Leela Gandhi
Biographic Data
| ID | 106138 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Leela Gandhi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Leela |
| FAMILY NAME | Gandhi |
| SIGNATURE | GANDHI L |
| AFFILIATIONS | La Trobe University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 32 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 25 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Mohamed Amer Meziane. 2024. The States of the Earth, trans. Jonathan Adjemian
Purity is the End of Thought and the End of Philosophy.” Interview with Leela Gandhi
Leela Gandhi is internationally acknowledged as one of the foremost critical voices in contemporary postcolonial thought. In this conversation, Gandhi retraces her intellectual journey – from her formative years at the University of Delhi and the University of Oxford, to her sustained engagement with postcolonial theory, the ethics of nonviolence as a shared universal inheritance, and the significance of affect in philosophical inquiry and politi…
Home in the World: A Memoir
Amartya Sen's teeming account of an ecumenical life lived across three continents and over nine decades, in the interstices of colonial encounter, takes the reader on an intimate journey through some of the most significant global, intellectual, and historical events of the second half of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. We learn of Sen's formative years at Rabindranath Tagore's Shantiniketan University (he was named by the sage hi…
On Sitting
By way of a formal experiment in speculative entanglement, this essay hopes to set in motion an account of nonviolence as a disposition vested in principles of relationship rather than renunciation. It also counters what the cultural anthropologist Thomas Trautmann has described as the "theory-deadness" of non-Western antiquities-a double effect, we might argue, of their disciplinary incarceration by possessive orientalist modes of expertise and …
Skeptical Conditions
Previous articleNext article FreeSkeptical ConditionsLeela GandhiLeela Gandhi Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMore1 June 2020But He’s Much Bluer than When I Went AwayMany of us will recognize two cognitive phenomena from the intense experience of the coronavirus lockdown. The first is fairly u…
Utonal Life: A Genealogy for Global Ethics
Speaking to the idea of imperfect cosmopolitanisms, Leela Gandhi insists on this sense of imperfection, playing upon the grammatical import of the imperfect verb form: “Unlike the preterit form, which implies an already completed past action, the imperfective aspect renders an apparently concluded (perfected) action unfinished and suddenly infinitive. In this way the imperfectionism at the core of disapparation makes the subject of ethics into a …
Postcolonial Theory: A critical introduction
Postcolonial Theory is a ground-breaking critical introduction to the burgeoning field of postcolonial studies.Leela Gandhi is the first to clearly map out this field in terms of its wider philosophical and intellectual context, drawing important connections between postcolonial theory and poststructuralism, postmodernism, marxism and feminism. She assesses the contribution of major theorists such as Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha, a…
Postcolonial Theory
Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction: Second Edition
Leela Gandhi’s Postcolonial Theory is a landmark description of the field of postcolonial studies in theoretical terms and its intellectual context. The revised edition of this classic work reaffirms its status as a useful starting point for readers new to the field and a provocative account that opens up possibilities for debate
Acts of Literature: "Notes on "The Return of the Caravels
The last two decades or so have witnessed a profound theoretical reaction against cultural and aesthetic claims of “literariness.” Despite its political appeal, however, such a critical attitude too often forgets the capacity of all canonical cultures to challenge and critique themselves internally. This paper reads the work of António Lobo Antunes, in particular his The Return of the Caravels, as an exemplary instance of such internal critique, …
The Common Cause: Postcolonial Ethics and the Practice of Democracy, 1900-1955
Common Cause: Postcolonial Ethics and the Practice of Democracy, 1900-1955
Theory and Practice in Postcolonial Studies
Mission Statement Responses
Friendship and Postmodern Utopianism
Believers insist that the ghost of utopianism returned to Europe in May 1968, and that it has been haunting the ruins of 'the political' ever since. This paper is written in the spirit of belief. It has two claims: first, and incidentally, that utopianism-namely, a politics of alternatives poised at the limits of thought and being, epistemology and ontology-is both expedient and inevitable in regard to a terrain where, à la Foucault, power is eve…
The Pauper's Gift: Postcolonial Theory and the New Democratic Dispensation
This essay considers recent critiques of postcolonial theory and proposes democracy as a theme likely to prove crucial for the future of the field. It argues that a properly postcolonial turn toward democracy demands a new philosophical, political, and ethical valuation of the concept of naïveté
Global Perspectives on Modernity and Modernism: Some Notes on Twentieth-Century Transnational Anticolonial Metaphysics
Spirits of Non-Violence: A Transnational Genealogy ForAhimsa
In the first few decades of the twentieth century there came into view two competing yet collaborative discourses of non-violence, one non-western and the other western. Where the former found its condition of possibility in the particular forms of anticolonial politics popularized by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, first in South Africa and then in India, the latter emerged in more muted form out of the curious interchanges between English guild soc…
Postcolonial theory and the crisis of European man
In his recent article, ‘The History of Theory’, Ian Hunter suggests that the putative ‘moment of theory’, understood by many as crucial to a series of cultural-intellectual developments within huma
Affective Communities: Anticolonial Thought, Fin-de-Siècle Radicalism, and the Politics of Friendship
"If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country." So E. M. Forster famously observed in his Two Cheers for Democracy. Forster's epigrammatic manifesto, where the idea of the "friend" stands as a metaphor for dissident cross-cultural collaboration, holds the key, Leela Gandhi argues in Affective Communities, to the hitherto neglected history of western anti-imperialism. F…
Plumbing the depths: Toilets, transparency and modernity
(2002). Plumbing the depths: Toilets, transparency and modernity. Postcolonial Studies: Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 137-142
England Through Colonial Eyes in Twentieth-Century Fiction
Much attention has focused on the imperial gaze at colonised peoples, cultures, and lands. But, during and after the British Empire, what have writers from those cultures made of England, the English
Other(s) Worlds: Mysticism and Radicalism at the Fin de Siècle
Over time our understanding of the 'political' has been progressively shaped by the secular rational calculations of modern European political thought. This paper aims to critique these 'calculations' with reference to crucial moments of departure and flight within western philosophy itself. It concludes by reclaiming fin de siècle radicalism/philosophy as a forgotten instance of empirical-metaphysical hybridity: a form of politics or ethics capa…
Other(s) Worlds: Mysticism and Radicalism at the Fin de Siècle
Over time our understanding of the ‘political’ has been progressively shaped by the secular rational calculations of modern European political thought. This paper aims to critique these ‘calculations’ with reference to crucial moments of departure and flight within western philosophy itself. It concludes by reclaiming fin de siècle radicalism/philosophy as a forgotten instance of empirical-metaphysical hybridity: a form of politics or ethics capa…
Negotiating Difference
The Pauper's Gift: Postcolonial Theory and the New Democratic Dispensation
This essay considers recent critiques of postcolonial theory and proposes democracy as a theme likely to prove crucial for the future of the field. It argues that a properly postcolonial turn toward democracy demands a new philosophical, political, and ethical valuation of the concept of naïveté
Plumbing the depths: Toilets, transparency and modernity
(2002). Plumbing the depths: Toilets, transparency and modernity. Postcolonial Studies: Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 137-142
Concerning Violence: The Limits and Circulations of Gandhian "Ahisma" or Passive Resistance
I would like to begin my inquiry into the circulations of Gandhian ahimsa through a consideration of its discursive and practical limits as an ethic of resistance. This article will investigate the effectiveness of ahimsa through two sets of negotiations fundamental to Gandhi's project-that is, the negotiation between colonizer and colonized and that between theory and practice. The full force of
Spirits of Non-Violence: A Transnational Genealogy ForAhimsa
In the first few decades of the twentieth century there came into view two competing yet collaborative discourses of non-violence, one non-western and the other western. Where the former found its condition of possibility in the particular forms of anticolonial politics popularized by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, first in South Africa and then in India, the latter emerged in more muted form out of the curious interchanges between English guild soc…
Friendship and Postmodern Utopianism
Believers insist that the ghost of utopianism returned to Europe in May 1968, and that it has been haunting the ruins of 'the political' ever since. This paper is written in the spirit of belief. It has two claims: first, and incidentally, that utopianism-namely, a politics of alternatives poised at the limits of thought and being, epistemology and ontology-is both expedient and inevitable in regard to a terrain where, à la Foucault, power is eve…
Postcolonial theory and the crisis of European man
In his recent article, ‘The History of Theory’, Ian Hunter suggests that the putative ‘moment of theory’, understood by many as crucial to a series of cultural-intellectual developments within huma
The toolbox of postcolonialism
Concerning Violence: The Limits and Circulations of Gandhian "Ahisma" or Passive Resistance
I would like to begin my inquiry into the circulations of Gandhian ahimsa through a consideration of its discursive and practical limits as an ethic of resistance. This article will investigate the effectiveness of ahimsa through two sets of negotiations fundamental to Gandhi's project-that is, the negotiation between colonizer and colonized and that between theory and practice. The full force of
Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction
A provocative and exemplary introduction to the field of postcolonial studies. Leela Gandhi surveys the entire field of postcolonial studies and outlines the connections beween postcolonial theory and poststructuralism, postmodernism, marxism and feminism. She assesses the contribution of major theorists such as Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha as well as highlighting postcolonialism's relationship to earlier thinkers such as Frantz Fa…
After colonialism
Jive talking, or, how to have fun and influence people
Postcolonial discernment or was that deceit
Watch this space
The toolbox of postcolonialism
England Through Colonial Eyes in Twentieth-Century Fiction
Much attention has focused on the imperial gaze at colonised peoples, cultures, and lands. But, during and after the British Empire, what have writers from those cultures made of England, the English
Other(s) Worlds: Mysticism and Radicalism at the Fin de Siècle
Over time our understanding of the 'political' has been progressively shaped by the secular rational calculations of modern European political thought. This paper aims to critique these 'calculations' with reference to crucial moments of departure and flight within western philosophy itself. It concludes by reclaiming fin de siècle radicalism/philosophy as a forgotten instance of empirical-metaphysical hybridity: a form of politics or ethics capa…
Other(s) Worlds: Mysticism and Radicalism at the Fin de Siècle
Over time our understanding of the ‘political’ has been progressively shaped by the secular rational calculations of modern European political thought. This paper aims to critique these ‘calculations’ with reference to crucial moments of departure and flight within western philosophy itself. It concludes by reclaiming fin de siècle radicalism/philosophy as a forgotten instance of empirical-metaphysical hybridity: a form of politics or ethics capa…
Negotiating Difference
Plumbing the depths: Toilets, transparency and modernity
(2002). Plumbing the depths: Toilets, transparency and modernity. Postcolonial Studies: Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 137-142
Affective Communities: Anticolonial Thought, Fin-de-Siècle Radicalism, and the Politics of Friendship
"If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country." So E. M. Forster famously observed in his Two Cheers for Democracy. Forster's epigrammatic manifesto, where the idea of the "friend" stands as a metaphor for dissident cross-cultural collaboration, holds the key, Leela Gandhi argues in Affective Communities, to the hitherto neglected history of western anti-imperialism. F…
Postcolonial theory and the crisis of European man
In his recent article, ‘The History of Theory’, Ian Hunter suggests that the putative ‘moment of theory’, understood by many as crucial to a series of cultural-intellectual developments within huma
Spirits of Non-Violence: A Transnational Genealogy ForAhimsa
In the first few decades of the twentieth century there came into view two competing yet collaborative discourses of non-violence, one non-western and the other western. Where the former found its condition of possibility in the particular forms of anticolonial politics popularized by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, first in South Africa and then in India, the latter emerged in more muted form out of the curious interchanges between English guild soc…
Global Perspectives on Modernity and Modernism: Some Notes on Twentieth-Century Transnational Anticolonial Metaphysics
The Pauper's Gift: Postcolonial Theory and the New Democratic Dispensation
This essay considers recent critiques of postcolonial theory and proposes democracy as a theme likely to prove crucial for the future of the field. It argues that a properly postcolonial turn toward democracy demands a new philosophical, political, and ethical valuation of the concept of naïveté
Theory and Practice in Postcolonial Studies
Mission Statement Responses
Friendship and Postmodern Utopianism
Believers insist that the ghost of utopianism returned to Europe in May 1968, and that it has been haunting the ruins of 'the political' ever since. This paper is written in the spirit of belief. It has two claims: first, and incidentally, that utopianism-namely, a politics of alternatives poised at the limits of thought and being, epistemology and ontology-is both expedient and inevitable in regard to a terrain where, à la Foucault, power is eve…
The Common Cause: Postcolonial Ethics and the Practice of Democracy, 1900-1955
Common Cause: Postcolonial Ethics and the Practice of Democracy, 1900-1955
Acts of Literature: "Notes on "The Return of the Caravels
The last two decades or so have witnessed a profound theoretical reaction against cultural and aesthetic claims of “literariness.” Despite its political appeal, however, such a critical attitude too often forgets the capacity of all canonical cultures to challenge and critique themselves internally. This paper reads the work of António Lobo Antunes, in particular his The Return of the Caravels, as an exemplary instance of such internal critique, …
Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction: Second Edition
Leela Gandhi’s Postcolonial Theory is a landmark description of the field of postcolonial studies in theoretical terms and its intellectual context. The revised edition of this classic work reaffirms its status as a useful starting point for readers new to the field and a provocative account that opens up possibilities for debate
Postcolonial Theory
Sociology (16 works) · Philosophy (15 works) · Art (12 works) · Epistemology (11 works) · History (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Law (7 works) · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies (7 works) · Aesthetics (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works)