In stereotype : South Asia in the global literary imaginary

337 Pages·2017·2.509 MB·English

by  Chakravorty, Mrinalini

IN STEREOTYPE
Literature Now
LITERATURE NOW
Matthew Hart, David James, and Rebecca L. Walkowitz,
Series Editors
Literature Now offers a distinct vision of late twentieth- and early twenty-
first-century literary culture. Addressing contemporary literature and the
ways we understand its meaning, the series includes books that are com-
parative and transnational in scope as well as those that focus on national
and regional literary cultures.
Caren Irr, Toward the Geopolitical Novel: U.S. Fiction in the Twenty-
First Century
Heather Houser, Ecosickness in Contemporary U.S. Fiction: Environ-
ment and Affect
I N S T E R E O T Y P E
South Asia in the Global Literary Imaginary
Mrinalini Chakravorty
Columbia University Press New York
Material in chapter 4 previously appeared in “The Dead That Haunt
Anil’s Ghost: Subaltern Difference and Postcolonial Melancholia”
PMLA 128, no. 3 (May 2013): 542–58.
Material in chapter 5 appeared in a previous form as “Brick Lane
Blockades: The Bioculturalism of Migrant Domesticity,” MFS:
Modern Fiction Studies 50, no. 3 (2012): 503–28.
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2014 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chakravorty, Mrinalini.
In stereotype : South Asia in the global literary imaginary /
Mrinalini Chakravorty.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-231-16596-9 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 978-0-231-53776-6
(electronic)
1. South Asian literature—20th century—History and criticism.
2. South Asian literature—21st century—History and criticism.
3. Stereotypes (Social psychology) in literature. I. Title.
PK5416.C43 2014
891.4—dc23
2013040700
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and
durable acid-free paper.
This book is printed on paper with recycled content.
Printed in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Jacket design by Noah Arlow
References to websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.
Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for
URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was
prepared.
For
Lindon Warren Barrett

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Prologue: Stereotypes as Provocation 1
1. Why the Stereotype? Why South Asia? 11
2. To Understand Me, You’ll Have to Swallow a World:
Margins, Multitudes, and the Nation in Salman Rushdie’s
Midnight’s Children 50
3. Slumdog or White Tiger? The Abjection and Allure of Slums 85
4. The Dead That Haunt Anil’s Ghost: Subaltern Stereotypes
and Postcolonial Melancholia 119
5. From Bangladesh to Brick Lane: The Biocultural Stereotypes
of Migrancy 151
6. Good and Bad Transnationalisms?: Outsourcing and Terror 187
Epilogue: The Afterlife of Stereotypes 221
Notes 233
Bibliography 285
Index 305

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A book begins long before it takes the shape of one, sometimes in frag-
ments and in conversations that only later seep into its pages. The ideas
in this book first germinated in the many rich conversations I had with
a fabulous cohort of mentors, colleagues, and friends at the University of
California, Irvine.
As far as these things are knowable, the initial inspiration for the proj-
ect came from David Lloyd’s seminar “Modernity and the Irish Body,”
which to this day serves as my model for how to read meticulously while
challenging the assumptions of texts even when succumbing to their
pleasures. Irish colonial modernity, of course, was shot through with
colonialist stereotypes of Irish otherness. Yet the fantastic recalcitrance
of the Irish in appropriating and redeploying these stereotypes toward
insurgent, countercolonial practices is a lesson that David taught so very
well and one that endured with me. I feel deeply fortunate to have been
inspired by David’s example, and for finding such a brilliant and gener-
ous interlocutor who spurred my early interests in cultural stereotypes
and compelled me to run with it in my own way.
I am also grateful for the steadfast encouragement provided by Gabri-
ele Schwab and J. Hillis Miller. My work has benefited immensely from
their truly unorthodox and intellectually lively engagement. Gaby has
been a friend and confidante without parallel; from her I have learned
that scholarly curiosity should be motivational, ethically directed, and