Another Asia Rabindranath Tagore and Okakura Tenshin

by Bharucha, Rustom

• ISBN13: 9780198062813
• ISBN10: 0198062818
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-08-31
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Set against a panoramic background of inter-Asian cultural politics, and drawing on the intersections of the late Meiji period in Japan and the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, Another Asia elaborates on the ideals of Asia catalyzed by the meeting of Rabindranath Tagore and the Japanese arthistorian and curator Okakura Tenshin in Calcutta in 1902. The book weaves through an intricate tapestry of ideas relating to pan-Asianism, nationalism, cosmopolitanism, and friendship, and positions the early modernist tensions of the period within - and against - the spectre of a unified Asia thatconcealed considerable political differences. The book draws on pan-Asian works such as The Ideals of the East and The Awakening of the East, in counterpoint to Tagore's radical Nationalism. The book, offering new insights into the ways in which the Orient travelled within and beyond Asia stimulatedby emergent modes of vernacular cosmopolitanism, will appeal to students and scholars of cultural studies, South Asian postcolonial literature, literary theory, and performance studies, as well as general readers.

Author Biography

Rustom Bharucha is an independent writer, director, and cultural critic.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Prologue

Asia

What is Asia?

One Asia

The Nation as Museum

Implicit Hierarchies

The Awakening of the East

Encountering Nivedita

Problematizing the Postcolonial

The Complication of Beauty

Nationalism

The Enigma of Silence;

Swadeshi Samaj

Gora's Bharatbarsha

Negotiating 'Nothingness'

Against Nationalism

Reorienting the Orient

Crisis in 'Civilization'

Grounds of Misunderstanding

Discriminating the Modern

Homage to the West

'Our History'

Countering Tagore

Cosmopolitanism

Asian Cosmopolitans?

Reclaiming Cosmopolitanism

The Subaltern 'Cosmopolitan'

Negotiating Privilege

Cultural Property, or Loot?

Cosmopolitics of Dress and Language

The Cosmopolitan in Exile

Friendship

The Intertexts of Love

Beyond Masculinity

Homosociality in Context

Modalities of Friendship

Foreign Friends

War and Friendship

Epilogue

Notes

References

Index

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