Global Migrancy and Diasporic Memory in the work of Salman Rushdie

Global Migrancy and Diasporic Memory in the work of Salman Rushdie PDF Author: Stephen J. Bell
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 179361590X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Global Migrancy and Diasporic Memory in the Work of Salman Rushdie examines Salman Rushdie’s major works for the ways that they consistently affirm the power of memory to construct a concrete, rooted identity for characters and nation-states despite the prerogative of migrants to translate themselves into new creations through a dismissal of the weight of the past. Stephen J. Bell conducts an in-depth, comprehensive postcolonial and postmodern of Rushdie’s ideas as expressed through his work. If “exile is a dream of glorious return,” as one of his characters reflects in The Satanic Verses, few diasporic writers living today rival Rushdie for the singular inspiration he draws from memories of home and the past. So vital is the idea of home and belonging to Rushdie that, notwithstanding the frequent charges of his critics that he represents no more than a disconnected cosmopolitan, Bell would categorize Rushdie's position as one of “centripetal migrancy" (with centrum--“center”--and petere--“to seek”--forming the idea of a constant quest for the center). Rushdie thus qualifies as the quintessential “centripetal migrant,” whose slippery critical location is balanced Janus-faced between the future and the past.

Global Migrancy and Diasporic Memory in the work of Salman Rushdie

Global Migrancy and Diasporic Memory in the work of Salman Rushdie PDF Author: Stephen J. Bell
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 179361590X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 201

Get Book

Book Description
Global Migrancy and Diasporic Memory in the Work of Salman Rushdie examines Salman Rushdie’s major works for the ways that they consistently affirm the power of memory to construct a concrete, rooted identity for characters and nation-states despite the prerogative of migrants to translate themselves into new creations through a dismissal of the weight of the past. Stephen J. Bell conducts an in-depth, comprehensive postcolonial and postmodern of Rushdie’s ideas as expressed through his work. If “exile is a dream of glorious return,” as one of his characters reflects in The Satanic Verses, few diasporic writers living today rival Rushdie for the singular inspiration he draws from memories of home and the past. So vital is the idea of home and belonging to Rushdie that, notwithstanding the frequent charges of his critics that he represents no more than a disconnected cosmopolitan, Bell would categorize Rushdie's position as one of “centripetal migrancy" (with centrum--“center”--and petere--“to seek”--forming the idea of a constant quest for the center). Rushdie thus qualifies as the quintessential “centripetal migrant,” whose slippery critical location is balanced Janus-faced between the future and the past.

Imaginary Homelands

Imaginary Homelands PDF Author: Salman Rushdie
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0140140360
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
“Read every page of this book; better still, re-read them. The invocation means no hardship, since every true reader must surely be captivated by Rushdie’s masterful invention and ease, the flow of wit and insight and passion. How literature of the highest order can serve the interests of our common humanity is freshly illustrated here: a defence of his past, a promise for the future, and a surrender to nobody or nothing whatever except his own all-powerful imagination.”-Michael Foot, Observer Salman Rushdie’s Imaginary Homelands is an important record of one writer’s intellectual and personal odyssey. The seventy essays collected here, written over the last ten years, cover an astonishing range of subjects –the literature of the received masters and of Rushdie’s contemporaries; the politics of colonialism and the ironies of culture; film, politicians, the Labour Party, religious fundamentalism in America, racial prejudice; and the preciousness of the imagination and of free expression. For this paperback edition, the author has written a new essay to mark the third anniversary of the fatwa.

Relocating Consciousness

Relocating Consciousness PDF Author: Daphne Grace
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9042022523
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This book deals directly with issues of consciousness within works of postcolonial and diasporic writers. It discusses fiction, autobiography and theory to re-formulate a "writing of consciousness", addressing contemporary cultural theory related to a wide range of dynamic writers and ground-breaking novels. A critical analysis of literature contextualises consciousness (understood here as the source of language and human creativity), and explores ways in which consciousness is involved in the creative process. Tackling the controversial nature of consciousness itself, the book argues that consciousness must be understood in its philosophical and social contexts. The idea of relocating consciousness calls for a new aesthetics and ethics of living in the diasporic world where we are all to some extent "migrant". The book explores notions of consciousness as alternative narrative structures to society, while expanding contemporary postcolonial theory beyond the limited dimension of power-based-on-violence to a more visionary exploration of experience based on consciousness as unity-in-diversity. Themes explored include sacred experience as empowerment; trauma, terror and the impact of consciousness; cosmopolitanism and globalisation; and the literature of human survival. Written in a lively and accessible manner the book will appeal to all readers who enjoy being on the cutting-edge of contemporary world literature.

Salman Rushdie in Context

Salman Rushdie in Context PDF Author: Florian Stadtler
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781009082624
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Salman Rushdie in Context discusses Rushdie's life and work in the context of the multiple geographies he has inhabited and the wider socio-cultural contexts in which his writing is emerging, published and read. This book reveals the evolving political trajectory around transnationalism, multiculturalism and its discontents, so prominently engaged with by Salman Rushdie in relation to South Asia, its diasporas, Britain, and the USA in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Focused on the aesthetic, biographical, cultural, creative, historical and literary contexts of his works, the book reveals his deep engagement with processes of decolonization, emergent nationalisms in South Asia, Europe and the USA, and diasporic identity constructions and how they have been affected by globalisation. The book traces how, through his fiction and non-fiction, Rushdie has profoundly shaped the discussion of important questions of global citizenship and migration that continue to resonate today"--

Post-Soviet Migration and Diasporas

Post-Soviet Migration and Diasporas PDF Author: Milana V. Nikolko
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319477730
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
This book examines the relationship between post-Soviet societies in transition and the increasingly important role of their diaspora. It analyses processes of identity transformation in post-Soviet space and beyond, using macro- and micro-level perspectives and interdisciplinary approaches combining field-based and ethnographic research. The authors demonstrate that post-Soviet diaspora are just at the beginning of the process of identity formation and formalization. They do this by examining the challenges, encounters and practices of Ukrainians and Russians living abroad in Western and Southern Europe, Canada and Turkey, as well as those of migrants, expellees and returnees living in the conflict zones of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova. Key questions on how diaspora can be better engaged to support development, foreign policy and economic policies in post-Soviet societies are both raised and answered. Russia’s transformative and important role in shaping post-Soviet diaspora interests and engagement is also considered. This edited collection will appeal to students and scholars of diaspora, post-Soviet politics and migration, and economic and political development.

Midnight's Children

Midnight's Children PDF Author: Salman Rushdie
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307367754
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 560

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Book Description
Winner of the Booker prize and twice winner of the Booker of Bookers, Midnight's Children is "one of the most important books to come out of the English-speaking world in this generation" (New York Review of Books). Reissued for the 40th anniversary of the original publication--with a new introduction from the author--Salman Rushdie's widely acclaimed novel is a masterpiece in literature. Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with India’s 1,000 other “midnight’s children,” all born in that initial hour and endowed with magical gifts. This novel is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people–a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy. Midnight’s Children stands apart as both an epochal work of fiction and a brilliant performance by one of the great literary voices of our time.

The Transnational in Literary Studies

The Transnational in Literary Studies PDF Author: Kai Wiegandt
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110688824
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
This volume clarifies the meanings and applications of the concept of the transnational and identifies areas in which the concept can be particularly useful. The division of the volume into three parts reflects areas which seem particularly amenable to analysis through a transnational lens. The chapters in Part 1 present case studies in which the concept replaces or complements traditionally dominant concepts in literary studies. These chapters demonstrate, for example, why some dramatic texts and performances can better be described as transnational than as postcolonial, and how the transnational underlies and complements concepts such as world literature. Part 2 assesses the advantages and limitations of writing literary history with a transnational focus. These chapters illustrate how such a perspective loosens the epistemic stranglehold of national historiographies, but they also argue that the transnational and national agendas of literary historiography are frequently entangled. The chapters in Part 3 identify transnational genres such as the transnational historical novel, transnational migrant fiction and translinguistic theatre, and analyse the specific poetics and politics of these genres.

Diasporic Literature and Theory - Where Now?

Diasporic Literature and Theory - Where Now? PDF Author: Mark Shackleton
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443807273
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
The theoretical innovations of Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, Stuart Hall, Paul Gilroy, James Clifford and others have in recent years vitalized postcolonial and diaspora studies, challenging ways in which we understand ‘culture’ and developing new ways of thinking beyond the confines of the nation state. The articles in this volume look at recent developments in diasporic literature and theory, alluding to the work of seminal diaspora theoreticians, but also interrogating such thinkers in the light of recent cultural production (including literature, film and visual art) as well as recent world events. The articles are organized in pairs, offering alternative perspectives on crucial aspects of diaspora theory today: Celebration or Melancholy?; Gender Biases and the Canon of Diasporic Literature; Diasporas of Violence and Terror; Time, Place and Diasporic “Home”; and Border Crossings. A number of the articles are illustrated by discussions of particular authors, such as Caryl Phillips, Salman Rushdie, and Michael Ondaatje, and the range of reference found in this volume covers writing from many parts of the world including contemporary Chicana visual art, Asian diaspora writers, and Black British, Afro-Caribbean, Native North American, and African writing.

The Routledge Diaspora Studies Reader

The Routledge Diaspora Studies Reader PDF Author: Klaus Stierstorfer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781138783201
Category : Acculturation
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Routledge Diaspora Studies Reader provides a comprehensive resource for students and scholars working in this vital interdisciplinary field. The book traces the emergence and development of diaspora studies as a field of scholarship, presenting key critical essays alongside more recent criticism that explores new directions. It also includes seminal essays that have been selected specifically for this collection, as well as one brand new paper. The volume presents: introductions to each section that situate each work within its historical, disciplinary, and theoretical contexts; essays grouped by key subject areas including religion, nation, citizenship, home and belonging, visual culture, and digital diasporas; writings by major figures including Robin Cohen, Homi K. Bhabha, Avtar Brah, Pnina Werbner, Floya Anthias, James Clifford, Paul Gilroy, and Salman Rushdie. The Routledge Diaspora Studies Reader is a field-defining volume that presents an illuminating guide for established scholars and also those new to diaspora.

Home Truths: Fictions of the South Asian Diaspora in Britain

Home Truths: Fictions of the South Asian Diaspora in Britain PDF Author: Susheila Nasta
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1403932689
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The figure of the disaporic or migrant writer has recently come to be seen as the 'Everyman' of the late modern period, a symbol of the global and the local, a cultural traveller who can traverse the national, political and ethnic boundaries of the new millennium. Home Truths: Fictions of the South Asian Diaspora in Britain seeks not only to place the individual works of now world famous writers such as VS Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Sam Selvon or Hanif Kureishi within a diverse tradition of im/migrant writing that has evolved in Britain since the Second World War, but also locates their work, as well as many lesser known writers such as Attia Hosain, GV Desani, Aubrey Menen, Ravinder Randhawa and Romesh Gunesekera within a historical, cultural and aesthetic framework which has its roots prior to postwar migrations and derives from long established indigenous traditions as well as colonial and post-colonial visions of 'home' and 'abroad'. Close critical readings combine with a historical and theoretical overview in this first book to chart the crucial role played by writers of South Asian origin in the belated acceptance of a literary poetics of black and Asian writing in Britain today.