabi Language, Literature, and Sikh Studies.
