Angelique V. Nixon
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781628462180
- eISBN:
- 9781626746039
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781628462180.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
Resisting Paradise asserts the importance of both tourism and diaspora in shaping Caribbean cultural and sexual identity. It examines Caribbean cultural producers who contend with the region’s ...
More
Resisting Paradise asserts the importance of both tourism and diaspora in shaping Caribbean cultural and sexual identity. It examines Caribbean cultural producers who contend with the region’s overdependence on the tourist industry and address the many ways that tourism continues the legacy of colonialism. The book explores the relationship between culture and sex within the production of paradise and investigates the ways in which Caribbean writers, artists, activists, and other cultural producers respond to and powerfully resist this production. Forms of resistance include critiquing exploitation, challenging dominant narratives of history, exposing tourism’s influence on cultural and sexual identity in the Caribbean and its diaspora, and offering alternative models of tourism and travel. Resisting Paradise offers an intriguing emphasis on Caribbean and Caribbean diaspora subjects as travelers and as cultural workers contributing to alternative and resistant understandings of tourism in the Caribbean. Through a unique multi-disciplinary approach to comparative literary analysis, interview material, and participant observation, Angelique V. Nixon analyzes the ways Caribbean cultural producers are taking control of representation and sustaining subjectivity. While focused mainly on the Anglophone Caribbean, the study covers a range of geographical territories including Antigua, The Bahamas, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. Overall, the book utilizes a transnational feminist postcolonial framework in order to theorize “resisting paradise” and the sexual-cultural politics of tourism. This research posits an intervention within tourism and diaspora studies by making gender and sexuality the center of inquiry and analysis.Less
Resisting Paradise asserts the importance of both tourism and diaspora in shaping Caribbean cultural and sexual identity. It examines Caribbean cultural producers who contend with the region’s overdependence on the tourist industry and address the many ways that tourism continues the legacy of colonialism. The book explores the relationship between culture and sex within the production of paradise and investigates the ways in which Caribbean writers, artists, activists, and other cultural producers respond to and powerfully resist this production. Forms of resistance include critiquing exploitation, challenging dominant narratives of history, exposing tourism’s influence on cultural and sexual identity in the Caribbean and its diaspora, and offering alternative models of tourism and travel. Resisting Paradise offers an intriguing emphasis on Caribbean and Caribbean diaspora subjects as travelers and as cultural workers contributing to alternative and resistant understandings of tourism in the Caribbean. Through a unique multi-disciplinary approach to comparative literary analysis, interview material, and participant observation, Angelique V. Nixon analyzes the ways Caribbean cultural producers are taking control of representation and sustaining subjectivity. While focused mainly on the Anglophone Caribbean, the study covers a range of geographical territories including Antigua, The Bahamas, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. Overall, the book utilizes a transnational feminist postcolonial framework in order to theorize “resisting paradise” and the sexual-cultural politics of tourism. This research posits an intervention within tourism and diaspora studies by making gender and sexuality the center of inquiry and analysis.
Jeffrey J. Williams
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823263806
- eISBN:
- 9780823266432
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823263806.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter compares two models of the intellectual, one from the philosopher, Richard Rorty, and the other the cultural critic, Andrew Ross. It looks at a debate they had during the culture wars, ...
More
This chapter compares two models of the intellectual, one from the philosopher, Richard Rorty, and the other the cultural critic, Andrew Ross. It looks at a debate they had during the culture wars, surveys their careers, and deciphers what models they present in their actual practice-of clarity but lack of engagement in Rorty, and of a turn toward socially relevant criticism in Ross.Less
This chapter compares two models of the intellectual, one from the philosopher, Richard Rorty, and the other the cultural critic, Andrew Ross. It looks at a debate they had during the culture wars, surveys their careers, and deciphers what models they present in their actual practice-of clarity but lack of engagement in Rorty, and of a turn toward socially relevant criticism in Ross.
Jeffrey J. Williams
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823263806
- eISBN:
- 9780823266432
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823263806.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This essay challenges Walter Benn Michaels' position on cultural politics. Michaels' argues for class over diversity, but the problem is Michaels' ethos: he has little credibility in actual political ...
More
This essay challenges Walter Benn Michaels' position on cultural politics. Michaels' argues for class over diversity, but the problem is Michaels' ethos: he has little credibility in actual political work, so his argument is merely academic rather than a model to emulate.Less
This essay challenges Walter Benn Michaels' position on cultural politics. Michaels' argues for class over diversity, but the problem is Michaels' ethos: he has little credibility in actual political work, so his argument is merely academic rather than a model to emulate.
Scott Ickes
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780813044781
- eISBN:
- 9780813046433
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813044781.003.0008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This chapter argues that the Vargas era in Salvador bequeathed a legacy for the rest of the twentieth century. This legacy was the creation of a political-cultural struggle over the meaning of Bahian ...
More
This chapter argues that the Vargas era in Salvador bequeathed a legacy for the rest of the twentieth century. This legacy was the creation of a political-cultural struggle over the meaning of Bahian regional identity and the degree to which Bahia would be associated with African-Bahian cultural practices. These vectors of conflict and negotiation fed into wider political contestation over what the cultural inclusion of those practices should mean for justice, discrimination, equal opportunity, and quality of life for Bahians of African descent.Less
This chapter argues that the Vargas era in Salvador bequeathed a legacy for the rest of the twentieth century. This legacy was the creation of a political-cultural struggle over the meaning of Bahian regional identity and the degree to which Bahia would be associated with African-Bahian cultural practices. These vectors of conflict and negotiation fed into wider political contestation over what the cultural inclusion of those practices should mean for justice, discrimination, equal opportunity, and quality of life for Bahians of African descent.
Nona Willis Aronowitz
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816681204
- eISBN:
- 9781452949048
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816681204.003.0057
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Excerpts from a book-length project tentatively titled “The Cultural Unconscious in American Politics: Why We Need a Freudian Left” are presented. This book begins by discussing the cultural radical ...
More
Excerpts from a book-length project tentatively titled “The Cultural Unconscious in American Politics: Why We Need a Freudian Left” are presented. This book begins by discussing the cultural radical impulse that emerged during the mid-1960s and reached the peak of its influence around the turn of the decade. It cites how large segments of the middle class, and millions of young people of all classes, regarded freedom, pleasure, and self-expression—sexual and otherwise—as important personal and social values. It then considers the defeat of cultural radicalism and traces the key events and attitudes conditioning the retreat from a bold feminism and, more broadly, radicalism. Finally, the book addresses Sigmund Freud’s ideas about the influence of the unconscious on human behavior, especially the compelling power of libido. It presents examples of how sexuality and its cultural implications can help shed light on both history and social life.Less
Excerpts from a book-length project tentatively titled “The Cultural Unconscious in American Politics: Why We Need a Freudian Left” are presented. This book begins by discussing the cultural radical impulse that emerged during the mid-1960s and reached the peak of its influence around the turn of the decade. It cites how large segments of the middle class, and millions of young people of all classes, regarded freedom, pleasure, and self-expression—sexual and otherwise—as important personal and social values. It then considers the defeat of cultural radicalism and traces the key events and attitudes conditioning the retreat from a bold feminism and, more broadly, radicalism. Finally, the book addresses Sigmund Freud’s ideas about the influence of the unconscious on human behavior, especially the compelling power of libido. It presents examples of how sexuality and its cultural implications can help shed light on both history and social life.
Jeffrey J. Williams
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823263806
- eISBN:
- 9780823266432
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823263806.003.0031
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This is a personal essay recounting the author's experience editing a literary journal, "The Minnesota Review." It talks about the everyday activities of an editor, as well as the general philosophy ...
More
This is a personal essay recounting the author's experience editing a literary journal, "The Minnesota Review." It talks about the everyday activities of an editor, as well as the general philosophy of editing. It discusses the shifting focus of criticism through the 1990s and 2000s, notably the waning of literary theory and rise of cultural studies.Less
This is a personal essay recounting the author's experience editing a literary journal, "The Minnesota Review." It talks about the everyday activities of an editor, as well as the general philosophy of editing. It discusses the shifting focus of criticism through the 1990s and 2000s, notably the waning of literary theory and rise of cultural studies.
Scott Ickes
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780813044781
- eISBN:
- 9780813046433
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813044781.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This chapter introduces the argument that African-Bahians and their allies were central players in the remaking of Bahian regional identity. This occurred mainly through the major religious festivals ...
More
This chapter introduces the argument that African-Bahians and their allies were central players in the remaking of Bahian regional identity. This occurred mainly through the major religious festivals in Salvador, the capital of Bahia. The festivals provided opportunities for African-Bahians to perform their cultural practices, such as Candomblé ritual, samba, and capoeira. After 1930, politicians and journalists began to celebrate these practices as essential components of Bahian regional identity. The chapter also situates these arguments within the historical literature and elaborates on the author's argument that the process of cultural inclusion should be understood as a process of the formation of hegemony.Less
This chapter introduces the argument that African-Bahians and their allies were central players in the remaking of Bahian regional identity. This occurred mainly through the major religious festivals in Salvador, the capital of Bahia. The festivals provided opportunities for African-Bahians to perform their cultural practices, such as Candomblé ritual, samba, and capoeira. After 1930, politicians and journalists began to celebrate these practices as essential components of Bahian regional identity. The chapter also situates these arguments within the historical literature and elaborates on the author's argument that the process of cultural inclusion should be understood as a process of the formation of hegemony.
Stanley Aronowitz
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816681204
- eISBN:
- 9781452949048
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816681204.003.0056
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This section contains excerpts from a book-length project tentatively titled “The Cultural Unconscious in American Politics: Why We Need a Freudian Left.” The book’s central argument is that our ...
More
This section contains excerpts from a book-length project tentatively titled “The Cultural Unconscious in American Politics: Why We Need a Freudian Left.” The book’s central argument is that our understanding of cultural and political crises would be incomplete without a psychoanalytic dimension. The three draft chapters written integrate many of these elements with a nuanced and persuasive account of the salience of radical psychoanalytic thought. The book’s starting point is Sigmund Freud’s ideas about the influence of the unconscious on human behavior, especially the compelling power of libido. The book also finds the basis for its claims about radical psychoanalysis in Erich Fromm’s early work, Herbert Marcuse’s seminal Eros and Civilization, and especially in the many writings of Wilhelm Reich.Less
This section contains excerpts from a book-length project tentatively titled “The Cultural Unconscious in American Politics: Why We Need a Freudian Left.” The book’s central argument is that our understanding of cultural and political crises would be incomplete without a psychoanalytic dimension. The three draft chapters written integrate many of these elements with a nuanced and persuasive account of the salience of radical psychoanalytic thought. The book’s starting point is Sigmund Freud’s ideas about the influence of the unconscious on human behavior, especially the compelling power of libido. The book also finds the basis for its claims about radical psychoanalysis in Erich Fromm’s early work, Herbert Marcuse’s seminal Eros and Civilization, and especially in the many writings of Wilhelm Reich.
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804760126
- eISBN:
- 9780804787468
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804760126.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter demonstrates the socialist transformations of Shanghai food culture. Even the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) recognized the value of the city's many different forms, restorative and ...
More
This chapter demonstrates the socialist transformations of Shanghai food culture. Even the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) recognized the value of the city's many different forms, restorative and reflective, of culinary nostalgia, although it also added its own distinctive varieties to the mix. The Bureau of Social Affairs (BSA)'s analyses of Shanghai-working-family diets complemented the comparatively conservative minshi rhetoric that underlay its investigation into the city's rice-price problems. Many are hopeful that the CCP can help solve the food problems in Shanghai. Its long-term plan for Shanghai was to transform it from a center of commercial capitalism into the most important industrial city in all of China. Cultural Revolution politics restructured Shanghai's restaurant industry to accord with a new vision of a proletarian China, and restaurants ceased serving as vehicles for the appreciation of the country's diverse regional cultures.Less
This chapter demonstrates the socialist transformations of Shanghai food culture. Even the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) recognized the value of the city's many different forms, restorative and reflective, of culinary nostalgia, although it also added its own distinctive varieties to the mix. The Bureau of Social Affairs (BSA)'s analyses of Shanghai-working-family diets complemented the comparatively conservative minshi rhetoric that underlay its investigation into the city's rice-price problems. Many are hopeful that the CCP can help solve the food problems in Shanghai. Its long-term plan for Shanghai was to transform it from a center of commercial capitalism into the most important industrial city in all of China. Cultural Revolution politics restructured Shanghai's restaurant industry to accord with a new vision of a proletarian China, and restaurants ceased serving as vehicles for the appreciation of the country's diverse regional cultures.
Scott Ickes
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780813044781
- eISBN:
- 9780813046433
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813044781.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
A close study of six major public religious festivals, including carnival, African-Brazilian Culture and Regional Identity in Bahia, Brazil, explores the cultural politics of regional identity in the ...
More
A close study of six major public religious festivals, including carnival, African-Brazilian Culture and Regional Identity in Bahia, Brazil, explores the cultural politics of regional identity in the state of Bahia in northeast Brazil. The author shows how, after 1930, the festivals provided a platform for African-Bahians and their allies to re-formulate Bahian regional identity to allow for a greater degree of cultural inclusion for Bahians of African descent. The book emphasizes the agency of African-Bahians as samba, capoeira, and Candomblé ritual were performed during the festivals and describes how politicians, journalists, song writers, and public intellectuals came to celebrate African-Bahian culture as a defining feature of what it meant to be Bahian. The nature of this cultural inclusion, however, was such that, although it was an improvement on the prejudice and persecution of the 1920s, it led to very little, if any, improvement in the political and economic position of working-class people of African descent. As such, the book explores the possibilities and limitations of cross-class alliances based around cultural inclusion in a specific historical setting and the potential of cultural politics for the social inclusion of people of African descent in multi-racial, multi-cultural communities within Brazil and the African diaspora.Less
A close study of six major public religious festivals, including carnival, African-Brazilian Culture and Regional Identity in Bahia, Brazil, explores the cultural politics of regional identity in the state of Bahia in northeast Brazil. The author shows how, after 1930, the festivals provided a platform for African-Bahians and their allies to re-formulate Bahian regional identity to allow for a greater degree of cultural inclusion for Bahians of African descent. The book emphasizes the agency of African-Bahians as samba, capoeira, and Candomblé ritual were performed during the festivals and describes how politicians, journalists, song writers, and public intellectuals came to celebrate African-Bahian culture as a defining feature of what it meant to be Bahian. The nature of this cultural inclusion, however, was such that, although it was an improvement on the prejudice and persecution of the 1920s, it led to very little, if any, improvement in the political and economic position of working-class people of African descent. As such, the book explores the possibilities and limitations of cross-class alliances based around cultural inclusion in a specific historical setting and the potential of cultural politics for the social inclusion of people of African descent in multi-racial, multi-cultural communities within Brazil and the African diaspora.
Joshua Hagen
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780813056579
- eISBN:
- 9780813053349
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813056579.003.0005
- Subject:
- Archaeology, Historical Archaeology
This chapter offers a critical examination of historic preservationist practices to expand our understanding of the Nazi regime’s ideologies and objectives regarding historic places and national ...
More
This chapter offers a critical examination of historic preservationist practices to expand our understanding of the Nazi regime’s ideologies and objectives regarding historic places and national heritage. Rather than catalogue the actual techniques of historic preservation, this chapter focuses on the cultural politics animating the regime’s efforts to construct its vision of national history, heritage, and memory. To do so, the chapter surveys the Nazi regime’s efforts to “preserve” three generalized places: the city, the town, and the villageLess
This chapter offers a critical examination of historic preservationist practices to expand our understanding of the Nazi regime’s ideologies and objectives regarding historic places and national heritage. Rather than catalogue the actual techniques of historic preservation, this chapter focuses on the cultural politics animating the regime’s efforts to construct its vision of national history, heritage, and memory. To do so, the chapter surveys the Nazi regime’s efforts to “preserve” three generalized places: the city, the town, and the village
Katsuya Hirano
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226060422
- eISBN:
- 9780226060736
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226060736.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
The government of early modern Japan (1603-1868), the Tokugawa shogunate, consistently demonstrated a keen interest in regulating the outwardly inconsequential urban popular culture of Edo ...
More
The government of early modern Japan (1603-1868), the Tokugawa shogunate, consistently demonstrated a keen interest in regulating the outwardly inconsequential urban popular culture of Edo (present-day Tokyo)— fashion, leisure, street entertainments, woodblock prints, novella, and theater— as part of the effort to preserve its power and authority. This work probes how and why popular cultural practices occupied such a central place in governmental policies and shows how literary, visual, and theatrical practices of representation defied the official images of desirable subjects, which were designed to reflect a strict hierarchical organization of social order based on status and division of labor. Furthermore, the book looks at the important shift in the regulation of popular culture from the Tokugawa regime to Japan’s first modern state, the early Meiji government (1868-1890). By examining this shift, it outlines a general theory of the transformation in modes of subject-formation from Tokugawa to Meiji, and thus provides a new way to critically conceptualize this momentous historical change.Less
The government of early modern Japan (1603-1868), the Tokugawa shogunate, consistently demonstrated a keen interest in regulating the outwardly inconsequential urban popular culture of Edo (present-day Tokyo)— fashion, leisure, street entertainments, woodblock prints, novella, and theater— as part of the effort to preserve its power and authority. This work probes how and why popular cultural practices occupied such a central place in governmental policies and shows how literary, visual, and theatrical practices of representation defied the official images of desirable subjects, which were designed to reflect a strict hierarchical organization of social order based on status and division of labor. Furthermore, the book looks at the important shift in the regulation of popular culture from the Tokugawa regime to Japan’s first modern state, the early Meiji government (1868-1890). By examining this shift, it outlines a general theory of the transformation in modes of subject-formation from Tokugawa to Meiji, and thus provides a new way to critically conceptualize this momentous historical change.
Thomas Jundt
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199791200
- eISBN:
- 9780199378562
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199791200.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century, Cultural History
Green consumerism has come under attack as a form of political expression that avoids the more difficult work involved in traditional forms of political organizing. Such attacks often ignore the ...
More
Green consumerism has come under attack as a form of political expression that avoids the more difficult work involved in traditional forms of political organizing. Such attacks often ignore the reality of the hegemonic power of the corporate capitalist state. However limited the political effects may be, from the earliest days after the environmental and psychic shock waves of the Bomb to the counterculture days of the sixties and up through the present, the alternative of green consumption has existed as a sanctuary within the corporate capitalist state where citizens no longer trust their government to place their interests before the interests of corporations. Ultimately, structural changes will require greater democracy, and the disembedding of corporate capitalism from the state. Until that unlikely transformation, many citizens will continue to take what shelter they can find in green consumerism.Less
Green consumerism has come under attack as a form of political expression that avoids the more difficult work involved in traditional forms of political organizing. Such attacks often ignore the reality of the hegemonic power of the corporate capitalist state. However limited the political effects may be, from the earliest days after the environmental and psychic shock waves of the Bomb to the counterculture days of the sixties and up through the present, the alternative of green consumption has existed as a sanctuary within the corporate capitalist state where citizens no longer trust their government to place their interests before the interests of corporations. Ultimately, structural changes will require greater democracy, and the disembedding of corporate capitalism from the state. Until that unlikely transformation, many citizens will continue to take what shelter they can find in green consumerism.
Pankaj Jha
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780199489558
- eISBN:
- 9780199095360
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199489558.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Indian History, Cultural History
Vidyapati was a poet and a scholar who lived in the fifteenth century north Bihar and composed nearly a dozen texts on varied themes in three languages. The book focuses on three of Vidyapati’s ...
More
Vidyapati was a poet and a scholar who lived in the fifteenth century north Bihar and composed nearly a dozen texts on varied themes in three languages. The book focuses on three of Vidyapati’s texts: Likhanāvalī, a Sanskrit treatise on writing letters and documents; Puruṣaparīkṣā, a Sanskrit compilation of mytho-historical stories focused on masculinity and political ethics; and Kīrtilatā, a political biography in Apabhraṃśa of a prince of Mithila composed in the ākhyāyikā style. Together, these compositions provide an exciting entry point into the knowledge formations of the fifteenth century. As such, the book marks a fascinating reading of politics in the literatures of a time that is known for a notorious absence of any ‘imperial’ formation. It does so by placing each of the three texts side by side with other texts composed earlier on identical or similar themes, genres, and ideas in the same and other languages. A critical historicization of the language, composition, and contents of the texts reveal an exciting and messy world of idioms, ideas, and skills drawn from different literary-political traditions. Strikingly, each upheld the ideal of imperium and provided for the cultivation of skills, ethics, and useable pasts appropriate for imperial projects. The book argues that the literary visions that sustained (and gained from) the imperial states in the earlier centuries did not disappear with the disintegration of the Delhi Sultanate. They lingered and found hospitable grounds in humbler locations. Vidyapati inherited and reworked these visions into newer, more ‘actionable’ knowledge forms.Less
Vidyapati was a poet and a scholar who lived in the fifteenth century north Bihar and composed nearly a dozen texts on varied themes in three languages. The book focuses on three of Vidyapati’s texts: Likhanāvalī, a Sanskrit treatise on writing letters and documents; Puruṣaparīkṣā, a Sanskrit compilation of mytho-historical stories focused on masculinity and political ethics; and Kīrtilatā, a political biography in Apabhraṃśa of a prince of Mithila composed in the ākhyāyikā style. Together, these compositions provide an exciting entry point into the knowledge formations of the fifteenth century. As such, the book marks a fascinating reading of politics in the literatures of a time that is known for a notorious absence of any ‘imperial’ formation. It does so by placing each of the three texts side by side with other texts composed earlier on identical or similar themes, genres, and ideas in the same and other languages. A critical historicization of the language, composition, and contents of the texts reveal an exciting and messy world of idioms, ideas, and skills drawn from different literary-political traditions. Strikingly, each upheld the ideal of imperium and provided for the cultivation of skills, ethics, and useable pasts appropriate for imperial projects. The book argues that the literary visions that sustained (and gained from) the imperial states in the earlier centuries did not disappear with the disintegration of the Delhi Sultanate. They lingered and found hospitable grounds in humbler locations. Vidyapati inherited and reworked these visions into newer, more ‘actionable’ knowledge forms.
