Recall and Retell

Literary Registers of Memory, Identity, and Resistance in India
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-77921-8
Verlag: Routledge India

Buch, Englisch, 152 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 402 g

This volume explores the instrumental role played by memory in our daily and collective narratives and the manifold ways in which it can destabilize those prevailing in India. It explores manifestations of memory and postmemory through written narratives, within India’s social, political, and cultural memoryscape. Drawing on archival research, oral history collection, and textual and critical analysis, the book endeavours to reconstruct Indian experiences in all their richness and diversity, while challenging dominant paradigms and expanding the boundaries of collective memory.

An important contribution, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of history, memory studies, partition studies, sociology, cultural studies, English literature, decolonization, and South Asian studies.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

John, Elwin Susan

Mathews, Amal P

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen Kolonialismus, Imperialismus
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kolonialgeschichte, Geschichte des Imperialismus

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of figures vii

List of contributors viii

Acknowledgements x

Introduction: Locating Literary and Cultural Registers of Memory,

Identity, and Resistance in India 1

AMAL P MATHEWS AND ELWIN SUSAN JOHN

PART I

Recall: Shadowed and Mapped Memories 19

1 ‘Cryptopolitics’: Memory, Landscape, Identity 21

SAHANA MUKHERJEE

2 The Rebels’ Silhouette(s): Reception and Resistance in South Asia 31

RHITAMA BASAK

3 Of Translocal Memories: Remembering and Forgetting in New Town, West Bengal 44

DEBARUN SARKAR

4 Paradesi’s Jewish Soul: A Tapestry of Memories Woven in Stone and Spirit 57

LAKSHMIPRIYA P SANTHOSH

PART II

Retell: Reconfigured and Reclaimed Memories 75

5 Memory as Praxis: Reconfigurations of the Home in Select Anglophone Texts from Northeast India 77

SAMRITA SINHA

6 Archives, Indigeneity, and Decolonization in Indian Children’s Picture Books 90

SUDEBI GIRI AND BINAY SAWAIYAN

7 Bene Appétit: Consuming Food and Remembering Jewish Identity in the Selected Works of Esther David 109

ANANDHA LEKSHMI NAIR

8 Mythopoeic Menus from the Spice Coast: Food, Memory, and Community in Kerala 124

MEENU JOSE

Index 137

Über Autor(innen)

Elwin Susan John has been Assistant Professor of English at Sophia College (Autonomous), Mumbai, India since 2015. Her doctoral study was on the sociocultural intersections between skin and diseases by reading literary narratives on colonial South India. She is actively involved in interdisciplinary research ventures along with full-time teaching. She is the co-editor of Media Technology and Cultures of Memory, published in 2024.

Amal P Mathews has been Assistant Professor of English at Assumption College (Autonomous), Kerala, India since 2012. Besides being involved in various teaching-learning initiatives at her workspace, she is also interested in exploring new dimensions of literature and translation. She is currently pursuing doctoral research in the interdisciplinary field of children’s human rights in 21st century fiction. She is the co-editor of Media Technology and Cultures of Memory, published in 2024.