Enlightenment in the colony : the Jewish question and the crisis of postcolonial culture / Aamir R. Mufti.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mufti, Aamir.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Secularism--India--History.

Secularism.

Nationalism--India--History.

Nationalism.

Jews.

Identity (Philosophical concept).

History.

Colonial influence.

India.

India--Colonial influence.

Muslims in literature.

Jews in literature.

Jews--Europe--Identity--History.

Liberalism--Europe--History.

Liberalism.

Europe.

Physical Description:

xiii, 325 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, [2007]

Summary:

Enlightenment in the Colony opens up the history of the "Jewish question" for the first time to a broader discussion-one of the social exclusion of religious and cultural minorities in modern times, and in particular the crisis of Muslim identity in modern India. Aamir Mufti identifies the Hindu-Muslim conflict in India as a colonial variation of what calls "the examplary crisis of minority"-Jewishness in Europe. He shows how the emergence of this conflict in the late nineteenth century represented an early instance of the reinscription of the "Jewish question" in a non-Western society undergoing modernization under colonial rule. In so doing, he charts one particular route by which this European phenomenon linked to nation-states takes on a global significance. Enlightenment in the Colony calls for the adoption of secular, minority, and exilic perspectives in criticism and intellectual life as a means to critique the very forms of marginalization that give rise to the uniquely powerful minority voice in world literatures.

Contents:

Prologue: Towards a Genealogy of Postcolonial Secularism 1

Part I Emergence: Europe and Its Others

Chapter 1 Jewishness as Minority

Emergence of a European Problematic 37

Chapter 2 Inscriptions of Minority in British Late Imperial Culture

From Daniel Deronda to A Passage to India 91

Part II Displacements: On the Verge of India

Chapter 3 Jawaharlal Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad

Discovering India 129

Chapter 4 Saadat Hasan Manto

A Greater Story Writer Than God 177

Chapter 5 Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Towards a Lyric History of India 210

Epilogue: In My Beginning Is My End

Jewish Exile and the Language of English India 244.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [295]-313) and index.

ISBN:

9780691057316

0691057311

9780691057323

069105732X

OCLC:

70831113

Online:

Publisher description