Rabindranath Tagore and the Global South: Decolonizing World Literature through Transcultural Humanism
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The discourse of world literature has long been dominated by Eurocentric paradigms that privilege Western epistemologies as universal and relegate the Global South to peripheral participation. This study reconsiders the concept through the philosophical and aesthetic vision of Rabindranath Tagore, whose idea of Visva-Manava (Universal Man) and Visva-Bharati (World University) articulated an early model of transcultural humanism. Drawing on primary texts such as Gitanjali, Sādhanā, and The Religion of Man, the paper argues that Tagore’s conception of universality constitutes a decolonial framework that predates contemporary theories of “pluriversality” (Mignolo) and “planetarity” (Spivak). Through a synthesis of textual analysis and digital mapping of Tagore’s translation and reception networks, the study demonstrates how his works circulated along non-Western routes, forming an alternative cartography of literary globalization. By situating Tagore within Global South intellectual history, the paper advances a new theoretical model of world literature from below—a network of ethical reciprocity and aesthetic dialogue that challenges the unilinear flow of cultural authority from West to rest.
Author: Arun Ghosh
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4416409598