Literatures of liberation : non-European universalisms and democratic progress / Mukti Lakhi Mangharam.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mangharam, Mukti Lakhi, author.

Series:

Cognitive approaches to culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Postcolonialism in literature.

Postcolonialism.

Enlightenment.

Colonies in literature.

Literature and society.

Physical Description:

xi, 246 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Columbus : The Ohio State University Press, [2017]

Summary:

The postcolonial spread of democratic ideals such as freedom and equality has taken place all over the world despite the widespread cultural differences that would seem to inhibit such change. In her new book, Literatures of Liberation: Non-European Universalisms and Democratic Progress, Mukti Lakhi Mangharam questions how these "universalisms" came to be and suggests that these elements were not solely the result of Europe-based Enlightenment ideals. Instead, they also arose in context-specific forms throughout the world (particularly in the Global South), relatively independently from Enlightenment concepts. These translatable yet distinct cognitive frameworks, or "contextual universalisms," as she argues, were central to the spread of modern democratic principles in response to the relentless expansion of capital. In this way, she posits that these universalisms reconceptualize democratic ideals not as Western imports into precolonial societies but as regional phenomena tied to local relations of power and resistance. In charting these alternative democratic trajectories, Mangharam examines oft-overlooked regional and vernacular literary forms and provides a fresh approach to current theorizations of postcolonial and world literatures. Book jacket.

Contents:

Rewriting the history of radical rationality from precolonial to postcolonial protest poetry

Restaging freedom from precolonial and colonial theater to contemporary Bollywood film

Redefining economic exchange from precolonial proverbs to the colonial and postcolonial African novel

Electing the demos from tribal praise poetry to twentieth-century trade union protest poetry

Coda: Contextual universalisms and the path to a new postcolonialism.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 231-241) and index.

ISBN:

9780814213469

0814213464

9780814254332

0814254330

OCLC:

975414561