Academic Bio
Jane is a PhD candidate, completing a joint degree NELC and SALC. Her research interests include early modern Persian literature, Islamic thought, the creative convergences between Indic and Islamic ideas in premodern South Asia, religion and literature, poetry and poetics, comparative literature, and theories of the lyric. Jane’s dissertation, “Worlds of the Imagination: Bīdel, Ḥazīn, and Early Modern Persian Lyric Style,” studies the entanglements between imagination, Persian lyric poetry, and Islamic thought in early modern India and Iran. Lyric at this time was a premier genre for rigorous thinking on complex topics typically seen as falling within the scope of disciplines like philosophy and theology (the capacities and limitations of the human soul; the nature of time; epistemology; practices of the self). Arguing for the fundamental inseparability of doctrine and lyric style, Jane’s dissertation shows how the lyric thought of Bīdel of Delhi (d.1721) and Ḥazīn of Esfahan (d.1766) accomodates reflection on both the abstract propositional content and the subjective experience of Islamic ideas. Supported by a Provost's Dissertation Completion Fellowship (2018-2019), Jane is defending this year.