Orientalism, Terrorism, Indigenism: South Asian Readings in Postcolonialism

This book’s contribution lies in its careful synthesis of concepts and concrete examples on issues of contemporary concern: terrorism, Orientalism, and Dalit Bahujan movements, and their reception in the popular media as well as in academic literature. Drawing from the latest developments in South Asian literary studies, this book examines the uses of postcolonial theory in understanding the structural transformations enabled by post-9/11 discourses of Orientalism and terrorism; the internal contradictions between South Asian approaches to postcolonialism (Subaltern Studies) and its European adaptations; and the resistance produced by the indigenization of local literary traditions in the work of select South Asian literary figures. The three sub-sections—“discourses,” “disjunctures,” and “indigenisms”—provide the conceptual space necessary for a thematic guidance of the respective arguments presented in this book. This book will be useful to scholars specializing in South Asian studies, Indian English Literature, Postcolonial Studies, Sociology, and Political Science.