Colonial Narratives/Cultural Dialogues: 'Discoveries' of India in the Language of Colonialism [Hardcover]

Colonial Narratives/Cultural Dialogues demonstrates the continuing validity of the colonial paradigm as it maps the geographical, political, and imaginative space of 'India/Indies' from the seventeenth century to the present. Breaking new ground in postcolonial studies, Jyotsna Singh highlights the interconnections among early modern colonial encounters, later manifestations in the Raj and their lingering influence in the postcolonial Indian nationalist state.
Singh challenges the assumption of eye-witness accounts and unmeditated experiences implcit in colonial representational practices, and often left unchallenged in the postcolonial era.
Essential introductory reading for students and academics, Colonial Narratives/Cultural Dialogues re-evaluates the following texts:
* seventeenth century travel narratives about India
* eighteenth century 'nabob' texts
* letters of the Orientalist, Sir William Jones
* reviews of Shakespearean productions in Calcutta and postcolonial Indo-Anglian novelsUsing Shakespeare as a case in point, this book shows how the study of English literature was implicated in the ideology of the empires in colonies such as India. The author argues that these studies promote Western culture.Introduction 1. Discoveries, Encounters, Spectacles: Colonial Beginnings 2. English Nabobs: Eighteenth Century Orientalism, 3. The Gendering of Empire 4. Shakespeare and the 'Civilizing Mission' 5. 'The Blind Age': Discovering the Postcolonial NationUS? 1996 Jyotsna G. Singh