Dr Himansu Mohapatra, who retired as Professor of English from the Utkal University last year, took over as the Editor of Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics (JCLA).
“I have to first of all absorb its ethos and spirit which was breathed into it by its immensely inventive Founding Editor Prof AC Sukla who thought of it 40 years ago in the remote and non-descript western Odishan town of Burla where the journal started. Any extension or refinement of the vision and mission of the journal to be brought in later has to be on its basic foundation,” Dr Mohapatra said.
Celebrated American philosopher Prof Richard Shusterman will continue as the International Editor of the journal.
The JCLA is a half-yearly international journal committed to multi-disciplinary studies in comparative literature, cultural theory, aesthetics, philosophy and criticism of the arts, and history of ideas, and is published by the Vishvanatha Kaviraja Institute since 1978. The Institute was founded in 1977 on the occasion of the birth centenary of pioneering historian and philosopher of Indian art Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy (1877-1947).
The journal has already published celebrated scholars like Rene Wellek, Harold Osborne, John Hospers, John Fisher, Murray Krieger, Mary Wiseman, SC Sengupta, PS Sastri, KRS Iyengar, VK Chari, Charles Altieri, Jonathan Culler and many others. Legends like Mircea Eliade, Monroe Beardsley, MH Abrams, John Boulton and many renowned Indian scholars were members of its editorial board at the time of inception.
