Spatial Imaginings in the Age of Colonial Cartographic Reason

Spatial Imaginings in the Age of Colonial Cartographic Reason PDF Author: Nilanjana Mukherjee
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000193292
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
This volume explores how India as a geographical space was constructed by the British colonial regime in visual and material terms. It demonstrates the instrumentalisation of cultural artefacts such as landscape paintings, travel literature and cartography, as spatial practices overtly carrying scientific truth claims, to materially produce artificial spaces that reinforced power relations. It sheds light on the primary dominance of cartographic reason in the age of European Enlightenment which framed aesthetic and scientific modes of representation and imagination. The author cross-examines this imperial gaze as a visual perspective which bore the material inscriptions of a will to assert, possess and control. The distinguishing theme in this study is the production of India as a new geography sourced from Britain's own interaction with its rural outskirts and domination in its fringes. This book: Addresses the concept of "production of space" to study the formulation of a colonial geography which resulted in the birth of a new place, later a nation; Investigates a generative period in the formation of British India c. 1750–1850 as a colonial territory vis-à-vis its representation and reiteration in British maps, landscape paintings and travel writings; Brings Great Britain and British India together on one plane not only in terms of the physical geo-spaces but also in the excavation of critical domains by alluding to critics from both spaces; Seeks to understand the pictorial grammar that legitimised the expansive British imperial cartographic gaze as the dominant narrative which marginalised all other existing local ideas of space and inhabitation. Rethinking colonial constructions of modern India, this volume will be of immense interest to scholars and researchers of modern history, cultural geography, colonial studies, English literature, cultural studies, art, visual studies and area studies.

Spatial Imaginings in the Age of Colonial Cartographic Reason

Spatial Imaginings in the Age of Colonial Cartographic Reason PDF Author: Nilanjana Mukherjee
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000193292
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume explores how India as a geographical space was constructed by the British colonial regime in visual and material terms. It demonstrates the instrumentalisation of cultural artefacts such as landscape paintings, travel literature and cartography, as spatial practices overtly carrying scientific truth claims, to materially produce artificial spaces that reinforced power relations. It sheds light on the primary dominance of cartographic reason in the age of European Enlightenment which framed aesthetic and scientific modes of representation and imagination. The author cross-examines this imperial gaze as a visual perspective which bore the material inscriptions of a will to assert, possess and control. The distinguishing theme in this study is the production of India as a new geography sourced from Britain's own interaction with its rural outskirts and domination in its fringes. This book: Addresses the concept of "production of space" to study the formulation of a colonial geography which resulted in the birth of a new place, later a nation; Investigates a generative period in the formation of British India c. 1750–1850 as a colonial territory vis-à-vis its representation and reiteration in British maps, landscape paintings and travel writings; Brings Great Britain and British India together on one plane not only in terms of the physical geo-spaces but also in the excavation of critical domains by alluding to critics from both spaces; Seeks to understand the pictorial grammar that legitimised the expansive British imperial cartographic gaze as the dominant narrative which marginalised all other existing local ideas of space and inhabitation. Rethinking colonial constructions of modern India, this volume will be of immense interest to scholars and researchers of modern history, cultural geography, colonial studies, English literature, cultural studies, art, visual studies and area studies.

Empire and Leprosy in Colonial Bengal

Empire and Leprosy in Colonial Bengal PDF Author: Apalak Das
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003862241
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Leprosy, widely mentioned in different religious texts and ancient scriptures, is the oldest scourge of humankind. Cases of leprosy continue to be found across the world as the most crucial health problem, especially in India and Brazil. There are a few maladies that eventually turn into social disquiets, and leprosy is undoubtedly one of them. This book traces the dynamics of the interface between colonial policy on leprosy and religion, science and society in Bengal from the mid-nineteenth to the first half of the twentieth centuries. It explores how the idea of ‘degeneration’ and the ‘desolates’ shaped the colonial legality of segregating ‘lepers’ in Indian society. The author also delves into the treatments of leprosy that were often transfigured from ‘original’ English texts, written by American or British medical professionals, into Bengali. Rich in archival resources, this book is an essential read for scholars and researchers of history, Indian history, public health, social history, medical humanities, medical history and colonial history.

Science and Society in Modern India

Science and Society in Modern India PDF Author: Deepak Kumar
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 100935065X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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Book Description
The book delineates the role and place of the Western scientific discourse which occupied an important place in the colonization of India. During the colonial period, science became one of the foundations of Indian modernity and the nation-state. Gradually, the educated Indians sought to locate modern scientific ideas and principles within Indian culture and adopted those for the economic regeneration of the country. The discursive terrain of the history of science, especially in the context of a society with a very long and complex past, is bound to be replete with numerous debates on its nature and evolution, its changing contours, its complex civilizational journey, and finally, the enormous impact it has on our own life and time. The book offers a useful introduction to science, society, and government interface in the Indian context.

Decolonial Travel

Decolonial Travel PDF Author: Avishek Ray
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040223788
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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Book Description
This volume brings together scholarship on indigenous forms of travel to decolonize travel theory. It looks at certain minoritarian-vernacular traveling cults – very rarely examined – that compel us to rethink, on the one hand, the conventional tropes of and rationales for travel; and, on the other hand, notions of (post)coloniality, nationalism and modernity in the context of India. The book illustrates the enduring problematic of the ‘colonial episteme’: how it deploys pervasive categories through which travel practices are sought to be understood, and why such categories are inadequate in accounting for the vernacular traveling cults in question. In studying the vernacular world-making in and through these cults, this book offers critical insights on how they defy the log(ist)ics of the ‘imperial categories’ and why they must be read as expressions of decoloniality. An important contribution to travel studies, the book will be an indispensable resource for students and researchers of South Asian studies, travel theory, Indian literary and cultural studies, cultural history and anthropology, sociology, and decoloniality.

Intellectual and Imaginative Cartographies in Early Modern England

Intellectual and Imaginative Cartographies in Early Modern England PDF Author: Patrick J. Murray
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000635791
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
Taking as its focus an age of transformational development in cartographic history, namely the two centuries between Columbus’s arrival in the New World and the emergence of the Scientific Revolution, this study examines how maps were employed as physical and symbolic objects by thinkers, writers and artists. It surveys how early modern people used the map as an object, whether for enjoyment or political campaigning, colonial invasion or teaching in the classroom. Exploring a wide range of literature, from educational manifestoes to the plays of Marlowe and Shakespeare, it suggests that the early modern map was as diverse and various as the rich culture from which it emerged, and was imbued with a whole range of political, social, literary and personal impulses. Intellectual and Imaginative Cartographies in Early Modern England, 1550-1700 will appeal to all those interested in the History of Cartography

Colonialism, World Literature, and the Making of the Modern Culture of Letters

Colonialism, World Literature, and the Making of the Modern Culture of Letters PDF Author: Baidik Bhattacharya
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009422618
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
In a radical and ambitious reconceptualization of the field, this book argues that global literary culture since the eighteenth century was fundamentally shaped by colonial histories. It offers a comprehensive account of the colonial inception of the literary sovereign – how the realm of literature was thought to be separate from history and politics – and then follows that narrative through a wide array of different cultures, multilingual archives, and geographical locations. Providing close studies of colonial archives, German philosophy of aesthetics, French realist novels, and English literary history, this book shows how colonialism shaped and reshaped modern literary cultures in decisive ways. It breaks fresh ground across disciplines such as literary studies, anthropology, history, and philosophy, and invites one to rethink the history of literature in a new light.

A Map of the Body, a Map of the Mind: Visualising Geographical Knowledge in the Roman World

A Map of the Body, a Map of the Mind: Visualising Geographical Knowledge in the Roman World PDF Author: Iain Ferris
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1803277823
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
This study considers the relationship between geography and power in the Roman world, most particularly the visualisation of geographical knowledge in myriad forms of geography products: geographical treatises, histories, poems, personifications, landscape representations, images of barbarian peoples, maps, itineraries, and imported foodstuffs.

Bulgarian Geopolitics in a Balkan Context

Bulgarian Geopolitics in a Balkan Context PDF Author: Valentin Mihaylov
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040008690
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
This book is about the geographic space as an inseparable component of a nation’s historical memory, territorial awareness, geopolitical visions, and obsessions. The empirical part of the book focuses on the critical analysis of first-hand sources containing representations of the imagined spaces and places of Bulgaria and Bulgarians from a long-term perspective. The research results are structured in accordance with the author’s model of an imagined national space. It contains three general domains: possessed national space, the ethnogeopolitical neighbourhood, and ancient and legendary spaces. The book also explores how Bulgarians’ historical and ethnic spaces are linked with specific geopolitics, such as passive internal geopolitics, soft revisionism, non-intervening geopolitical claims, blocking international integration as a disguised form of old territorial claims, and emerging historical geopolitics. It examines how the imagined national space is approached by statesmen, politicians, academics, and other creators of ‘high’ geopolitics. The book also pays attention to the role of spatial imaginations in growing ‘low’ (popular) geopolitics, which includes media, popular culture, and national mythology. Written in an interdisciplinary manner, this timely book will attract the interest of scholars and students in geopolitics, human geography, international relations, nationalism studies, and ethnic history.

Making the 'Woman'

Making the 'Woman' PDF Author: Sutapa Dutta
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003817173
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 171

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Book Description
The book examines the representation of women, their agency and subjectivity and gender relations in 18th- and 19th-century India. The chapters in the volume interrogate notions and discourses of ‘women’ and ‘gender’ during the period, historically shaped by multiple and even competing actors, practices and institutions. They highlight the ‘making of the woman’ across a wide spectrum of subject areas, regions and roles and attempt to understand the contradictions and differences in social experiences and identity formations of women. The volume also deals with prevalent notions of masculinity and femininity, normative and non-conformist expressions of gender and sexual identity and epistemological concerns of gender, especially in its intersectional interplay with other axes of caste, class, race, region and empire. Presenting unique understandings of our gendered pasts, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of history, gender studies and South Asian studies.

Adam’s Bridge

Adam’s Bridge PDF Author: Arup K. Chatterjee
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003859127
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Adam’s Bridge offers the first comprehensive transdisciplinary study of the famous eponymous tombolo (also known as Ram Setu) combining its sacral, historical, geological, political, performative, and heritage aspects into one framework, viewed under the critical lenses of island studies and cultural theory. The book elucidates the entanglement of Adam’s Bridge’s discursive history with India’s colonial history, contemporary geology, domestic politics, and the nation’s emerging position in a complex geopolitical order in and around the Indian Ocean region, vis-à-vis increasing Sino-American involvement in Indo-Sri Lankan relations. Without foregrounding any absolute scientific claims on the location of the sandbars that inspired sage Valmiki’s Ram Setu and the Ramayan legacy or hindering narratives of religious faiths and folklore revolving around the structure, this intellectual historiography traces the parallel evolution of traditions of compassionate questioning and devotion for Indic sacred beliefs among commentators across the millennia from both Indian and non-Indian spectra, seen in juxtaposition with the biotic and abiotic diversity of the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay. Looking beyond secular-versus-religious debates, this book will be of interest to scholars of ocean and island studies, coastal economies, archipelagic geographies, environmental history, heritage studies, colonial studies, and cultural theory. Adam’s Bridge unifies a consortium of themes, ranging across ecological and livelihood sustainability, environmentalism, soteriology, economic and geostrategic history, and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, in conceptualizing a compellingly nuanced chronicle for India’s enchanted ‘bridge.’