Gita Rajan

Radhika Mohanram

At the heart of coloniality and postcoloniality is the idea of empire. This book examines various theories of empire, and how they create networks of discourse in contemporary postcolonial settings. In exploring the idea of empire, the contributors consider such constructions as nation and modernity, identity politics, the status and role of exiles, and border intellectuals. Postcolonial texts considered include literature and films.

Theory and Criticism

Postcolonial Discourse and Changing Cultural Contexts

From Algeria to the Antipodes, the female black body, when viewed through the colonial lens, represents all that is dangerous and unknown in an alien land. Its true significance can be understood only through the concept of space, because a "black body" is understood as "black" only outside of its context, its "place" -- and a female black body is doubly out of place. Yet for all its importance to racial identity, Radhika Mohanram argues, space has been submerged and overlooked in postcolonial theory. Accordingly, she develops in Black Body a theory of identity situated within space and place rather than the more familiar models of identity formation that emphasize time. Mohanram's emphasis on space brings out the connections among various strands in postcolonial studies: the politics of displacement, the concept of diasporic identity versus indigenous identity, the identity of woman in the nation and the spatial construction of femininity, the association of the black body with nature and landscape and the white body with knowledge. Drawing on the work of Fanon. Merleau-Ponty, and Levi-Strauss, Black Body interrogates theories produced in the Northern Hemisphere and questions their value for the Southern Hemisphere. The relationship between the female black body and the white male body effectively and tellingly parallels the relationship between the two hemispheres.

Women, Colonialism, and Space

Black Body

Anindya Raychaudhuri

Partitions and their Afterlives engages with political partitions and how their aftermath affects the contemporary life of nations and their citizens.

Radhika Mohanram

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