Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823279753
- eISBN:
- 9780823281503
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823279753.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai explores perceptions of national loyalty held by college-educated northern men during the war. His work draws on the writings of a group of New England graduates, whom he ...
More
Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai explores perceptions of national loyalty held by college-educated northern men during the war. His work draws on the writings of a group of New England graduates, whom he labels the New Brahmins. He highlights how their sense of moral duty as educated elites, along with their commitment to the Union, compelled them to enlist into the army. Focusing on McClellan’s leadership, the controversy of emancipation, and the election of 1864, Wongsrichanalai shows how these men viewed military and political issues through nonpartisan lenses. Holding military success and union victory as the priority, these soldiers were quite critical of partisan devotionand unquestioned support of the government. According to the author, the New Brahmins reflect an understudied northern honor or nationalism, in which elite young officers pursued the greater good of society without fear of individual consequences.Less
Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai explores perceptions of national loyalty held by college-educated northern men during the war. His work draws on the writings of a group of New England graduates, whom he labels the New Brahmins. He highlights how their sense of moral duty as educated elites, along with their commitment to the Union, compelled them to enlist into the army. Focusing on McClellan’s leadership, the controversy of emancipation, and the election of 1864, Wongsrichanalai shows how these men viewed military and political issues through nonpartisan lenses. Holding military success and union victory as the priority, these soldiers were quite critical of partisan devotionand unquestioned support of the government. According to the author, the New Brahmins reflect an understudied northern honor or nationalism, in which elite young officers pursued the greater good of society without fear of individual consequences.
Adheesh A. Sathaye
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199341108
- eISBN:
- 9780190233556
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199341108.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
This chapter examines the active role of Viśvāmitra’s mythological persona within the social history of colonial and postcolonial India over the last century—within the paintings of Raja Ravi Varma, ...
More
This chapter examines the active role of Viśvāmitra’s mythological persona within the social history of colonial and postcolonial India over the last century—within the paintings of Raja Ravi Varma, the political philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, cinema and television, and especially within the Marathi devotional performance tradition known as nāradīya kīrtan. Special attention is given to a colonial-period critique of Viśvāmitra’s egoism (ahaṃkār) that appeared in the context of Brahmin social reform in Maharashtra, and how, by the onset of the twenty-first century, his hybridity has now come to reflect a desire to internalize traditional Brahmin identity amidst the corrupt politics, hyperurban chaos, and transnational cultural flows of contemporary Maharashtrian life, pointing toward a new, “postmodern” configuration of Brahmin social power.Less
This chapter examines the active role of Viśvāmitra’s mythological persona within the social history of colonial and postcolonial India over the last century—within the paintings of Raja Ravi Varma, the political philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, cinema and television, and especially within the Marathi devotional performance tradition known as nāradīya kīrtan. Special attention is given to a colonial-period critique of Viśvāmitra’s egoism (ahaṃkār) that appeared in the context of Brahmin social reform in Maharashtra, and how, by the onset of the twenty-first century, his hybridity has now come to reflect a desire to internalize traditional Brahmin identity amidst the corrupt politics, hyperurban chaos, and transnational cultural flows of contemporary Maharashtrian life, pointing toward a new, “postmodern” configuration of Brahmin social power.
