Shaping Indian Diaspora: Literary Representations and Bollywood Consumption away from the Desi

by Cristina M. Gámez-Fernández (Editor), Veena Dwivedi (Editor), Judith Caesar (Contribution by), Keith Corson (Contribution by), Paromita Deb (Contribution by)

Overview

The Indian diaspora is the largest diasporic movement from Asia, with the Indian community numbering over twenty-five million around the world. Its large scale encompasses a kaleidoscopic community from disparate regions, languages, cultural heritages, religions, and traditions within the subcontinent. The many peoples of the Indian diaspora have growing social and economic impacts on their new homes, but maintain their cultural bonds with India.

This volume offers a thorough analysis of the diasporic practices of the Indian communities in essays covering a number of fields, such as literature, cultural studies, and film studies. The contributors deal with the Indian diaspora’s historical and contemporary connotations, its theoretical framework, the cultural hybridizations that emerge from diaspora, and other topics touching on the cultural and social effects of the spread of Indian peoples around the globe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498514965
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	08/27/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	180
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Cristina M. Gámez-Fernández is associate professor in the Department of English and German at the University of Córdoba.

Veena Dwivedi is assistant professor of English at Feroze Gandhi Institute of Engineering and Technology.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Shaping Indian Diaspora, or the Instability of Human Morphoses, Cristina M. Gámez-Fernández and Veena Dwivedi

Part I. Home Diaspora after Indian Partition
Chapter 1: Stories of Hasan Azizul Huq and the Shaping of Indian Diaspora in post-Partition India, M. Rakibul Hasan Khan

Part II. Great Britain and Scotland
Chapter 2: “Seeing Through a Glass”: Diasporic Identity in Vikram Seth’s Two Lives, Mélanie Heydari
Chapter 3: Roots and Routes in Meera Syal’s Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee, Mounir Guirat
Chapter 4: Indo-Scottish Cultural Flows: Bashabi Fraser and the Streams of Identity, Carla Rodríguez González

Part III. United States of America
Chapter 5: Rice and Fish: Food Rituals and Women in Lahiri’s The Namesake and Divakaruni’s The Vine of Desire, Paromita Deb
Chapter 6: The Ebb and Flow of Homecoming—The Nature of Diasporic Existence in The Hungry Tide,Kinga Földváry
Chapter 7: Historicizing Diaspora, Multiculturalism, and Migration in Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke, Julia Hoydis

Part IV. Canada
Chapter 8: Diaspora Identity in Kim and The Cat’s Table, Judith Caesar

Part V. Australia and New Zealand
Chapter 9: Alternative Literary Spaces: India in the Antipodes, Alejandra Moreno Álvarez
Chapter 10: Outside, Inside, and Somewhere In Between: Laughter and the Indian Diasporic Experience in A House for Mr Biswas and The White Tiger,Adele Holoch

Part VI. Bollywood and Diaspora
Chapter 11: Little Indias: Diasporic Communities in the US and the Consumption of Bollywood, Keith M. Corson

Editorial Reviews

Discussions of the 'Indian diaspora' inevitably throw up more questions than answers about Indianness, globalisation, and the perception and depiction of human migration. That is why they are necessary. Shaping Indian Diaspora contains papers that engage critically and fruitfully with the matter, and accentuate it in necessary directions.

Tabish Khair

In a timely volume that articulates multiple meanings of the term ‘Diaspora’, Shaping Indian Diaspora investigates nuanced applications of the term with reference to India’s expatriate community and their evolving cultural interests. The editors engage thoroughly with varied interpretations of the term as it relates particularly to transnational literature and cinema. Theoretically informed and substantively grounded in raging debates relating to India’s scattered human settlements, this book incorporates the latest scholarship from a number of respected specialists in their fields even as it encompasses interdisciplinary attitudes and positions. In doing so, it makes a distinctive contribution to the existing research on this subject.

Rochelle Almeida

A refreshing look at the literature of the Indian diaspora, testifying to its variety and dispersal across many geographical regions. Lively and accessible, the essays in Shaping Indian Diaspora show how this body of writing is transforming our understanding of world literature.

Janet Wilson

A relevant collection that negotiates with the construct of diasporic practices through the prism of an array of interdisciplinary fields. The essays when put together raise important issues about the ways in which identities, cultures and institutes intersect.

Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan

In a timely volume that articulates multiple meanings of the term ‘Diaspora’, Shaping Indian Diaspora investigates nuanced applications of the term with reference to India’s expatriate community and their evolving cultural interests. The editors engage thoroughly with varied interpretations of the term as it relates particularly to transnational literature and cinema. Theoretically informed and substantively grounded in raging debates relating to India’s scattered human settlements, this book incorporates the latest scholarship from a number of respected specialists in their fields even as it encompasses interdisciplinary attitudes and positions. In doing so, it makes a distinctive contribution to the existing research on this subject.

Almeida Rochelle