Representing Calcutta

Modernity, Nationalism and the Colonial Uncanny

Bibliographic Data

ID23399807
AuthorsSwati Chattopadhyay (0000-0002-2759-0659, corresponding author)
Year2005
Pages336
Publication date2005-09-20
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueRepresenting Calcutta (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.4324/9780203086834
OpenAlexW4230932101
Open LibraryOL28983280M
ISBN9780203086834
LanguageEN
Citations received57

Representing Calcutta is a spatial history of the colonial city, and addresses the question of modernity that haunts our perception of Calcutta. The book responds to two inter-related concerns about the city. First is the image of Calcutta as the worst case scenario of a Third World city -- the proverbial 'city of dreadful nights.' Second is the changing nature of the city’s public spaces -- the demise of certain forms of urban sociality that has been mourned in recent literature as the passing of Bengali modernity. By examining architecture, city plans, paintings, literature, and official reports through the lens of postcolonial, feminist, and spatial theory, the book explores the conditions of colonialism and anti-colonial nationalism that produced the city as a modern artefact. At the centre of this exploration resides the problem of 'representing' the city, representation understood as description and narration, as well as political representation. In doing so, Chattopadhyay questions the very idea of colonial cities as creations of the colonizers, and the model of colonial cities as dual cities, split in black and white areas, in favour of a more complicated view of the topography.

Geography · South Asian Cinema and Culture · Calcutta · City planning · History · India · Social conditions

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