Limiting secularism : the ethics of coexistence in Indian literature and film / Priya Kumar.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kumar, Priya.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

South Asian literature--20th century--History and criticism.

South Asian literature.

South Asian literature--Moral and ethical aspects.

Motion pictures--Moral and ethical aspects--India.

Motion pictures.

Secularism in literature.

Secularism in motion pictures.

Motion pictures--Moral and ethical aspects.

India.

Physical Description:

xxvii, 299 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2008]

Summary:

With a backdrop of religious violence and escalating regional tensions in South Asia, Priya Kumar's Limiting Secularism probes the urgent topic of secularism and tolerance in Indian culture and life. Kumar explores Partition as the founding trauma of the Indian nation-state and traces the consequences of its marking off of "Indian" from "Pakistani" and the positioning of Indian Muslims as strangers within the nation. Kumar unpacks the implications of the Nehruvian doctrine of tolerance and asks whether more ethical cohabitation can replace the "arrogant compulsive tolerance" of the state and the majority. Informed by Jacques Derrida's recent work on hospitality and living together, Kumar argues for the emergence of an "ethics of coexistence" in Indian fiction and film. Distinctive and timely in its investigation of secularism and communalism, Limiting Secularism works to envision the radical possibilities of going beyond tolerance to living well together.

Contents:

Introduction: At Home with the Stranger xiii

1 Rethinking Secularism 1

2 For God's Sake, Open the Universe a Little More: Cosmopolitan Fictions 45

3 Acts of Return: Literature and Post-Partition Memory 85

4 Fictions of Violence: Witnessing and Survival in Partition Literature 123

5 It's My Home, Too: Minoritarian Claims on the Nation 177.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780816650729

0816650721

9780816650736

081665073X

OCLC:

165477965

Online:

Publisher description