Author: Geeti Sen
Editor(s): Geeti Sen
Publisher: Sage Publications
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 294
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0761998134
Description
In this exciting and unique collection of essays, eminent academics, art historians, photographers and dancers focus on one essential ingredient of the making of Indian nationalism - i.e. the ingredient of culture, and one that has resurfaced in everyday experience.
The last two decades of the 20th century have witnessed a spectacular return of national consciousness. These essays contribute incisive analytical comment on, and very different readings of, the fabric that constitutes 'culture'.
From the early stirrings of national fervor in the second half of the 19th century, through the secularism of the Nehruvian era in the 1950, to the all pervasive and persuasive refashioning of culture to political purpose, the contributors demonstrate convincingly the culture is not a static entity. Rather, it can be refashioned, reinvented or co-opted to suit political purpose.
It is time, they argue, to once again reinvent an Indian culture that is intangible, that gets under the skin to resist the vicissitudes of political agenda.
Contents
Preface
National Culture and Cultural Nationalism by Geeti Sen
VISIONS: SCRIPTING THE NATION
Excerpts from
Sri Aurobindo
Mahatma Gandhi
Jawaharlal Nehru
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Maulana Azad
MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS . .
Gandhi's Retrieval of Indigenous Culture
In Pursuit of a Different Freedom: Tagore's World University at Santiniketan
Imbibing Culture at Kalakshetra
Aligarh Muslim University: recalling radical days
A Memory of Coming to Life
VOICES: AFFIRMING PLURALITY
The persistence of Hindustani
Holding the Nation Together
Plural Cultures, Monolithic Structures
Rewording Homes: Colonialism, 'national' culture, and post-national India
Poetry as an Expression of National Crisis: A Preface and three poems
PHOTO ESSAY
Theatre of the Street
METAPHORS OF THE NATION
Ionizing the Nation: Political agendas
The Museum if National
Chicks, Kids and Couples: the nation in calendar art
Image and Imagination: reconstructing the nation in cinema
PHOTO ESSAY
Women Sadhus at the Kumbh Mela
VISTAS: THREE GLOBAL CUSP
What's so Great about Lagaan
Ethnic Cuisine: the significant 'other'
Cricket's Social Subtext
Demystifying the Nation and Nationalism
News Watch: in search of a national culture
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