Introduction

After a brief overview of previous work on the links between India and Germany, this introduction highlights the “rhizomic” nature of the multitudinous intersections that exist across a wide array of domains: literary, social, political, economic, cultural, and religious. The contributions employ transnational approaches to explore German-Indian intersections as a means to foster our understanding and the practice of transnational history. Yet rather than providing an exhaustive theoretical account of transnational praxis, this introduction provides an actual example through a close reading of Anita Desai’s 1988 novel, Baumgartner’s Bombay, to examine the intersection of Germany and India in the field of literary studies and memory. This introductory analysis of Desai’s work emphasizes a “connective” approach to transnational history rather than a “comparative” one that serves to preface the entangled histories that the volume explores.