Professor emeritus to deliver Feb. 11 lecture on partition of India

February 9, 2015 | Events, UToday, — Languages, Literature and Social Sciences
By Kevin Bucher



The Humanities Institute will feature Dr. S. Amjad Hussain as part of its Everyday Humanities: Occasional Talks on the Meaning of the Humanities to Our Lives Series.

The free, public event will take place Wednesday, Feb. 11, at 5:30 p.m. in Libbey Hall on Main Campus.

Hussain’s lecture is titled “The Partition of the Indian Subcontinent Through the Prism of Literature.”

The partition of India was the process of dividing the subcontinent along religious lines that took place in 1947 as the country gained its independence from the British Raj. The northern, predominantly Muslim sections of India became the nation of Pakistan, while the southern and majority Hindu section became the Republic of India. More than 1 million people were killed as a result of religious conflicts.

Hussain said he will focus on writers and poets who wrote about the separation from their unbiased points of view.

He wants to shed light on the partition “through the lens of literature.”

“I hope people leave with a better sense of how tragic the event was and more knowledge of the partition,” he said.

Hussain is a UT professor emeritus of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, a member of the UT Board of Trustees, and a columnist for The Blade. Most recently, he authored a book, With Whom Shall I Talk in the Dead of Night.

Hussain poster

Click to access the login or register cheese