{"podcast":{"title":"New Books in Literary Studies","slug":"new-books-in-literary-studies-1048453","podcast_index_feed_id":1048453,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/LIT7489921391","website_url":"https://newbooksnetwork.com","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/2ca1ec9c-f032-11e8-b6fd-271dec2bac56/image/9b24a0e039edab7d8d6a4dedc3b8baca.png?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"New Books Network","episode_count":2687,"summary":"This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-literary-studies-1048453"},"episode":{"title":"Sumana Roy, \"Plant Thinkers of Twentieth-Century Bengal\" (Oxford UP, 2024)","slug":"sumana-roy-plant-thinkers-of-twentieth-century-bengal-oxford-up-2024","published_at":"2026-05-19T08:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-literary-studies-1048453/sumana-roy-plant-thinkers-of-twentieth-century-bengal-oxford-up-2024","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-literary-studies-1048453","url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK7189550510.mp3","audio_url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK7189550510.mp3","summary":"Plant Thinkers of Twentieth-Century Bengal (Oxford UP, 2024) by Sumana Roy takes an unexpected cast of writers and artists and, in studying their work as ‘plant thinkers’, looks at how their stories and songs, art and films, and, of course, the idiomatic affected Bengali life and thought. Forest and garden, grass and root, weeds and magical plants—supported by a foliage of thought that allowed them to see beyond the botanical, Rabindranath Tagore, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, Jibanananda Das, Shakti Chattopadhyay, Satyajit Ray, and others derived their worldview, their poetics and politics, from the plant world. Jagadish Chandra Bose’s scientific experiments, his research and the philosophy that propelled it, religions and rituals that involved an affective relationship with the natural world, a subterranean invocation of plant philosophy in actions and words, in living and in creative practice, and the political possibilities beyond the nation state that such thinking generated give this book its sap and flow. What might we take from these plant thinkers to rehabilitate our consciousness today? Arnab Dutta Roy is Assistant Professor of World Literature and Postcolonial Theory at Florida Gulf Coast University Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies","meta_description":"Plant Thinkers of Twentieth-Century Bengal (Oxford UP, 2024) by Sumana Roy takes an unexpected cast of writers and artists and, in studying their work as…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2486,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-literary-studies-1048453/episodes/sumana-roy-plant-thinkers-of-twentieth-century-bengal-oxford-up-2024/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-literary-studies-1048453/sumana-roy-plant-thinkers-of-twentieth-century-bengal-oxford-up-2024.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}