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Of Matters Modern

The Experience of Modernity in Colonial and Post-colonial South Asia

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

402 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2007

Asian Studies: South Asia

History: Asian History


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Table of Contents

Editor’s Note
 
Introduction: Six Notes on a Partly Understood Phenomenon
   Debraj Bhattacharya
 
Who Sang the Hybrid Muse?: ’Fusion’ Music in Late-Eighteenth-Century India
   Sharmadip Basu
 
The Assam Fever: Identities of a Disease and Diseases of an Identity
   Bodhisattva Kar
 
Sahib Outlaws in Colonial Calcutta
   Sumanta Banerjee
 
Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824-73): A Bengali Poet with Italian Connections
   William Radice
 
The Politics of Reformist Islam in India: The Ambiguous Legacy of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan
   Kingshuk Chatterjee
 
Zalim Daku and the Mystery of the Rubber Sea Monster: Urdu Detective Fiction in 1930s’ Punjab and the Experience of Colonial Modernity
   Markus Daechsel
 
Three Narratives on Modernity in a Colonial Metropolis: Calcutta During the Early Twentieth Century
   Debraj Bhattacharya
 
Critique of the Bhadralok and the Bhadralok Critic
   Parimal Ghosh
 
Supermother for a Nation: Reading Gandhari
   Aryak Guha
 
Residual Nationalism and the Indian (Radical?) Intellectual: On Indigenism, Authenticity and the Colonizer’s Presents
   Benjamin Zachariah
 
Notes on Contributors
Index

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