Tracking modernity
Subtitle: India's railway and the culture of mobility
By: Marian Aguiar
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Minneapolis
Language: eng
Number of pages: 226
ISBN-13: 9780816665600; 9780816665617
Subjects: Railroads in literature; Partition, Territorial, in literature; Indic literature (English); Social aspects; Popular culture; History and criticism; Railroads; Mass media; Modernism (Aesthetics); Postcolonialism
Description: "The ubiquitous railway as a symbol of the tensions of Indian modernity. For centuries the railway has been one of India's most potent emblems of modern life. In the first in-depth analysis of representations of the Indian railway, Marian Aguiar interprets modernity through the legacy of this transformative technology. Revealing railways as a microcosm of tensions within Indian culture, Aguiar demonstrates how their representations have challenged prevailing ideas of modernity. In Tracking Modernity, Marian Aguiar demonstrates a compelling grasp of the complex discourses around and about India's railway and its imbrication in the contested discourses of modernity, mobility, and migration. Aguiar offers both a panoramic and a concentrated view of the many modes of representation of the scene of the train, the spaces of the train, and the railway platform. Historically grounded, theoretically sophisticated, and clearly articulated, Tracking Modernity takes us on a journey through the Indian landscape as it changes from colonial depictions, to postcolonial destinations constantly underlining the violence and terror that the train conjures for the Indian imagination alongside its endless capacity for restless movement."--Publisher.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Tracking modernity; title: The permanent way: colonial discourse of the railway; title: The machine of empire: technology and decolonization; title: Partition and the death train; title: New destinations: the image of the postcolonial railway; title: Bollywood on the train; title: Terrorism and the railway.