Native Intelligence: Aesthetics, Politics, and Postcolonial LiteratureA compelling reclamation of the place of aesthetics in postcolonial literature. "Literature" though it may be, postcolonial literature is studied and understood largely--and often solely--in social and political terms. In neglecting its aesthetic dimension, as this book forcefully demonstrates, we are overlooking not only an essential aspect of this literature but even a critical perspective on its sociopolitical function and value. In Native Intelligence, Deepika Bahri focuses on postcolonial literature's formal and aesthetic negotiations with sociopolitical concerns. How, Bahri asks, do aesthetic considerations contest the social function of postcolonial literature? In answering, her book takes on two tasks: First, it identifies the burden of representation borne by post-colonial literature through its progressive politicization. Second, it draws on Frankfurt School critical theory to reclaim a place for aesthetics in literary representation by closely engaging works of Rohinton Mistry, Salman Rushdie, and Arundhati Roy. Throughout, Bahri shows how attention to the aesthetic innovations and utopian impulses of postcolonial works uncovers their complex and uneven relationship to ideology, reanimating their potential to make novel contributions to the larger project of social liberation. |
Contents
Postcolonialism and the Irish Case | 55 |
THREE | 71 |
The Aesthetic Dimension of Representation | 88 |
FOUR | 120 |
FIVE | 152 |
Notes | 247 |
| 267 | |
| 283 | |
Other editions - View all
Native Intelligence: Aesthetics, Politics, and Postcolonial Literature Deepika Bahri No preview available - 2003 |
Common terms and phrases
Adorno Aesthetic Dimension Aesthetic Theory Antaeus argues artistic artwork Benjamin capitalism challenge colonial complex concept contemporary context Critical Theory critique cultural dialectical difference discourse discussion dominant Eagleton empire essay experience Field Day formal Frankfurt School global Grimus Gustad Heaney Heaney's Hercules human hybridity identity ideological imperial India insists Ireland Irish Kathakali language literary logic Marcuse Marcuse's Marx Marxist memory Midnight's Children mimesis Mistry's mode modernity Moor's Last Sigh narrative narrator nation native intelligence nature nevertheless novel object particular past poem poetic political possible postcolo postcolonial critic postcolonial literature postcolonial studies postcolonial text postcolonial theory postmodern potential production reader reading reality relation remembrance representation resistance Roy's Rushdie's Salman Rushdie Seamus Heaney sense Small Things social space story storyteller structure struggle subaltern suggests Theodor Adorno theorists Third World tion tradition transformation ture understanding University Press utopia Velutha wall Walter Benjamin writing York