Page 1. m m ^^^^ ■ THE GUN AND IRISH POLITICS EM* EXAMINING NATIONAL HISTORY IN NEIL JORDAN'... more Page 1. m m ^^^^ ■ THE GUN AND IRISH POLITICS EM* EXAMINING NATIONAL HISTORY IN NEIL JORDAN'S MICHAEL COLLINS * ""Si Page 2. Page 3. The Gun and Irish Politics Page 4. Reimagining Ireland Volume 11 Edited ...
Finnish Colonial Encounters: From Anti-Imperialism to Cultural Colonialism and Complicity, 2021
Utilizing such concepts as “colonial complicity” and “colonialism without colonies”, this chapter... more Utilizing such concepts as “colonial complicity” and “colonialism without colonies”, this chapter examines the case of Finns and Finland as a nation that was once oppressed but also itself complicit in colonialism. It argues that although the Finnish nation has historically been positioned in Europe between western and eastern empires, Finns were not only passive victims of (Russian) imperial rule but also active participants in the creation of imperial vocabulary in various colonial contexts, including Sápmi in the North.
This chapter argues that although Finns never had overseas colonies, they were involved in the colonial world, sending out colonizers and producing images of colonial “others”, when they, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, felt the need to project themselves as white and European (not Russian or non-white, such as Mongols). Finns adopted, adapted, and created common European knowledge about colonized areas, cultures, and people and participated in constructing racial hierarchies. These racialized notions were also applied to the Sámi. Furthermore, Finns benefitted economically from colonialism, sent out missionaries to Owambo in present-day Namibia to spread the ideas of Western/White/Christian superiority and instruct the Owambo in European ways. Finns were also involved in several colonial enterprises of other European colonizing powers, such as in the Belgian Congo or aboard Captain Cook’s vessel on his journey to the Antipodes.
Finnish Colonial Encounters: From Anti-Imperialism to Cultural Colonialism and Complicity, 2021
This chapter focuses on colonialism, race, and White innocence in Finnish 1920s’ children’s liter... more This chapter focuses on colonialism, race, and White innocence in Finnish 1920s’ children’s literature, arguing that children’s literature was an influential channel through which colonial discourse and public colonial imagination were created, consumed, and circulated in Finland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As an example of such literature, Merivirta examines the Finnish children’s author Anni Swan’s serial “Uutisasukkaana Austraaliassa” (“Living as Settlers in Australia”, 1926). The serial depicts a Finnish settler family’s life in Queensland, focusing on their encounters with First Nations people. The chapter explores how colonialism and race in the Australian context are depicted and racial and cultural hierarchies constructed in Swan’s text. The chapter shows that Swan’s text circulates a number of common European and American colonial tropes and portrays Finnish settler colonialism in Australia as innocent and noncolonial.
Breaking new ground in the study of European colonialism, this book focuses on a nation historica... more Breaking new ground in the study of European colonialism, this book focuses on a nation historically positioned between the Western and Eastern Empires of Europe – Finland. Although Finland never had overseas colonies, the authors argue that the country was undeniably involved in the colonial world, with Finns adopting ideologies and identities that cannot easily be disentangled from colonialism.
This book explores the concepts of ‘colonial complicity’ and ‘colonialism without colonies’ in relation to Finland, a nation that was oppressed, but also itself complicit in colonialism. It offers insights into European colonialism on the margins of the continent and within a nation that has traditionally declared its innocence and exceptionalism. The book shows that Finns were active participants in various colonial contexts, including Southern Africa and Sápmi in the North. Demonstrating that colonialism was a common practice shared by all European nations, with or without formal colonies, this book provides essential reading for anyone interested in European colonial history.
The Emergency and the Indian English Novel: Memory, Culture and Politics (Routledge), Jun 2019
In the 1980s and the 1990s, there was little incentive in India for remembering the Emergency (19... more In the 1980s and the 1990s, there was little incentive in India for remembering the Emergency (1975-1977), a period of authoritarian rule by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Despite the official culture of forgetting, several notable Indian English novelists wrote about the Emergency in their novels, offering parallel histories that counter the official narrative presented by Indira Gandhi and her government, and remembering the part of the Emergency which was suppressed and silenced. The Emergency and the Indian English Novel: Memory, Culture and Politics interrogates the construction of cultural memory of the Emergency in Indian English novels of the 1980s and the 1990s, and examines what aspects of the Emergency are remembered, how these are represented and what the impact of that remembering is.
Drawing on Jenny Edkins’ discussion of “trauma as betrayal”, the book examines five major, prize-winning novels by Salman Rushdie, Shashi Tharoor, Nayantara Sahgal and Rohinton Mistry as born out of the cultural trauma of the Emergency, that is, the betrayal of the Nehruvian idea of India and democracy by Indira Gandhi.
It is suggested that the writers address especially the middle class in India, exposing their complicity by silence in allowing the oppression of the poor in the authoritarian state, and hoping to raise interest in safeguarding democracy and ensuring that India does not slide into authoritarianism and such excessive measures ever again.
The novels are read in parallel with other representations of the period: government white papers and Indira Gandhi’s speeches of the Emergency era, examples of the post-Emergency literature, memoirs, biographies and historiography.
The book will be published in June 2019 by Routledge
Frontiers of Screen History provides an insightful exploration into the depiction and imagination... more Frontiers of Screen History provides an insightful exploration into the depiction and imagination of European borders in cinema after World War II. While films have explored national and political borders, they have also attempted to identify, challenge, and imagine frontiers of another kind: social, ethnic, religious, and gendered. The book investigates all these perspectives.
In the 1990s, Irish society was changing and becoming increasingly international due to the rise ... more In the 1990s, Irish society was changing and becoming increasingly international due to the rise of the 'Celtic Tiger'. At the same time, the ongoing peace process in Northern Ireland also fuelled debates on the definition of Irishness, which in turn seemed to call for a critical examination of the birth of the Irish State, as well as a rethinking and re-assessment of the nationalist past. Neil Jordan's 'Michael Collins' (1996), the most commercially successful and talked-about Irish film of the 1990s, was a timely contributor to this process. In providing a large-scale representation of the 1916-1922 period, 'Michael Collins' became the subject of critical and popular controversy, demonstrating that cinema could play a part in this cultural reimagining of Ireland. Locating the film in both its historical and its cinematic context, this book explores the depiction of events in 'Michael Collins' and the film's participation in the process of reimagining Irishness through its public reception. The portrayal of the key figures of Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera comes under special scrutiny as the author assesses this pivotal piece of Irish history on screen.
The British East African Protectorate began enticing white settlement to the country in early twe... more The British East African Protectorate began enticing white settlement to the country in early twentieth century. This article focuses on the white settler identity and experience of a Nordic couple, Bror and Karen Blixen, in colonial East Africa in the 1910s, when they shared ownership of a coffee farm near the Ngong Hills. Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke was related to the Swedish royal family, his wife and future author Karen Blixen a member of a wealthy Danish family, whose money was used to purchase the coffee farm in 1913. This article examines how the Blixens as a Nordic couple fitted in the white settler colonial community and how they related to their African servants, farm workers and neighbours. Furthermore, it discusses the problems Bror Blixen’s Swedish nationality caused to the couple during World War I, when the protectorate’s Swedes were suspected of harbouring German sympathies.
This article analyses two films about the Irish republican prison protests and the hunger strikes... more This article analyses two films about the Irish republican prison protests and the hunger strikes of 1981 – Terry George’s Some Mother’s Son (1996) and Steve McQueen’s Hunger (2008) – as countermemories of the dominant British media coverage of the protests and the hunger strikes. Focusing on the use of the voice/image of British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in these films, the article asks for what purpose and to what effect these clips and recordings are employed and suggests that Thatcher’s gender does matter in these films. In contrast to the worried mothers of the incarcerated republican sons, prime minister Thatcher appears as the unbending Iron Lady of the British government in Some Mother’s Son, representing the gendered chief villain of the film. In Hunger, Thatcher’s cold, disembodied female voice – Thatcher as acousmêtre – is set against the resisting and suffering male body of Bobby Sands. This article addresses these gendered depictions and their construction through the use of voice and silence. In both films, the female presence of Thatcher is used to invoke the old and create new media memories of the hunger strike.
Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies, 2021
Utilizing such concepts as “colonial complicity” and “colonialism without colonies”, this chapter... more Utilizing such concepts as “colonial complicity” and “colonialism without colonies”, this chapter examines the case of Finns and Finland as a nation that was once oppressed but also itself complicit in colonialism. It argues that although the Finnish nation has historically been positioned in Europe between western and eastern empires, Finns were not only passive victims of (Russian) imperial rule but also active participants in the creation of imperial vocabulary in various colonial contexts, including Sápmi in the North.This chapter argues that although Finns never had overseas colonies, they were involved in the colonial world, sending out colonizers and producing images of colonial “others”, when they, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, felt the need to project themselves as white and European (not Russian or non-white, such as Mongols). Finns adopted, adapted, and created common European knowledge about colonized areas, cultures, and people and participated in ...
Page 1. m m ^^^^ ■ THE GUN AND IRISH POLITICS EM* EXAMINING NATIONAL HISTORY IN NEIL JORDAN'... more Page 1. m m ^^^^ ■ THE GUN AND IRISH POLITICS EM* EXAMINING NATIONAL HISTORY IN NEIL JORDAN'S MICHAEL COLLINS * ""Si Page 2. Page 3. The Gun and Irish Politics Page 4. Reimagining Ireland Volume 11 Edited ...
Finnish Colonial Encounters: From Anti-Imperialism to Cultural Colonialism and Complicity, 2021
Utilizing such concepts as “colonial complicity” and “colonialism without colonies”, this chapter... more Utilizing such concepts as “colonial complicity” and “colonialism without colonies”, this chapter examines the case of Finns and Finland as a nation that was once oppressed but also itself complicit in colonialism. It argues that although the Finnish nation has historically been positioned in Europe between western and eastern empires, Finns were not only passive victims of (Russian) imperial rule but also active participants in the creation of imperial vocabulary in various colonial contexts, including Sápmi in the North.
This chapter argues that although Finns never had overseas colonies, they were involved in the colonial world, sending out colonizers and producing images of colonial “others”, when they, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, felt the need to project themselves as white and European (not Russian or non-white, such as Mongols). Finns adopted, adapted, and created common European knowledge about colonized areas, cultures, and people and participated in constructing racial hierarchies. These racialized notions were also applied to the Sámi. Furthermore, Finns benefitted economically from colonialism, sent out missionaries to Owambo in present-day Namibia to spread the ideas of Western/White/Christian superiority and instruct the Owambo in European ways. Finns were also involved in several colonial enterprises of other European colonizing powers, such as in the Belgian Congo or aboard Captain Cook’s vessel on his journey to the Antipodes.
Finnish Colonial Encounters: From Anti-Imperialism to Cultural Colonialism and Complicity, 2021
This chapter focuses on colonialism, race, and White innocence in Finnish 1920s’ children’s liter... more This chapter focuses on colonialism, race, and White innocence in Finnish 1920s’ children’s literature, arguing that children’s literature was an influential channel through which colonial discourse and public colonial imagination were created, consumed, and circulated in Finland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As an example of such literature, Merivirta examines the Finnish children’s author Anni Swan’s serial “Uutisasukkaana Austraaliassa” (“Living as Settlers in Australia”, 1926). The serial depicts a Finnish settler family’s life in Queensland, focusing on their encounters with First Nations people. The chapter explores how colonialism and race in the Australian context are depicted and racial and cultural hierarchies constructed in Swan’s text. The chapter shows that Swan’s text circulates a number of common European and American colonial tropes and portrays Finnish settler colonialism in Australia as innocent and noncolonial.
Breaking new ground in the study of European colonialism, this book focuses on a nation historica... more Breaking new ground in the study of European colonialism, this book focuses on a nation historically positioned between the Western and Eastern Empires of Europe – Finland. Although Finland never had overseas colonies, the authors argue that the country was undeniably involved in the colonial world, with Finns adopting ideologies and identities that cannot easily be disentangled from colonialism.
This book explores the concepts of ‘colonial complicity’ and ‘colonialism without colonies’ in relation to Finland, a nation that was oppressed, but also itself complicit in colonialism. It offers insights into European colonialism on the margins of the continent and within a nation that has traditionally declared its innocence and exceptionalism. The book shows that Finns were active participants in various colonial contexts, including Southern Africa and Sápmi in the North. Demonstrating that colonialism was a common practice shared by all European nations, with or without formal colonies, this book provides essential reading for anyone interested in European colonial history.
The Emergency and the Indian English Novel: Memory, Culture and Politics (Routledge), Jun 2019
In the 1980s and the 1990s, there was little incentive in India for remembering the Emergency (19... more In the 1980s and the 1990s, there was little incentive in India for remembering the Emergency (1975-1977), a period of authoritarian rule by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Despite the official culture of forgetting, several notable Indian English novelists wrote about the Emergency in their novels, offering parallel histories that counter the official narrative presented by Indira Gandhi and her government, and remembering the part of the Emergency which was suppressed and silenced. The Emergency and the Indian English Novel: Memory, Culture and Politics interrogates the construction of cultural memory of the Emergency in Indian English novels of the 1980s and the 1990s, and examines what aspects of the Emergency are remembered, how these are represented and what the impact of that remembering is.
Drawing on Jenny Edkins’ discussion of “trauma as betrayal”, the book examines five major, prize-winning novels by Salman Rushdie, Shashi Tharoor, Nayantara Sahgal and Rohinton Mistry as born out of the cultural trauma of the Emergency, that is, the betrayal of the Nehruvian idea of India and democracy by Indira Gandhi.
It is suggested that the writers address especially the middle class in India, exposing their complicity by silence in allowing the oppression of the poor in the authoritarian state, and hoping to raise interest in safeguarding democracy and ensuring that India does not slide into authoritarianism and such excessive measures ever again.
The novels are read in parallel with other representations of the period: government white papers and Indira Gandhi’s speeches of the Emergency era, examples of the post-Emergency literature, memoirs, biographies and historiography.
The book will be published in June 2019 by Routledge
Frontiers of Screen History provides an insightful exploration into the depiction and imagination... more Frontiers of Screen History provides an insightful exploration into the depiction and imagination of European borders in cinema after World War II. While films have explored national and political borders, they have also attempted to identify, challenge, and imagine frontiers of another kind: social, ethnic, religious, and gendered. The book investigates all these perspectives.
In the 1990s, Irish society was changing and becoming increasingly international due to the rise ... more In the 1990s, Irish society was changing and becoming increasingly international due to the rise of the 'Celtic Tiger'. At the same time, the ongoing peace process in Northern Ireland also fuelled debates on the definition of Irishness, which in turn seemed to call for a critical examination of the birth of the Irish State, as well as a rethinking and re-assessment of the nationalist past. Neil Jordan's 'Michael Collins' (1996), the most commercially successful and talked-about Irish film of the 1990s, was a timely contributor to this process. In providing a large-scale representation of the 1916-1922 period, 'Michael Collins' became the subject of critical and popular controversy, demonstrating that cinema could play a part in this cultural reimagining of Ireland. Locating the film in both its historical and its cinematic context, this book explores the depiction of events in 'Michael Collins' and the film's participation in the process of reimagining Irishness through its public reception. The portrayal of the key figures of Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera comes under special scrutiny as the author assesses this pivotal piece of Irish history on screen.
The British East African Protectorate began enticing white settlement to the country in early twe... more The British East African Protectorate began enticing white settlement to the country in early twentieth century. This article focuses on the white settler identity and experience of a Nordic couple, Bror and Karen Blixen, in colonial East Africa in the 1910s, when they shared ownership of a coffee farm near the Ngong Hills. Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke was related to the Swedish royal family, his wife and future author Karen Blixen a member of a wealthy Danish family, whose money was used to purchase the coffee farm in 1913. This article examines how the Blixens as a Nordic couple fitted in the white settler colonial community and how they related to their African servants, farm workers and neighbours. Furthermore, it discusses the problems Bror Blixen’s Swedish nationality caused to the couple during World War I, when the protectorate’s Swedes were suspected of harbouring German sympathies.
This article analyses two films about the Irish republican prison protests and the hunger strikes... more This article analyses two films about the Irish republican prison protests and the hunger strikes of 1981 – Terry George’s Some Mother’s Son (1996) and Steve McQueen’s Hunger (2008) – as countermemories of the dominant British media coverage of the protests and the hunger strikes. Focusing on the use of the voice/image of British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in these films, the article asks for what purpose and to what effect these clips and recordings are employed and suggests that Thatcher’s gender does matter in these films. In contrast to the worried mothers of the incarcerated republican sons, prime minister Thatcher appears as the unbending Iron Lady of the British government in Some Mother’s Son, representing the gendered chief villain of the film. In Hunger, Thatcher’s cold, disembodied female voice – Thatcher as acousmêtre – is set against the resisting and suffering male body of Bobby Sands. This article addresses these gendered depictions and their construction through the use of voice and silence. In both films, the female presence of Thatcher is used to invoke the old and create new media memories of the hunger strike.
Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies, 2021
Utilizing such concepts as “colonial complicity” and “colonialism without colonies”, this chapter... more Utilizing such concepts as “colonial complicity” and “colonialism without colonies”, this chapter examines the case of Finns and Finland as a nation that was once oppressed but also itself complicit in colonialism. It argues that although the Finnish nation has historically been positioned in Europe between western and eastern empires, Finns were not only passive victims of (Russian) imperial rule but also active participants in the creation of imperial vocabulary in various colonial contexts, including Sápmi in the North.This chapter argues that although Finns never had overseas colonies, they were involved in the colonial world, sending out colonizers and producing images of colonial “others”, when they, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, felt the need to project themselves as white and European (not Russian or non-white, such as Mongols). Finns adopted, adapted, and created common European knowledge about colonized areas, cultures, and people and participated in ...
Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies, 2021
This chapter focuses on colonialism, race, and White innocence in Finnish 1920s’ children’s liter... more This chapter focuses on colonialism, race, and White innocence in Finnish 1920s’ children’s literature, arguing that children’s literature was an influential channel through which colonial discourse and public colonial imagination were created, consumed, and circulated in Finland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As an example of such literature, Merivirta examines the Finnish children’s author Anni Swan’s serial “Uutisasukkaana Austraaliassa” (“Living as Settlers in Australia”, 1926). The serial depicts a Finnish settler family’s life in Queensland, focusing on their encounters with First Nations people. The chapter explores how colonialism and race in the Australian context are depicted and racial and cultural hierarchies constructed in Swan’s text. The chapter shows that Swan’s text circulates a number of common European and American colonial tropes and portrays Finnish settler colonialism in Australia as innocent and noncolonial.
Book Description
Topographies of Popular Culture departs from the deceptively simple notion th... more Book Description
Topographies of Popular Culture departs from the deceptively simple notion that popular culture always takes place somewhere. By studying the spatial and topographic imaginations at work in popular culture, the book identifies and illustrates several specific tendencies that deserve increased attention in studies of the popular. In combining the study of popular texts with a broad variety of geographical contexts, the volume presents a global and cross-cultural approach to popular culture’s topographies.
In part, Topographies of Popular Culture takes its cue from recent theorisations of spatiality in the field of critical theory, and from such global transformations as the processes and after-effects of decolonisation and globalisation. It contemplates the spatiality of genre and the interactions between the local and the global, as well as the increasing circulation and adaptation of popular texts across the globe. The ten individual chapters analyse the spaces of popular culture at a scale that extends from an individual’s everyday experience to genuinely global questions, offering new theoretical and analytical insights into the relation between spatiality and the popular.
The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History , 2023
The British East African Protectorate began enticing white settlement to the country in early twe... more The British East African Protectorate began enticing white settlement to the country in early twentieth century. This article focuses on the white settler identity and experience of a Nordic couple, Bror and Karen Blixen, in colonial East Africa in the 1910s, when they shared ownership of a coffee farm near the Ngong Hills. Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke was related to the Swedish royal family, his wife and future author Karen Blixen a member of a wealthy Danish family, whose money was used to purchase the coffee farm in 1913. This article examines how the Blixens as a Nordic couple fitted in the white settler colonial community and how they related to their African servants, farm workers and neighbours. Furthermore, it discusses the problems Bror Blixen’s Swedish nationality caused to the couple during World War I, when the protectorate’s Swedes were suspected of harbouring German sympathies.
This article analyses two films about the Irish republican prison protests and the hunger strikes... more This article analyses two films about the Irish republican prison protests and the hunger strikes of 1981 – Terry George’s Some Mother’s Son (1996) and Steve McQueen’s Hunger (2008) – as countermemories of the dominant British media coverage of the protests and the hunger strikes. Focusing on the use of the voice/image of British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in these films, the article asks for what purpose and to what effect these clips and recordings are employed and suggests that Thatcher’s gender does matter in these films. In contrast to the worried mothers of the incarcerated republican sons, prime minister Thatcher appears as the unbending Iron Lady of the British government in Some Mother’s Son, representing the gendered chief villain of the film. In Hunger, Thatcher’s cold, disembodied female voice – Thatcher as acousmêtre – is set against the resisting and suffering male body of Bobby Sands. This article addresses these gendered depictions and their construction through the use of voice and silence. In both films, the female presence of Thatcher is used to invoke the old and create new media memories of the hunger strike.
Lähikuva – audiovisuaalisen kulttuurin tieteellinen julkaisu, 2020
Englantilaisen Richard Attenborough’n ohjaama Gandhi (1982) on Mohandas K. Gandhin (1869–1948) el... more Englantilaisen Richard Attenborough’n ohjaama Gandhi (1982) on Mohandas K. Gandhin (1869–1948) elämää ihailevasti tarkasteleva historiallinen suurelokuva, joka kuvaa nimihenkilön elämän ohella myös sitä, kuinka brittiläinen imperiumi luopui Intiasta vuonna 1947 intialaisten vuosikymmeniä kestäneen itsenäisyyskamppailun jälkeen.Tässä artikkelissa Gandhia luetaan brittien itselleen kertomana tarinana imperialismistaan ja kolonialismistaan ja niiden päättymisestä Intiassa. Tähän liittyy kiinteästi kysymys rotusuhteista kolonisoidussa Intiassa. Artikkelissa kysytään mitä Gandhi kertoo katsojilleen imperialismista, kolonialismista ja britti-hallinnosta Intiassa? Mikä merkitys on Gandhia alinomaa ympäröivillä valkoisilla henkilöillä? Käytän elokuvan tarkasteluun postkoloniaalista näkökulmaa yhdistettynä kulttuurihistorialliseen lähestymistapaan.Siitä huolimatta, että Gandhi suhtautuu nimihenkilöönsä ja tämän väkivallattomaan vastarintaan kunnioittavasti ja myönteisesti, elokuva myös kauni...
Finnish Colonial Encounters. From Anti-Imperialism to Cultural Colonialism and Complicity, 2021
Colonialism is often understood as control of a geographical area overseas obtained by invasion o... more Colonialism is often understood as control of a geographical area overseas obtained by invasion or settlement. As Finland only gained independence in 1917 and never held any overseas colonies, Finns have been able to claim innocence and non-involvement in colonialism and colonialist practices. The Finnish nation has historically been positioned in Europe between western and eastern empires. Finland was part of the Swedish Realm 1 from c. 1150 to 1809 and occupied a subordinate position as the Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire from 1809 until 1917, when Finland declared itself independent. This subordinate position has contributed to the commonly held view that the Finns have been victims of colonization, rather than colonizers or even beneficiaries of colonial practices. Vocal criticism of Russia's imperialist policies did arise within Finland under the 1 Known in 1611-1721 as the Swedish Empire.
Ashutosh Gowariker’s Bollywood historical Jodhaa Akbar (2008) is a story of love and marriage bet... more Ashutosh Gowariker’s Bollywood historical Jodhaa Akbar (2008) is a story of love and marriage between the great Mughal Emperor Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar (1542–1605), one of the most famous and religiously tolerant Mughal rulers, and his Hindu wife Jodhaa Bai, a Rajput princess. It is a lavish film that was made with a big budget, with Bollywood superstars Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in the leading roles. Jodhaa Akbar took 3 years to make and no cost was spared on sets, jewelry, costumes, armor, or elephants. The financial risk paid off: Of the 15 big Bollywood releases in the first 6 months of 2008, Jodhaa Akbar was one of the three that succeeded in achieving a “super hit” status in India. It became a success in the international market as well: In March 2008 the film was showing not only across India but also on 1,500 silver screens in 25 countries. Jodhaa Akbar crowned its triumph at the International Indian Film Academy Awards in June 2009, where it won six awards, including the Best Male Actor award for Hrithik Roshan, Best Director, and Best Picture. Although Jodhaa Akbar eventually captivated audiences and critics alike, the film was released in India on February 15, 2008, amid some controversy. The main cause for the polemic was the name and identity of the person called Jodhaa in the film, but Rajputs also took issue with the way their relations with the Mughals were depicted. Bollywood Hungama News Network reported in February 2008:
Intian jako ja sitä seuranneet väkivaltaisuudet ja massamuutto olivat itsenäisen Intian ensimmäin... more Intian jako ja sitä seuranneet väkivaltaisuudet ja massamuutto olivat itsenäisen Intian ensimmäinen, suuri kriisi, joka jätti lähtemättömän jäljen. Aihetta on käsitelty paljon intialaisessa kirjallisuudessa niin muilla kielillä kuin englanniksikin. Intian jako ei kuitenkaan ole ainoa traumaattinen kansallinen tapahtuma, jonka (julkisesti pitkään vaiettu) muisto on löytänyt käsittelypaikan kirjallisuudessa. Intialainen (englanninkielinen) romaani on monesti toiminut “muistamisen välineenä” (“a medium of remembrance” Erll & Rigney 2006, 112). Esimerkiksi Intian kolmannen pääministerin Indira Gandhin julistaman poikkeustilan (26.6.1975-21.3.1977) sekä Indira Gandhin salamurhaa (31.10.1984) seuranneiden väkivaltaisuuksien ja sikhien vainon muistoja on käsitelty romaaneissa, kun niiden julkinen käsittely Intiassa on koettu vajavaiseksi. Tämä artikkeli tarkastelee menneisyyden muistamisen tärkeydestä käytyä keskustelua kahdessa intialaisessa enganninkielisessä romaanissa, Salman Rushdien ...
... This is also one of the central themes of The Great Indian Novel, which, in ... Bengali histo... more ... This is also one of the central themes of The Great Indian Novel, which, in ... Bengali histories ofIndia, for example, Myth, history, and the contemporary all become part of the same chronological sequence; one is not distinguished from another; the passage from one to another, ...
Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Its Literary Heirs as Challengers of Western Historiogra... more Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Its Literary Heirs as Challengers of Western Historiography and Rewriters of Indian History
This article discusses Indian English historiographic novels of the 1980s and 1990s and asks how Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981) and Shashi Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel (1989) among others challenged Western historiographical models (in Indian historical context) and highlighted Indian traditions of accessing the past. I suggest that Indian English historiographic novels of the 1980s and 1990s demonstrate that European models of historiography are historically and culturally specific, no longer the necessary master-narratives of all histories, and challenge the old essentialist, teleological and conclusive aspirations of (realist) fiction and history-writing. In addition to being critical re-evaluations of twentieth-century Indian history, these historiographic novels attempt to problematise traditional Western historiography and historical knowledge. Many of them can be characterised as historiographic metafiction as the narrators ponder questions of historical truth and the validity of historical knowledge, and even present Indian alternatives of writing history for the dominant European ones. These novels, which deal with modern Indian history, problematise ‘the matter of India’ and question some of the established conventions of traditional historical writing by using ancient Indian myths, oral tradition and such literary means as satire, magic realism and/or metafictional devices.
Myths are central to many of these novels and their depiction of history. Midnight’s Children and The Great Indian Novel, for example, invoke popular Indian myths in their representations of history, thus challenging the realist and traditional historiographic means of representing Indian history, and the knowledge these modes have produced. This does not mean substituting myths for facts but freeing historiography from its Eurocentric constraints. Midnight’s Children, The Great Indian Novel and other Indian English historical novels challenge also European notions of linear and universal time and juxtapose them with classical Indian notions of time, reminding Western readers of the Eurocentricity of our thinking and how we tend to take our concept of time as universally valid. Midnight’s Children and The Great Indian Novel are fictionalised histories and present themselves as such, as novels, but they nevertheless take part in the discussion of how history is, can and should be recorded, questioning some of the existing conventions and suggesting alternative and, in places, culturally specific ways.
Preserved Memories for “a Nation of Forgetters”: Remembering and Forgetting Histories of India in... more Preserved Memories for “a Nation of Forgetters”: Remembering and Forgetting Histories of India in Midnight’s Children and The Way Things Were
This article examines the discussion about the importance of remembering the past in two Indian English novels: Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981) and Aatish Taseer’s The Way Things Were (2014). Both novels argue that the majority of Indians do not remember the past and even national crises such as the Emergency are quickly forgotten. The article asks why this is seen to be problematic and why remembrance is espoused in the novels.
By way of an answer the articles argues that both Rushdie and Taseer emphasise the significance of remembering (otherwise) as a way to challenge and limit political power of leaders, parties and organisations. Midnight’s Children challenged Indira Gandhi’s and the Indian state’s official rhetoric and subsequent forgetting of the Emergency with its enduring construction of literary counter-memory of the period. The Way Things Were urges its (Indian) readers to know and remember the past, not least because it is much more difficult to falsify and misuse well-known and remembered history for political purposes, but also purely for the sake of education and knowledge.
Englantilaisen Richard Attenborough’n ohjaama Gandhi (1982) on Mohandas K. Gandhin (1869-1948) el... more Englantilaisen Richard Attenborough’n ohjaama Gandhi (1982) on Mohandas K. Gandhin (1869-1948) elämää ihailevasti tarkasteleva historiallinen suurelokuva, joka kuvaa nimihenkilön elämän ohella myös sitä, kuinka brittiläinen imperiumi luopui Intiasta vuonna 1947 intialaisten vuosikymmeniä kestäneen itsenäisyyskamppailun jälkeen. Tässä artikkelissa Gandhia luetaan brittien itselleen kertomana tarinana imperialismistaan ja kolonialismistaan ja niiden päättymisestä Intiassa. Tähän liittyy kiinteästi kysymys rotusuhteista kolonisoidussa Intiassa. Artikkelissa kysytään mitä Gandhi kertoo katsojilleen imperialismista, kolonialismista ja britti-hallinnosta Intiassa? Mikä merkitys on Gandhia alinomaa ympäröivillä valkoisilla henkilöillä? Käytän elokuvan tarkasteluun postkoloniaalista näkökulmaa yhdistettynä kulttuurihistorialliseen lähestymistapaan.
Siitä huolimatta, että Gandhi suhtautuu nimihenkilöönsä ja tämän väkivallattomaan vastarintaan kunnioittavasti ja myönteisesti, elokuva myös kaunistelee britti-imperialismia ja siihen liittynyttä rasismia ja nostaa keskeiseen asemaan valkoisia, angloamerikkalaisia toimijoita monien intialaisten itsenäisyystaistelijoiden ohi. Gandhi onkin imperialismin ja kolonialismin vastaisuudestaan huolimatta erinomainen esimerkki eurosentrisen diskurssin hallitsemasta elokuvasta ja valkopestystä historian tulkinnasta. Elokuvaan on kirjoitettu runsaasti valkoisia, länsimaisia henkilöitä, jotka eivät elokuvan kuvaamien tapahtumien ja tulkintojen kannalta olisi olleet historiallisesti välttämättömiä. Gandhi kuvaa ”tavalliset britit” hyvinä yksilöinä ja ”tavalliset intialaiset” potentiaalisesti väkivaltaisina ja väkijoukkojen osana. Brittiläinen Intia ei elokuvassa tunnusta rasistisuuttaan, vaan kysymys imperialismista esitetään kysymyksenä Intian parhaasta hallinnosta ja hallinnasta.
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This chapter argues that although Finns never had overseas colonies, they were involved in the colonial world, sending out colonizers and producing images of colonial “others”, when they, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, felt the need to project themselves as white and European (not Russian or non-white, such as Mongols). Finns adopted, adapted, and created common European knowledge about colonized areas, cultures, and people and participated in constructing racial hierarchies. These racialized notions were also applied to the Sámi. Furthermore, Finns benefitted economically from colonialism, sent out missionaries to Owambo in present-day Namibia to spread the ideas of Western/White/Christian superiority and instruct the Owambo in European ways. Finns were also involved in several colonial enterprises of other European colonizing powers, such as in the Belgian Congo or aboard Captain Cook’s vessel on his journey to the Antipodes.
This book explores the concepts of ‘colonial complicity’ and ‘colonialism without colonies’ in relation to Finland, a nation that was oppressed, but also itself complicit in colonialism. It offers insights into European colonialism on the margins of the continent and within a nation that has traditionally declared its innocence and exceptionalism. The book shows that Finns were active participants in various colonial contexts, including Southern Africa and Sápmi in the North. Demonstrating that colonialism was a common practice shared by all European nations, with or without formal colonies, this book provides essential reading for anyone interested in European colonial history.
Drawing on Jenny Edkins’ discussion of “trauma as betrayal”, the book examines five major, prize-winning novels by Salman Rushdie, Shashi Tharoor, Nayantara Sahgal and Rohinton Mistry as born out of the cultural trauma of the Emergency, that is, the betrayal of the Nehruvian idea of India and democracy by Indira Gandhi.
It is suggested that the writers address especially the middle class in India, exposing their complicity by silence in allowing the oppression of the poor in the authoritarian state, and hoping to raise interest in safeguarding democracy and ensuring that India does not slide into authoritarianism and such excessive measures ever again.
The novels are read in parallel with other representations of the period: government white papers and Indira Gandhi’s speeches of the Emergency era, examples of the post-Emergency literature, memoirs, biographies and historiography.
The book will be published in June 2019 by Routledge
Locating the film in both its historical and its cinematic context, this book explores the depiction of events in 'Michael Collins' and the film's participation in the process of reimagining Irishness through its public reception. The portrayal of the key figures of Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera comes under special scrutiny as the author assesses this pivotal piece of Irish history on screen.
This chapter argues that although Finns never had overseas colonies, they were involved in the colonial world, sending out colonizers and producing images of colonial “others”, when they, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, felt the need to project themselves as white and European (not Russian or non-white, such as Mongols). Finns adopted, adapted, and created common European knowledge about colonized areas, cultures, and people and participated in constructing racial hierarchies. These racialized notions were also applied to the Sámi. Furthermore, Finns benefitted economically from colonialism, sent out missionaries to Owambo in present-day Namibia to spread the ideas of Western/White/Christian superiority and instruct the Owambo in European ways. Finns were also involved in several colonial enterprises of other European colonizing powers, such as in the Belgian Congo or aboard Captain Cook’s vessel on his journey to the Antipodes.
This book explores the concepts of ‘colonial complicity’ and ‘colonialism without colonies’ in relation to Finland, a nation that was oppressed, but also itself complicit in colonialism. It offers insights into European colonialism on the margins of the continent and within a nation that has traditionally declared its innocence and exceptionalism. The book shows that Finns were active participants in various colonial contexts, including Southern Africa and Sápmi in the North. Demonstrating that colonialism was a common practice shared by all European nations, with or without formal colonies, this book provides essential reading for anyone interested in European colonial history.
Drawing on Jenny Edkins’ discussion of “trauma as betrayal”, the book examines five major, prize-winning novels by Salman Rushdie, Shashi Tharoor, Nayantara Sahgal and Rohinton Mistry as born out of the cultural trauma of the Emergency, that is, the betrayal of the Nehruvian idea of India and democracy by Indira Gandhi.
It is suggested that the writers address especially the middle class in India, exposing their complicity by silence in allowing the oppression of the poor in the authoritarian state, and hoping to raise interest in safeguarding democracy and ensuring that India does not slide into authoritarianism and such excessive measures ever again.
The novels are read in parallel with other representations of the period: government white papers and Indira Gandhi’s speeches of the Emergency era, examples of the post-Emergency literature, memoirs, biographies and historiography.
The book will be published in June 2019 by Routledge
Locating the film in both its historical and its cinematic context, this book explores the depiction of events in 'Michael Collins' and the film's participation in the process of reimagining Irishness through its public reception. The portrayal of the key figures of Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera comes under special scrutiny as the author assesses this pivotal piece of Irish history on screen.
Topographies of Popular Culture departs from the deceptively simple notion that popular culture always takes place somewhere. By studying the spatial and topographic imaginations at work in popular culture, the book identifies and illustrates several specific tendencies that deserve increased attention in studies of the popular. In combining the study of popular texts with a broad variety of geographical contexts, the volume presents a global and cross-cultural approach to popular culture’s topographies.
In part, Topographies of Popular Culture takes its cue from recent theorisations of spatiality in the field of critical theory, and from such global transformations as the processes and after-effects of decolonisation and globalisation. It contemplates the spatiality of genre and the interactions between the local and the global, as well as the increasing circulation and adaptation of popular texts across the globe. The ten individual chapters analyse the spaces of popular culture at a scale that extends from an individual’s everyday experience to genuinely global questions, offering new theoretical and analytical insights into the relation between spatiality and the popular.
This article discusses Indian English historiographic novels of the 1980s and 1990s and asks how Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981) and Shashi Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel (1989) among others challenged Western historiographical models (in Indian historical context) and highlighted Indian traditions of accessing the past.
I suggest that Indian English historiographic novels of the 1980s and 1990s demonstrate that European models of historiography are historically and culturally specific, no longer the necessary master-narratives of all histories, and challenge the old essentialist, teleological and conclusive aspirations of (realist) fiction and history-writing. In addition to being critical re-evaluations of twentieth-century Indian history, these historiographic novels attempt to problematise traditional Western historiography and historical knowledge. Many of them can be characterised as historiographic metafiction as the narrators ponder questions of historical truth and the validity of historical knowledge, and even present Indian alternatives of writing history for the dominant European ones. These novels, which deal with modern Indian history, problematise ‘the matter of India’ and question some of the established conventions of traditional historical writing by using ancient Indian myths, oral tradition and such literary means as satire, magic realism and/or metafictional devices.
Myths are central to many of these novels and their depiction of history. Midnight’s Children and The Great Indian Novel, for example, invoke popular Indian myths in their representations of history, thus challenging the realist and traditional historiographic means of representing Indian history, and the knowledge these modes have produced. This does not mean substituting myths for facts but freeing historiography from its Eurocentric constraints. Midnight’s Children, The Great Indian Novel and other Indian English historical novels challenge also European notions of linear and universal time and juxtapose them with classical Indian notions of time, reminding Western readers of the Eurocentricity of our thinking and how we tend to take our concept of time as universally valid. Midnight’s Children and The Great Indian Novel are fictionalised histories and present themselves as such, as novels, but they nevertheless take part in the discussion of how history is, can and should be recorded, questioning some of the existing conventions and suggesting alternative and, in places, culturally specific ways.
This article examines the discussion about the importance of remembering the past in two Indian English novels: Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981) and Aatish Taseer’s The Way Things Were (2014). Both novels argue that the majority of Indians do not remember the past and even national crises such as the Emergency are quickly forgotten. The article asks why this is seen to be problematic and why remembrance is espoused in the novels.
By way of an answer the articles argues that both Rushdie and Taseer emphasise the significance of remembering (otherwise) as a way to challenge and limit political power of leaders, parties and organisations. Midnight’s Children challenged Indira Gandhi’s and the Indian state’s official rhetoric and subsequent forgetting of the Emergency with its enduring construction of literary counter-memory of the period. The Way Things Were urges its (Indian) readers to know and remember the past, not least because it is much more difficult to falsify and misuse well-known and remembered history for political purposes, but also purely for the sake of education and knowledge.
Siitä huolimatta, että Gandhi suhtautuu nimihenkilöönsä ja tämän väkivallattomaan vastarintaan kunnioittavasti ja myönteisesti, elokuva myös kaunistelee britti-imperialismia ja siihen liittynyttä rasismia ja nostaa keskeiseen asemaan valkoisia, angloamerikkalaisia toimijoita monien intialaisten itsenäisyystaistelijoiden ohi. Gandhi onkin imperialismin ja kolonialismin vastaisuudestaan huolimatta erinomainen esimerkki eurosentrisen diskurssin hallitsemasta elokuvasta ja valkopestystä historian tulkinnasta. Elokuvaan on kirjoitettu runsaasti valkoisia, länsimaisia henkilöitä, jotka eivät elokuvan kuvaamien tapahtumien ja tulkintojen kannalta olisi olleet historiallisesti välttämättömiä. Gandhi kuvaa ”tavalliset britit” hyvinä yksilöinä ja ”tavalliset intialaiset” potentiaalisesti väkivaltaisina ja väkijoukkojen osana. Brittiläinen Intia ei elokuvassa tunnusta rasistisuuttaan, vaan kysymys imperialismista esitetään kysymyksenä Intian parhaasta hallinnosta ja hallinnasta.