Of Matters Modern
The Experience of Modernity in Colonial and Post-colonial South Asia
9781905422623
Distributed for Seagull Books
Of Matters Modern
The Experience of Modernity in Colonial and Post-colonial South Asia
Of matters Modern analyses the experience of modernity in South Asia. Arguing that South Asia´s experience of modernity has to be understood in a global context, the book explores a wide range of topics: the emergence of ‘Assam Fever’ in colonial discourse; an experiment with fusion music in early colonial India; The emergence of detective fiction in colonial Punjab; the search for authenticity among nationalist and post-colonial thinkers; the critique of the Bhadralok by a Bhadralok writer; the experience of modernity in Kolkata during early twentieth century; the emergence of a cosmopolitan ‘underworld’ in Kolkata during the nineteenth century; the Italian connections of a Bengali poet, Michael Madhusudan Dutta; the ambivalence of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan; the construction of Gandhari in Amar Chitra Katha, a comic strip series for children
Table of Contents
Editor’s Note
Introduction: Six Notes on a Partly Understood Phenomenon
Debraj Bhattacharya
Who Sang the Hybrid Muse?: ’Fusion’ Music in Late-Eighteenth-Century India
Sharmadip Basu
The Assam Fever: Identities of a Disease and Diseases of an Identity
Bodhisattva Kar
Sahib Outlaws in Colonial Calcutta
Sumanta Banerjee
Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824-73): A Bengali Poet with Italian Connections
William Radice
The Politics of Reformist Islam in India: The Ambiguous Legacy of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan
Kingshuk Chatterjee
Zalim Daku and the Mystery of the Rubber Sea Monster: Urdu Detective Fiction in 1930s’ Punjab and the Experience of Colonial Modernity
Markus Daechsel
Three Narratives on Modernity in a Colonial Metropolis: Calcutta During the Early Twentieth Century
Debraj Bhattacharya
Critique of the Bhadralok and the Bhadralok Critic
Parimal Ghosh
Supermother for a Nation: Reading Gandhari
Aryak Guha
Residual Nationalism and the Indian (Radical?) Intellectual: On Indigenism, Authenticity and the Colonizer’s Presents
Benjamin Zachariah
Notes on Contributors
Index
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