After the Imperial Turn

by Burton, Antoinette M.; Pennybacker, Susan D. (CON); Ward, Stuart (CON); Streets, Heather (CON)

• ISBN13: 9780822331421
• ISBN10: 082233142X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-06-01
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

From a variety of historically grounded perspectives, After the Imperial Turn assesses the fate of the nation as a subject of disciplinary inquiry. In light of the turn toward scholarship focused on imperialism and postcolonialism, this provocative collection investigates whether the nation remains central, adequate, or even possible as an analytical category for studying history. These twenty essays, primarily by historians, exemplify cultural approaches to histories of nationalism and imperialism even as they critically examine the implications of such approaches. While most of the contributors discuss British imperialism and its repercussions, the volume also includes, as counterpoints, essays on the history and historiography of France, Germany, Spain, and the United States. Whether looking at the history of the passport or the teaching of history from a post-national perspective, this collection explores such vexed issues as how historians might resist the seduction of national narratives, what-if anything-might replace the nation's hegemony, and how even history-writing that interrogates the idea of the nation remains ideologically and methodologically indebted to national narratives. Putting nation-based studies in international and interdisciplinary contexts, After the Imperial Turn points toward ways of writing history and analyzing culture attentive both to the inadequacies and endurance of the nation as an organizing rubric. Contributors. Tony Ballantyne, Antoinette Burton, Ann Curthoys, Augusto Espiritu, Karen Fang, Ian Christopher Fletcher, Robert Gregg, Terri Hasseler, Clement Hawes, Douglas M. Haynes, Kristin Hoganson, Paula Krebs, Lara Kriegel, Radhika Viyas Mongia, Susan Pennybacker, John Plotz, Christopher Schmidt-Nowara, Heather Streets, Hsu-Ming Teo, Stuart Ward, Lora Wildenthal, Gary Wilder

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
ANTOINETTE BURTON Introduction: On the Inadequacy and the Indispensability of the Nation	1	(342)
1 Nations, Empires, Disciplines:Thinking beyond the Boundaries
SUSAN D. PENNYBACKER
Rethinking British Studies: Is There Life after Empire?	27	(17)
STUART WARD
Transcending the Nation: A Global Imperial History?	44	(13)
HEATHER STREETS
Empire and "the Nation": Institutional Practice, Pedagogy, and Nation in the Classroom	57	(13)
ANN CURTHOYS
We've Just Started Making National Histories, and You Want Us to Stop Already?	70	(20)
TERRI A. HASSELER AND PAULA M. KREBS
Losing Our Way after the Imperial Turn: Charting Academic Uses of the Postcolonial	90	(12)
TONY BALLANTYNE
Rereading the Archive and Opening up the Nation-State: Colonial Knowledge in South Asia (and Beyond)	102	(23)
2 Fortresses and Frontiers: Beyond and Within
GARY WILDER
Unthinking French History: Colonial Studies beyond National Identity	125	(19)
LORA WILDENTHAL
Notes on a History of "Imperial Turns" in Modern Germany	144	(13)
CHRISTOPHER SCHMIDT-NOWARA
After "Spain":A Dialogue with Josep M. Fradera on Spanish Colonial Historiography	157
ROBERT GREGG
Making the World Safe for American History	170	(16)
AUGUSTO ESPIRITU
Asian American Global Discourses and the Problem of History	186	(10)
RADHIKA VIYAS MONGIA
Race, Nationality, Mobility: A History of the Passport	196	(21)
3 Reorienting the Nation: Logics of Empire, Colony, Globe
CLEMENT HAWES
Periodizing Johnson: Anticolonial Modernity as Crux and Critique	217	(13)
LARA KRIEGEL
The Pudding and the Palace: Labor, Print Culture, and Imperial Britain in 1851	230	(16)
IAN CHRISTOPHER FLETCHER
Double Meanings: Nation and Empire in the Edwardian Era	246	(14)
KRISTIN HOGANSON
The Fashionable World: Imagined Communities of Dress	260	(19)
HSU-MING TEO
The Romance of White Nations: Imperialism, Popular Culture, and National Histories	279	(14)
KAREN FANG
Britain's Finest: The Royal Hong Kong Police	293	(15)
JOHN PLOTZ
One-Way Traffic: George Lamming and the Portable Empire	308	(16)
DOUGLAS M. HAYNES
The Whiteness of Civilization: The Transatlantic Crisis of White Supremacy and British Television Programming in the United States in the 1970's,	324	(19)
Selected Bibliography	343	(14)
About the Contributors	357	(4)
Index	361