Prof Santanu Das delivers Manchester Lecture 2025 on Rabindranath Tagore

Prof Santanu Das speaking at the lectern of the college chapel with one hand outstretched

Prof Santanu Das in the College Chapel during the Manchester Lecture

On Monday 12 May, in Harris Manchester College’s newly renovated Chapel, Professor Santanu Das delivered the Manchester Lecture 2025. The subject of his lecture – entitled “Cosmopoetics in a World of Borders: Tagore, Oxford and the World” – was the Indian Nobel Prize winning poet, songwriter, philosopher and educationalist Rabindranath Tagore. 

In a wide-ranging lecture, Professor Das, Senior Research Fellow in English and Professor of Modern Literature and Culture at All Souls College, explored the life and works of Tagore, and his links with literary and cultural figures in the West – as well as his connection to HMC, which he visited twice, in 1913 and 1930. 

As the title of the lecture suggests, Professor Das also examined Tagore’s relevance in the modern era of heightened nationalism, fast-closing borders and increasing conflict. His lecture was accompanied by extracts from Tagore’s songs and poetry, as well as a number of photographs from HMC’s Library Archives that highlighted the College’s history of welcoming individuals from different cultures to Oxford. 

This open spirit was also alluded to by College Principal Professor Jane Shaw in her introduction: “The Manchester Lecture series has its roots in our thinking together as a group of Fellows and staff over the past few years about the College's sometimes surprising and often radical history.” 

This was the second Manchester Lecture, following last year’s inaugural lecture on William and Elizabeth Gaskell, delivered by Professor Dinah Birch CBE, and attracted a particularly large audience, with the College’s Chapel near to capacity with guests from the University and beyond. 

The full video of the Manchester Lecture 2025 will shortly be available on the College’s YouTube channel. You can also read more about HMC and its links to the nineteenth century Indian society Brahmo Samaj and Tagore in this blog by our Librarian Kate Alderson-Smith.