Of Matters Modern : The Experience of Modernity in Colonial and Post-Colonial South Asia

by Debraj Bhattacharya

• ISBN13: 9781905422623
• ISBN10: 1905422628
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2008-11-11
• Publisher: Seagull Books

Summary

Of matters Modern analyses the experience of modernity in South Asia. Arguing that South Asia's experience of modernity has to be understood in a global context, the book explores a wide range of topics: the emergence of 'Assam Fever' in colonial discourse; an experiment with fusion music in early colonial India; The emergence of detective fiction in colonial Punjab; the search for authenticity among nationalist and post-colonial thinkers; the critique of the Bhadralok by a Bhadralok writer; the experience of modernity in Kolkata during early twentieth century; the emergence of a cosmopolitan 'underworld' in Kolkata during the nineteenth century; the Italian connections of a Bengali poet, Michael Madhusudan Dutta; the ambivalence of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan; the construction of Gandhari in Amar Chitra Katha, a comic strip series for children.

Author Biography

Debraj Bhattacharya is an independent researcher based in Kolkata and has published on the 'underworld' of Calcutta during the early Twentieth Century.

Table of Contents

Editor's Note	p. ix
Introduction: Six Notes on a Partly Understood Phenomenon	p. 1
Who Sang the Hybrid Muse?: 'Fusion' Music in Late-Eighteenth-Century India	p. 18
The Assam Fever: Identities of a Disease and Diseases of an Identity	p. 78
Sahib Outlaws in Colonial Calcutta	p. 126
Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824-73): A Bengali Poet with Italian Connections	p. 149
The Politics of Reformist Islam in India: The Ambiguous Legacy of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan	p. 173
Zalim Daku and the Mystery of the Rubber Sea Monster: Urdu Detective Fiction in 1930s' Punjab and the Experience of Colonial Modernity	p. 204
Three Narratives on Modernity in a Colonial Metropolis: Calcutta During the Early Twentieth Century	p. 242
Critique of the Bhadralok and the Bhadralok Critic	p. 271
Supermother for a Nation: Reading Gandhari	p. 304
Residual Nationalism and the Indian (Radical?) Intellectual: On Indigenism, Authenticity and the Colonizer's Presents	p. 330
Notes on Contributors	p. 360
Index	p. 363
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