Rabindranath Tagore: Universality and Tradition

In the West, Tagore (1861-1941) is generally thought of as a devotional poet, but in his native India, his strong if quirky political and social views are well known. Here, Eastern and Western scholars of various humanities and social and natural sciences explore some of the ways he contested received opinion, challenged doctrine and practice, and advocated empathy and universalism. Distributed in the US by Associated University Presses. Annotation (c) Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Patrick Colm Hogan is a Professor in the Department of English at the University of Connecticut. He is also on the faculty of the Cognitive Science Program, the Program in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies and the India Studies Program. He is the author of thirteen books, including The Mind and its Stories: Narrative Universals and Human Emotion (Cambridge University Press, 2003), hailed by Steven Pinker of Harvard University as 'a landmark in modern intellectual life', and the editor or co-editor of four books, including The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Language Sciences.