English Heart, Hindi Heartland: The Political Life Of Literature In India (flashpoints)
by Rashmi Sadana /
2012 / English / EPUB
343 KB Download
English Heart, Hindi Heartland
English Heart, Hindi Heartland examines Delhi’s
postcolonial literary worldits institutions, prizes, publishers,
writers, and translators, and the cultural geographies of key
neighborhoodsin light of colonial histories and the
globalization of English. Rashmi Sadana places internationally
recognized authors such as Salman Rushdie, Anita Desai, Vikram
Seth, and Aravind Adiga in the context of debates within India
about the politics of language and alongside other writers,
including K. Satchidanandan, Shashi Deshpande, and Geetanjali
Shree. Sadana undertakes an ethnographic study of literary
culture that probes the connections between place, language, and
text in order to show what language comes to stand for in
people’s lives. In so doing, she unmasks a social discourse rife
with questions of authenticity and cultural politics of inclusion
and exclusion.
examines Delhi’s
postcolonial literary worldits institutions, prizes, publishers,
writers, and translators, and the cultural geographies of key
neighborhoodsin light of colonial histories and the
globalization of English. Rashmi Sadana places internationally
recognized authors such as Salman Rushdie, Anita Desai, Vikram
Seth, and Aravind Adiga in the context of debates within India
about the politics of language and alongside other writers,
including K. Satchidanandan, Shashi Deshpande, and Geetanjali
Shree. Sadana undertakes an ethnographic study of literary
culture that probes the connections between place, language, and
text in order to show what language comes to stand for in
people’s lives. In so doing, she unmasks a social discourse rife
with questions of authenticity and cultural politics of inclusion
and exclusion.English Heart, Hindi Heartland
English Heart, Hindi Heartland illustrates
how the notion of what is considered to be culturally and
linguistically authentic not only obscures larger questions
relating to caste, religious, and gender identities, but that the
authenticity discourse itself is continually in flux. In order to
mediate and extract cultural capital from India’s complex
linguistic hierarchies, literary practitioners strategically
deploy a fluid set of cultural and political distinctions that
Sadana calls literary nationality.” Sadana argues that English,
and the way it is positioned among the other Indian languages,
does not represent a fixed pole, but rather serves to change
political and literary alliances among classes and castes, often
in surprising ways.
illustrates
how the notion of what is considered to be culturally and
linguistically authentic not only obscures larger questions
relating to caste, religious, and gender identities, but that the
authenticity discourse itself is continually in flux. In order to
mediate and extract cultural capital from India’s complex
linguistic hierarchies, literary practitioners strategically
deploy a fluid set of cultural and political distinctions that
Sadana calls literary nationality.” Sadana argues that English,
and the way it is positioned among the other Indian languages,
does not represent a fixed pole, but rather serves to change
political and literary alliances among classes and castes, often
in surprising ways.