The Difficulty of Being Heathen: Essays in De-orientalising India - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

There are many cultures. However, only one culture – a Western, colonial culture – has offered descriptions of the other cultures. These Western descriptions have recently been questioned by postcolonial theory/discourse, which had not, however, studied the colonial culture that produced these descriptions. The Difficulty of Being Heathen aims to radically question colonial descriptions of Indian society. It shows how such descriptions are not factual reports about Indian society, but reflections of the Western culture's experience of Indian social realities. Instead of providing knowledge about the society it tries to describe (that is, India), colonial descriptions refer instead to the experience of the culture that does the describing (that is, the West). Creating a new framework for understanding issues relating to history, politics, law, and community formation in India, this volume challenges such colonial descriptions while providing a theory about the structure of the Western experience of Indian society.

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