國立虎尾科技大學 |

The Return of the Mughal: Historical Fiction and Despotism in Colonial India, 1863–1908

Record Type:	Language materials, printed : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	The Return of the Mughal: Historical Fiction and Despotism in Colonial India, 1863–1908/ by Alex Padamsee.
Author:	Padamsee, Alex.
Description:	V, 178 p.online resource. :
Contained By:	Springer Nature eBook
Subject:	British literature. -
Online resource:	https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-35494-5
ISBN:	9781137354945

The Return of the Mughal: Historical Fiction and Despotism in Colonial India, 1863–1908
Padamsee, Alex.

The Return of the Mughal: Historical Fiction and Despotism in Colonial India, 1863–1908[electronic resource] /by Alex Padamsee. - 1st ed. 2018. - V, 178 p.online resource.

1. Introduction -- 2. The devil’s sovereignty: plagiarism and political theology in Rudyard Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King -- 3. Flora Annie Steel and the jurisprudence of emergency -- 4. Time and the nation: Mughals, Maine and modernities in Romesh Chunder Dutt’s historical fiction -- 5. Conclusion.

This Pivot explores the uses of the Mughal past in the historical fiction of colonial India. Through detailed reconsiderations of canonical works by Rudyard Kipling, Flora Annie Steel and Romesh Chunder Dutt, the author argues for a more complex and integral understanding of the part played by the Mughal imaginary in colonial and early Indian nationalist projections of sovereignty. Evoking the rich historical and transnational contexts of these literary narratives, the study demonstrates the ways in which, at successive moments of crisis and contestation in the later Raj, the British Indian state continued to be troubled by its early and profound investments in models of despotism first located by colonial administrators in the figure of the Mughal emperor. At the heart of these political fictions lay the issue of territoriality and the founding problem of a British claim to sole proprietorship of Indian land – a form of Orientalist exceptionalism that at once underpinned and could never fully be integrated with the colonial rule of law. Alongside its recovery of a wealth of popular and often overlooked colonial historiography, The Return of the Mughal emphasises the relevance of theories of political theology – from Carl Schmitt and Ernst Kantorowicz to Talal Asad and Giorgio Agamben – to our understanding of the fictional and jurisprudential histories of colonialism. This study aims to show just how closely the pageantry and romance of empire in India connects to its early politics of terror and even today continues to inform the figure of the Mughal in the sectarian politics of Hindu Nationalism.

ISBN: 9781137354945

Standard No.: 10.1057/978-1-137-35494-5doiSubjects--Topical Terms:

996807
British literature.

LC Class. No.: PN849.G74

Dewey Class. No.: 809.41

The Return of the Mughal: Historical Fiction and Despotism in Colonial India, 1863–1908
LDR:03326nam a22003975i 4500 001 987577
003 DE-He213
005 20200703073308.0
007 cr nn 008mamaa
008 201225s2018 xxk| s |||| 0|eng d
020 $a 9781137354945 $9 978-1-137-35494-5
024 7 $a 10.1057/978-1-137-35494-5 $2 doi
035 $a 978-1-137-35494-5
050 4 $a PN849.G74
072 7 $a DS $2 bicssc
072 7 $a LIT004120 $2 bisacsh
072 7 $a DS $2 thema
082 0 4 $a 809.41 $2 23
100 1 $a Padamsee, Alex. $4 aut $4 http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut $3 1210423
245 1 0 $a The Return of the Mughal: Historical Fiction and Despotism in Colonial India, 1863–1908 $h [electronic resource] / $c by Alex Padamsee.
250 $a 1st ed. 2018.
264 1 $a London : $b Palgrave Macmillan UK : $b Imprint: Palgrave Pivot, $c 2018.
300 $a V, 178 p. $b online resource.
336 $a text $b txt $2 rdacontent
337 $a computer $b c $2 rdamedia
338 $a online resource $b cr $2 rdacarrier
347 $a text file $b PDF $2 rda
505 0 $a 1. Introduction -- 2. The devil’s sovereignty: plagiarism and political theology in Rudyard Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King -- 3. Flora Annie Steel and the jurisprudence of emergency -- 4. Time and the nation: Mughals, Maine and modernities in Romesh Chunder Dutt’s historical fiction -- 5. Conclusion.
520 $a This Pivot explores the uses of the Mughal past in the historical fiction of colonial India. Through detailed reconsiderations of canonical works by Rudyard Kipling, Flora Annie Steel and Romesh Chunder Dutt, the author argues for a more complex and integral understanding of the part played by the Mughal imaginary in colonial and early Indian nationalist projections of sovereignty. Evoking the rich historical and transnational contexts of these literary narratives, the study demonstrates the ways in which, at successive moments of crisis and contestation in the later Raj, the British Indian state continued to be troubled by its early and profound investments in models of despotism first located by colonial administrators in the figure of the Mughal emperor. At the heart of these political fictions lay the issue of territoriality and the founding problem of a British claim to sole proprietorship of Indian land – a form of Orientalist exceptionalism that at once underpinned and could never fully be integrated with the colonial rule of law. Alongside its recovery of a wealth of popular and often overlooked colonial historiography, The Return of the Mughal emphasises the relevance of theories of political theology – from Carl Schmitt and Ernst Kantorowicz to Talal Asad and Giorgio Agamben – to our understanding of the fictional and jurisprudential histories of colonialism. This study aims to show just how closely the pageantry and romance of empire in India connects to its early politics of terror and even today continues to inform the figure of the Mughal in the sectarian politics of Hindu Nationalism.
650 0 $a British literature. $3 996807
650 0 $a Civilization—History. $3 1254101
650 0 $a Imperialism. $3 559183
650 0 $a Asia—History. $3 1254630
650 0 $a Great Britain—History. $3 1254150
650 1 4 $a British and Irish Literature. $3 1104874
650 2 4 $a Cultural History. $3 1106960
650 2 4 $a Imperialism and Colonialism. $3 1104931
650 2 4 $a History of South Asia. $3 1104933
650 2 4 $a History of Britain and Ireland. $3 1104889
710 2 $a SpringerLink (Online service) $3 593884
773 0 $t Springer Nature eBook
776 0 8 $i Printed edition: $z 9781137354938
776 0 8 $i Printed edition: $z 9781349675289
776 0 8 $i Printed edition: $z 9781349675272
856 4 0 $u https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-35494-5
912 $a ZDB-2-LCM
912 $a ZDB-2-SXL
950 $a Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (SpringerNature-41173)
950 $a Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0) (SpringerNature-43723)