Description
Book SynopsisEmpires as political entities may be a thing of the past, but as a concept, empire is alive and kicking. From heritage tourism and costume dramas to theories of the imperial idea(l): empire sells. Post-Empire Imaginaries? Anglophone Literature, History, and the Demise of Empires presents innovative scholarship on the lives and legacies of empires in diverse media such as literature, film, advertising, and the visual arts. Though rooted in real space and history, the post-empire and its twin, the post-imperial, emerge as ungraspable ideational constructs. The volume convincingly establishes empire as welcoming resistance and affirmation, introducing post-empire imaginaries as figurations that connect the archives and repertoires of colonial nostalgia, postcolonial critique, post-imperial dreaming.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Illustrations BARBARA BUCHENAU AND VIRGINIA RICHTER: Introduction: How to Do Things with Empires CONCEPTUALIZING EMPIRES, MAPPING EMPIRES ALFRED HIATT: Maps of Empires Past MAYANNAH N. DAHLHEIM: (Re)Writing History: Pankaj Mishra, Niall Ferguson, and the Definitions of Empire RAINER EMIG: The Hermeneutics of Empire: Imperialism as an Interpretation Strategy KERSTIN KNOPF: Exploring for the Empire: Franklin, Rae, Dickens, and the Natives in Canadian and Australian Historiography and Literature EVA–MARIA MÜLLER: Teaching the Empire: Lessons About (In)Dependence: Teacher Figures as Metonyms for the Australian Nation DIFFERENT IMAGINARIES: COMPARING EMPIRES DONNA LANDRY: The Ottoman Imaginary of Evliya Ҫelebi: From Postcolonial to Postimperial Rifts in Time ELENA FURLANETTO: “Imagine a Country Where We Are All Equal”: Imperial Nostalgia in Turkey and Elif Shafak’s Ottoman Utopia SILKE STROH: British (Post)Colonial Discourse and (Imagined) Roman Precedents: From Bernardine Evaristo’s Londinium to Caesar’s Britain and Gaul EVA M. PÉREZ: “As if Empires Were Great and Wonderful Things”: A Critical Reassessment of the British Empire During World War Two in Louis de Bernières’ Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Mark Mills’ The Information Officer and Kazuo Ishiguro’s When We Were Orphans (POST)EMPIRE IMAGINARIES IN HISTORICAL MEDIA ANNE–JULIA ZWIERLEIN: Travelling through (Post-)Imperial Panoramas: British Epic Writing and Popular Shows, 1740s to 1840s JUDITH RAISKIN: “No One Belongs Here More Than You”: Travel Ads, Colonial Fantasies, and American Militarism TIMO MÜLLER: The Bonds of Empire: (Post-)Imperial Negotiations in the 007 Film Series CONTESTED IMAGINARIES, PERILOUS BELONGING CECILE SANDTEN: Caryl Phillips’ The Nature of Blood: Othello, the Jews of Portobuffole, and the Post-Empire Imaginary ELSIE CLOETE: Johannesburg Zoologica: Reading the Afropolis Through the Eyes of Lauren Beukes’ Zoo City KARSTEN LEVIHN–KUTZLER: Toxic Terror and the Cosmopolitanism of Risk in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People MICHAEL MEYER: Something is Foul in the State of Kerala: Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things JANA GOHRISCH: Conflicting Models of Agency in Andrea Levy’s The Long Song (2010) Notes on the Contributors and Editors Index
