Date: March 2, 2026
Registration: 10:30 AM
Venue: Conference Room, Darjeeling Hills University (ITI Campus)

Coordinator
Debraj Ghatak
Department of History
Darjeeling Hills University
Email: history@dhu.edu.in

Lecture I : Dr. Bhaswati Bhattacharya

Time: 11:00 AM

Dr. Bhaswati Bhattacharya, a Senior Academic Fellow at the Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS), University of Göttingen, Germany. An expert in the socio-economic history of modern and contemporary India. Her recent book titled Much Ado Over Coffee: Indian Coffee House Then And Now was published from Social Science Press in 2017.

Moderator
Debraj Ghatak, Department of History Darjeeling Hills University

Lecture II: Dr. Victor van Bijlert

Time: 1:00 PM

Dr. Victor van Bijlert is a Retired Lecturer from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands. A renowned scholar of Indian philosophy, literature, and the works of Rabindranath Tagore. His expertise ranging from world literatures, Classical Philology and Other Religions. His recent book is Vedantic Hinduism in Colonial Bengal: Reformed Hinduism and Western Protestantism (London and New York: Routledge, 2020).

Moderator
Dr. Upasna Chettri, Department of History, Darjeeling Hills University

Event Report

Report prepared by Debraj Ghatak, Department of History, Darjeeling Hills University.

On 2 March 2026 Darjeeling Hills University hosted a lecture series titled “Lectures on Transnational Perspectives on Modern Indian History and Culture.” The programme convened scholars, faculty, postgraduate students, and local researchers to explore cross‑border cultural exchanges and comparative literary histories. The two invited speakers—Dr Bhaswati Bhattacharya (Senior Academic Fellow, Centre for Modern Indian Studies, University of Göttingen) and Dr Victor van Bijlert (Retired Lecturer, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)—brought archival depth and comparative insight to the day’s discussions.

Programme and Attendance

10:00 AM — Registration and Tea
Participants gathered for registration and informal networking.
10:45 AM — Welcome Address given by Dr Sujata Rani Rai, Honourable Registrar, opened the event, highlighting the university’s commitment to transnational scholarship and she .
10:55 AM — Introduction to First Speaker
Mr Debraj Ghatak, Department of History introduced the first speaker.
11:00 AM — Lecture
Dr Bhaswati Bhattacharya presented “The reception of Rabindranath Tagore in the Netherlands and Belgium, 1920: A Study of the Media Coverage.”
11:55 AM — Moderation and Question-Answer Session
A moderated discussion followed the lecture.
12:10 PM — Introduction to Second Speaker
Dr Upasna Chettri, Department of History introduced Dr Victor van Bijlert.
12:15 PM — Lecture
Dr Victor van Bijlert delivered “Rabindranath Tagore and Else Lasker Schüler on their mortality: a comparison of their last volumes of poetry.”
1:15 PM — Moderation and Question-Answer Session
Audience engagement continued with probing questions.
2:05 PM — Vote of Thanks and Felicitations
Miss Malavika Pradhan, Department of Political Science, presented the vote of thanks and felicitations to the speakers.

Lecture Summaries

Dr. Bhaswati Bhattacharya

Dr Bhaswati Bhattacharya traced how Dutch and Belgian newspapers and periodicals framed Rabindranath Tagore during his 1920 European presence, drawing on extensive archival press reports and contemporary translations. She identified recurring frames—literary admiration, exoticization, and political ambivalence—and mapped how these patterns varied across publications and readerships. The speaker also demonstrated that translation practices, intermediary agents, and editorial choices actively shaped Tagore’s European public image rather than merely reflecting it. Her lecture combined meticulous close readings of press texts with broader theoretical reflections on reception studies, highlighting methodological challenges such as source bias, translation loss, and the limits of national narratives and archives.

Dr. Victor van Bijlert

Dr van Bijlert offered a comparative reading of Rabindranath Tagore and Else Lasker‑Schüler, concentrating on their final poetry volumes and recurrent meditations on mortality. He highlighted intertextual resonances and contrasting cultural registers, showing how each poet negotiates finitude within distinct linguistic and historical frameworks. Drawing on archival traces—correspondence, marginalia, and publication histories—he reconstructed cross‑cultural dialogues that complicate national literary boundaries. His analysis demonstrated that comparative literary methods uncover shared existential concerns while respecting formal and contextual differences, and argued for archival collaboration to deepen understanding of transnational poetic exchanges and the ethical dimensions of reading late works in meaningful ways.

Audience Engagement and Conclusion

Both lectures generated lively discussion on methodology, archival ethics, and avenues for collaborative research. Students valued practical advice on archival work and publication. The event reinforced Darjeeling Hills University’s role as a platform for transnational inquiry and opened prospects for future scholarly exchanges.