Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India (The Social Foundations of Aesthetic Forms S.) - Softcover

Viswanathan, Gauri

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0231070853 ISBN 13: 9780231070850

Publisher: Columbia University Press, 1992

Synopsis

In nineteenth-century India, Gauri Viswanathan argues, the English literary text functioned as a mirror of the ideal Englishman in his most perfect state. The literature became a mask for economic exploitation that camouflaged the material activities of the colonizing British government. Viswanathan shows how the English studies introduced in India under British colonial rule came to be a most effective form of political control and how this abetted voluntary cultural assimilation. The author argues that challenges to the literary canon must take account of the role of Empire in the creation of modern English studies.

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Review

"Will make a significant contribution to the field."--Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia University
"Intellectually lively and well written."--Richard Fox, Duke University
"Will make a significant contribution to the field."--Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia University
"Intellectually lively and well written."--Richard Fox, Duke University
"Will make a significant contribution to the field."--Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia University
"Intellectually lively and well written."--Richard Fox, Duke University
"Will make a significant contribution to the field."--Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia University
"Intellectually lively and well written."--Richard Fox, Duke University

Edition details

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0231070853
• ISBN 13: 9780231070850
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 206