Sukla, Ananta Charan 1942-

PERSONAL:

Born November 13, 1942, in Bhadrak, India; son of Jayakrushna (a Brahmin priest) and Pabitra Kumari (a homemaker) Sukla; married; wife's name Indulata (a university professor); children: Ambika Nrusimha (son), Viraja Varaha (son). Education: Jadavpur University (Kolkata, India), M.A. (English), 1965, Ph.D., 1974; Utkal University (Bhubaneswar, India), M.A. (philosophy), 1969; attended Sahityacharya (Utkal, India), 1979. Religion: Hindu.

ADDRESSES:

Home—A/42, Sector 7, Markat Nagar, Cuttack 753014, Orissa, India. E-mail—anantasukla@ hotmail.com; anantasukla@rediffmail.com.

CAREER:

Writer and educator. College teacher in India, 1965-82; Sambalpur University, Orissa, India, professor of English, comparative aesthetics, and literature, 1982-2002; retired, 2002. Vishvanatha Kaviraja Institute of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, founding secretary, 1977; University of Siena, visiting professor and honorary associate of Loro Group of Studies in Comparative Aesthetics; visiting professor at institutions throughout the world, including Uppsala University, University of Helsinki, National University of Wales, University College, Cardiff, University of Liverpool, and Cambridge University.

WRITINGS:

Model Expansions, Friends Publishers (Cuttack, India), 1965.

The Concept of Imitation in Greek and Indian Aesthetics, Rupa (Calcutta, India), 1977.

Representation in Contemporary Criticism, Rupa (Calcutta, India), 1989.

Deconstruction in Contemporary Criticism, Rupa (Calcutta, India), 1989.

Art and Experience, Praeger Publishers (Westport, CT), 2003.

(With Stephen Davies) Art and Essence, Praeger Publishers (Westport, CT), 2003.

(With Michael Mitias) Art and Expression, Praeger Publishers (Westport, CT), 2003.

Visvanatha Kaviraja (monograph), Sahitya Akademi (New Delhi, India), in press.

Work in Oriya language includes translation of Aristotle's Poetics; an anthology of short stories; and translation of a collection of classical Greek plays. Work represented in anthologies, including Indian Poetics and Western Thought, Argo Publishers (Lucknow, India), 1988; The Major Currents of Twentieth-Century Aesthetics, edited by Grazia Marchiano, [Milan, Italy,] 1991; Indian Response to Literary Theory, Volume 2, [Delhi, India,] 1996; East and West in Aesthetics, edited by Grazia Marchiano, [Siena, Italy,] 1997; and Frontiers of Transculturality in Contemporary Aesthetics, edited by Grazia Marchiano and Raffaele Milani, [Turin, Italy,] 2001. Contributor to periodicals. Founding editor, Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, beginning 1978. Founding member of editorial board, International Yearbook of Aesthetics, 1996

SIDELIGHTS:

Ananta Charan Sukla told CA: "I started writing stories, poems, and plays in my mother tongue (Oriya) in my childhood at the age of twelve. I also painted pictures and made clay images. I continue my Oriya writing today.

"In my university days I was influenced by my teachers, like Professors S.C. Sengutpa and Jagannatha Chakravorty, to concentrate on critical issues in art, literature, language, and culture. I developed my interest in Indian philosophy and all the branches of Sanskrit literary culture during my undergraduate days and trained myself in Sanskrit language. In the 1960s I undertook comparative studies in the critical issues of Aristotelian and Sanskrit traditions that shaped my doctoral dissertation, which was finally published in book form in 1977. Along with philosophy of art and language I also developed my interest in philosophy of religion, presently formulating my thinking in interdisciplinary areas.

"Apart from critical thinking in their formal disciplines, I feel creative and critical thinking belong to the same faculty of mind: one and undivided. For instance, while writing or thinking about a philosopher or linguist like Patanjali or Saussure, I feel they are characters in a novel or a short story. So I experience no difference between the creative and critical thinking, although they have frequently been differentiated.

"I clarify myself while writing, and writing is neither a hobby nor a professor, but the very identity of my existence."