Towards a national culture? India and its diasporas

Asha Sen, Purdue University

Abstract

This dissertation breaks new ground in revisionist historiography, examining the national culture of India and its diasporas from postcolonial perspectives. By critiquing hitherto unexamined presuppositions in the theories of Homi Bhabha, Frantz Fanon, Paul Gilroy, Gayatri Spivak, and other cultural studies critics, it liberates postcolonial texts from Western historiography which contains them within already determined theories of the nation. The dissertation explores postcolonial re-writings of the nation from various subaltern perspectives. The introduction establishes a methodology for reading postcolonial texts and the second and third chapters introduce the filmmakers and writers Hanif Kureishi, Gurinder Chadha, and Ravinder Randhawa. These artists present alternative views of Britain that challenge the complacency of race-relations specialists who consider the relations between ethnic minorities and the majority exclusively in cultural terms. The next chapter marks parallels between this immigrant literature and postcolonial texts in English by Indian/Pakistani citizens like Amitav Ghosh, Sara Suleri, and Bapsi Sidhwa which challenge colonial historiography from national and feminist perspectives. The fifth chapter examines the work of several regional writers including Ismat Chugtai, Mahasweta Devi, Wajeeda Tabassum, and Vijay Tendulkar as well as English language playwright Mahesh Dattani, who explore national identity in terms of localized differences of class and caste. The project concludes with a brief look at Shekhar Kapur's Bandit Queen and Taslima Nasreen's Lajja and gestures towards the role of nationalism in determining Indian diasporic movements in other parts of the world.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Hughes, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Asian History|Asian literature|British and Irish literature|Social research|Film studies|South Asian Studies

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