About the Journal

Sanglāp is a Sanskrit word. It means conversations between inquiring minds. The rise of classical Indian philosophy owes its richness in aesthetic sensibility and rational faculty to the tradition of sanglāp. It is evident in ancient Greece, Persia or Rome as well. A Sanglāp attempts to inquire both the logic and 'aesthesis' of the subject of discussion. Thus, it allows thought to perform its inherent plurality while keeping the sophistry and pleasure of a conversation alive. As Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry, it is conceived of and intended to further that end: the multiplicity of thoughts, the carefully constructed arguments and the conversation between minds. We look forward to bring together research scholars, i.e., readers, from different fields of the humanities and the social sciences, to place their thoughts and arguments and entertain a critical conversation.

Sanglap is meant to be a dialogue between literary and cultural studies. Over the last few decades, there has been a strong cultural turn in literary studies which has gradually introduced an element of ‘play’ in its disciplinary enclosure and opened up the folds of the literary to an inter-disciplinary dialogue with the diversity of the cultural. The resultant dialogues have repeatedly questioned the grounds for canonization and politics of reading in literature. There is no doubt that such positions, 'theories' and postulates have influenced many of us as we have set off to investigate the discourse of literature. In the ‘culturalization’ of the literary, it is not simply a matter of reading the literary as a mirror of the cultural but also approaching it as a constitutive extension of the cultural. While we welcome the emancipatory element in this broadening out of the literary as a field, on occasions, the cultural turn has been a touch indifferent to the specificity of the literary as a medium with its own technicality and historicity. Real dialogue cannot be a one-way traffic. And to be faithful to the inherent reciprocity of a true Sanglap, we feel the need not only to read the literary in terms of the cultural but also the other way round i.e. reading the cultural in terms of the literary. We feel this is the right time to tap the infinitely extensible potential of the literary as a field and try and establish it as an affective, perceptual and analytic category which can investigate the diverse edifice of the cultural.

What we propose through this Journal is an extension of this thought. Along with various semiotic, symptomatic, social, political, or/and movemental readings, can we also think of the literary as a form of perception that does not restrict itself to the field and discourse of literature as literary text? Can a gendered or racial reading of an 'event' (the act or the thought) be termed literary, where the word literary acts as an analytic mode, a ground of perception and a way of knowing? We aim to place literary as an analytic category which is not reducible to discourse or ideology and can traverse both the grounds of the primacy of feelings and sensations and the conditions which produce that feeling. We encourage the writers not only to question the ground of a text with a particular challenging 'theory', but also to think why those theories are considered subversive and given privilege over others.

To do away with confusion and inconvenience, we will not use any special character in spelling the word Sanglāp. It will be known as Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry. The Journal will be open-access and published twice a year (June and December). Each issue will carry a specific theme, and depending upon the response, we may extend the theme for a further issue. We look forward to articles that cater to the themes in an interdisciplinary manner. The Journal will not charge any processing, publishing or such fees. It is a voluntary act that aims to present the variety, depth and potency of thoughts across research circles all over the world. 

The articles will go through peer-reviewing process from experts in the field. We aim to notify the decisions within two months. Should a writer intend to withdraw his/her article within the stipulated time, he/she must take permission from the editors signing a letter of declaration. We are strictly against plagiarism, and upon acceptance of articles, the authors have to sign a statement against plagiarism and such acts, and abide by the copyright policy of the Journal.