For the Record

On Sexuality and the Colonial Archive in India

Nonfiction, History, Asian, India, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Gender Studies, Gay Studies
Cover of the book For the Record by Anjali Arondekar, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Robyn Wiegman, Duke University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Anjali Arondekar, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Robyn Wiegman ISBN: 9780822391029
Publisher: Duke University Press Publication: September 15, 2009
Imprint: Duke University Press Books Language: English
Author: Anjali Arondekar, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Robyn Wiegman
ISBN: 9780822391029
Publisher: Duke University Press
Publication: September 15, 2009
Imprint: Duke University Press Books
Language: English

Anjali Arondekar considers the relationship between sexuality and the colonial archive by posing the following questions: Why does sexuality (still) seek its truth in the historical archive? What are the spatial and temporal logics that compel such a return? And conversely, what kind of “archive” does such a recuperative hermeneutics produce? Rather than render sexuality’s relationship to the colonial archive through the preferred lens of historical invisibility (which would presume that there is something about sexuality that is lost or silent and needs to “come out”), Arondekar engages sexuality’s recursive traces within the colonial archive against and through our very desire for access.

The logic and the interpretive resources of For the Record arise out of two entangled and minoritized historiographies: one in South Asian studies and the other in queer/sexuality studies. Focusing on late colonial India, Arondekar examines the spectacularization of sexuality in anthropology, law, literature, and pornography from 1843 until 1920. By turning to materials and/or locations that are familiar to most scholars of queer and subaltern studies, Arondekar considers sexuality at the center of the colonial archive rather than at its margins. Each chapter addresses a form of archival loss, troped either in a language of disappearance or paucity, simulacrum or detritus: from Richard Burton’s missing report on male brothels in Karáchi (1845) to a failed sodomy prosecution in Northern India, Queen Empress v. Khairati (1884), and from the ubiquitous India-rubber dildos found in colonial pornography of the mid-to-late nineteenth century to the archival detritus of Kipling’s stories about the Indian Mutiny of 1857.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Anjali Arondekar considers the relationship between sexuality and the colonial archive by posing the following questions: Why does sexuality (still) seek its truth in the historical archive? What are the spatial and temporal logics that compel such a return? And conversely, what kind of “archive” does such a recuperative hermeneutics produce? Rather than render sexuality’s relationship to the colonial archive through the preferred lens of historical invisibility (which would presume that there is something about sexuality that is lost or silent and needs to “come out”), Arondekar engages sexuality’s recursive traces within the colonial archive against and through our very desire for access.

The logic and the interpretive resources of For the Record arise out of two entangled and minoritized historiographies: one in South Asian studies and the other in queer/sexuality studies. Focusing on late colonial India, Arondekar examines the spectacularization of sexuality in anthropology, law, literature, and pornography from 1843 until 1920. By turning to materials and/or locations that are familiar to most scholars of queer and subaltern studies, Arondekar considers sexuality at the center of the colonial archive rather than at its margins. Each chapter addresses a form of archival loss, troped either in a language of disappearance or paucity, simulacrum or detritus: from Richard Burton’s missing report on male brothels in Karáchi (1845) to a failed sodomy prosecution in Northern India, Queen Empress v. Khairati (1884), and from the ubiquitous India-rubber dildos found in colonial pornography of the mid-to-late nineteenth century to the archival detritus of Kipling’s stories about the Indian Mutiny of 1857.

More books from Duke University Press

Cover of the book Writing in Dante's Cult of Truth by Anjali Arondekar, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Robyn Wiegman
Cover of the book Vibrator Nation by Anjali Arondekar, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Robyn Wiegman
Cover of the book Latina Activists across Borders by Anjali Arondekar, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Robyn Wiegman
Cover of the book Postcolonial Modernism by Anjali Arondekar, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Robyn Wiegman
Cover of the book Minority Rules by Anjali Arondekar, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Robyn Wiegman
Cover of the book Appropriately Indian by Anjali Arondekar, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Robyn Wiegman
Cover of the book Chinese Reportage by Anjali Arondekar, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Robyn Wiegman
Cover of the book Life Within Limits by Anjali Arondekar, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Robyn Wiegman
Cover of the book The Fierce Urgency of Now by Anjali Arondekar, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Robyn Wiegman
Cover of the book Tango Lessons by Anjali Arondekar, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Robyn Wiegman
Cover of the book The Afterlife of Reproductive Slavery by Anjali Arondekar, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Robyn Wiegman
Cover of the book Things Fall Away by Anjali Arondekar, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Robyn Wiegman
Cover of the book Down in the Dumps by Anjali Arondekar, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Robyn Wiegman
Cover of the book Isonomia and the Origins of Philosophy by Anjali Arondekar, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Robyn Wiegman
Cover of the book Choosing to Lead by Anjali Arondekar, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Robyn Wiegman
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy