USING A POET'S ARCHIVE TO WRITE THE HISTORY OF A UNIVERSITY: RABINDRANATH TAGORE AND VISVA-BHARATI

摘要

The poet Rabindranath Tagore was the founder of an institution that we know today as Visva-Bharati University situated in the twin towns of Santiniketan and Sriniketan in rural southern Bengal about a hundred miles north west of the city of Calcutta. Starting it as an experimental school in 1901 he added an international university and an institute of rural reconstruction in 1921 and 1922. He named the university Visva-Bharati, world learning. The making of this cosmopolitan institution was central to his national and international concerns throughout his life. It was an experiment for an education which sought to work for a common humanity, locally and globally.