Dirk WIEMANN, Genres of Modernity. Contemporary Indian Novelsin English.
Amsterdam/New York, Rodopi, collection "InternationaleForschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft" n° 120
2008, x-334 p.
- Isbn 13 (ean): 978-90-420-2493-9
Présentation de l'éditeur
Genres ofModernity maps the conjunctures of critical theory and literary production incontemporary India. The volume situates a sample ofrepresentative novels in the discursive environment of the ongoing criticaldebate on modernity in India, and offers for the first time a rigorous attemptto hold together the stimulating impulses of postcolonial theory, subalternstudies and the boom of Indian fiction in English. In opposition to theentrenched narrative of modernity as a single, universally valid formationoriginating in the West, the theoretical and literary texts under discussionengage in a shared project of refiguring the present as a site of heterogeneousgenres of modernity. The book traces these figurative efforts with particularattention to the treatment of two privileged metonymies of modernity: theissues of time and home in Indian fiction. Combining close readings of literarytexts from Salman Rushdie to Kiran Nagarkar with a wide range of philosophical,sociological and historiographic reflections, Genres of Modernity is ofinterest not only for students of postcolonial literatures but for academics inthe fields of Cultural Studies at large.
Table des matières :
Introduction
EncounteringIndian Novels in English
A ModernityThat Is not One. Situating Indian Writing in English
Meanwhile,in Indian Standard Time. Figuring Time and Nation
Mythologisingthe Quotidian. Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel
Typing theMinutes. Vikram Chandra'sRed Earth and Pouring Rain
ViolentSeparation - ViolentFusion. Kiran Nagarkar'sCuckold
UnimaginedCommunities. Vikram Seth'sA Suitable Boy
TwoVersions of Sans Souci. The Public Life of Domesticity
WritingHome. Into the Interior with Amit Chaudhuri
The AquaticIdeal. The House as Archive in Amitav Ghosh's Writings
Desire andDomestic Friction: Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things
StillPostcolonial after All These Years. Instead of a Conclusion
Bibliography
Index