Representing Calcutta: Modernity, Nationalism and the Colonial Uncanny

by Chattopadhyay; Swati

• ISBN13: 9780415392167
• ISBN10: 0415392160
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2006-04-17
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Representing Calcutta: Modernity, Nationalism, and the Colonial Uncannyis a spatial history of colonial Calcutta, addressing the question of modernity that haunts our perception of Calcutta. The book responds to two interrelated concerns about the city. The first is the image of Calcutta as the worst case scenario of a Third World city - the proverbial "city of dreadful nights." The second is the changing nature of the city's public spaces - the demise of certain forms of urban sociality that have been mourned in recent literature as the passing of Bengali modernity. This book explores the history of the city, focusing in particular on its emergence from colonialism into postcolonial modernity. Drawing on postcolonial and spatial theory, the author analyzes the city under British colonial rule and in its later incarnations, and also examines such issues as gender, identity, and nationalism. It is an essential text for scholars with an interest in colonialism, South Asia, and urban development.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	xi
Acknowledgments	xiv
Introduction: the city in historical imagination	1	(1)
Representing modernity and nationalism	1	(5)
Received histories	6	(4)
Thinking spatially	10	(4)
Public space	14	(5)
Plan of this book	19	(2)
The colonial uncanny	21	(55)
Eye of a European	21	(7)
Drawing boundaries	28	(5)
Scientific accuracy and the picturesque	33	(13)
Depicting Calcutta	46	(16)
Pathological space	62	(6)
From picturesque paintings to health maps	68	(8)
The limits of ``white'' town	76	(60)
Topographic palimpsest	76	(16)
Built for speculation	92	(17)
Out of England?	109	(9)
``A long opera''	118	(18)
Locating mythic selves	136	(43)
Public sphere and public space	136	(5)
Discursive strategies	141	(9)
Translating architecture	150	(17)
The art of remembering	167	(12)
Telling stories	179	(46)
Dwelling in modernity	179	(7)
The speech culture of the middle class	186	(8)
On the edge of the street	194	(22)
The language of material culture	216	(9)
Death in public	225	(49)
Women in public	225	(4)
Representing sexual transgression	229	(8)
Desire and devotion in nationalist imagination	237	(11)
Displacement	248	(6)
The trouble with their bodies	254	(11)
Mapping domesticity	265	(9)
Conclusion: the politics of representation	274	(7)
Notes	281	(24)
Index	305