{"product_id":"an-empire-of-touch-womens-political-labor-and-the-fabrication-of-east-bengal-gender-and-culture-series-9780231192095","title":"An Empire of Touch Womens Political Labor and the","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePoulomi Saha offers an innovative account of women's political labor in East Bengal over more than a century. Through a material account of text and textile, An Empire of Touch crafts a new narrative of gendered political labor under empire.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA brilliant provocation in the debate about female political subjectivity in the Global South\u003ci\u003e, An Empire of Touch \u003c\/i\u003eis an important and timely book. Going beyond the typical focus on women’s empowerment and independence, it demonstrates how women in East Bengal through their symbolic and material labor produce the terms of their own political self-conception. Saha’s deft and sophisticated readings of the material particulars of women’s labor reveal a relational politics of the self that expands what and who count as political. -- Mrinalini Sinha, author of \u003ci\u003eSpecters of Mother India: The Global Restructuring of an Empire\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSaha has given us a thought-provoking, incisive, elegant, and necessary work wherein she recasts and regenerates postcolonial criticism. This book is well written, beautifully researched, creative, and politically vital. -- Erin Manning, author of \u003ci\u003ePolitics of Touch: Sense, Movement, Sovereignty\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSaha proposes that the diaphanous nature first of muslin and then of other fabrics constitutes neither a simple product with exchange value nor an ephemeral or affective form of labor we have come to associate with certain kinds of women’s work. Forms of touch are woven into the fabric of colonial and postcolonial exchange. And they carry a spectral quality. Rather like the visor effect in Derrida’s reading of Hamlet in \u003ci\u003eSpecters of Marx\u003c\/i\u003e, fabric casts a shadow on abstracted beings moving through history teleologically, and weaves a different affect. -- Ranjana Khanna, author of \u003ci\u003eAlgeria Cuts: Women and Representation, 1830 to the Present\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA must-read for students of Bengal, historical and contemporary. Given the diversity of themes, the book will appeal to a wide range of scholars, of political movements, literature and language, social and economic history, colonialism and imperialism, labor and artisanal production, and development and gender studies. * H-Asia *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePart I: Reading the Body Politic\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1. Virgin Suicides\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePart II: The Fetish of Nationalism\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e2. The Fetish Touch\u003cbr\u003e3. Oceanic Feelings\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePart III: International Basket Case\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e4. Archive Asylum\u003cbr\u003e5. Machine Made\u003cbr\u003eEpilogue\u003cbr\u003eGlossary\u003cbr\u003eNotes\u003cbr\u003eBibliography\u003cbr\u003eIndex","brand":"Columbia University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49400340087127,"sku":"9780231192095","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780231192095.jpg?v=1730470435","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/an-empire-of-touch-womens-political-labor-and-the-fabrication-of-east-bengal-gender-and-culture-series-9780231192095","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}