Embracing Fear What strikes me about Levine’s “Ruling the Empire” and Gikandi’s “Picasso, Africa, and the Schemata of Difference” is the fear of natives and their possible influence on the West. Fear of the alleged savagery and lack of civilization of these “lesser peoples” (Levine 105) form part of the basis for the West’s civilizing [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Levine'
Of embracing fear and the crisis of representation
August 20, 2009 · 1 Comment · General Thoughts on Modernism
Tags: "the Other"·Auerbach·Charlene Ong·crisis·fear·Gikandi·Levine·perception·picasso·Representation
Invention of the Other
August 20, 2009 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
Levine traces the development of British influence in India over the decades. What struck me the most is how the British treated India as a monogamous entity that is largely static. There were many cultural and religious practices across India, however the EIC (or the British government) often ignored or missed these differences. As a [...]
Of Missionaries and Imperial Ideology
August 20, 2009 · 1 Comment · General Thoughts on Modernism
Hello! Some thoughts about the role of missionaries brought up in the Levine reading and how it echoes certain tenets of the Gikandi reading: The complex role of missionaries – being critical of imperial practices and policies though not of imperial philosophy – seems to be characterised by push and pull forces, with the interaction [...]
Tags: Gikandi·Imperial Ideology·Levine·Russell·Tan
The British Empire- a problematic construct of self and identity
August 20, 2009 · 1 Comment · General Thoughts on Modernism
Whilst I was reading through the article by Levine and trying to see how this is related to the other reading on “The Brown Stocking”, it struck me that one common theme explored is the desire to define and pin down something precise, by a pre-existing structure, or method of ordering.
Tags: Auerbach·Erich. Mimesis: the representatiion of reality in western literature. Chapt. 20 The Brown Stocking. pp. 525-553.·Levine·Philippa. The British empire: sunrise to sunset. Chapt. 7 Ruling an Empire. pp. 103-122.·Rebekah Yeo
What then, is Truth?
August 20, 2009 · 1 Comment · General Thoughts on Modernism
It was challenging and unsettling for me to come face to face with the concept of creating, condescending to and, perhaps most critically, the act of representing the colonised figure, as Picasso does in his abstract work, taking the African body as a subject of art, rather than an autonomous individual capable in some way [...]
Tags: Elizabeth Tan·Gikandi·Imperial disempowerment·Levine·Objective Truth·Representation
Modernism: Centre and Peripheries
August 20, 2009 · 1 Comment · General Thoughts on Modernism
The notion of the centre and the periphery in terms of the division of the British empire is an interesting way to look at a modernist text. The modernist text highlights the periphery aspects of a narrative, at a time when the peripheries of empire was acknowledged. In the excerpt from Virginia Woolf’s To The [...]
Suttee as Modernism
August 19, 2009 · 3 Comments · General Thoughts on Modernism
Levine gives a brief history of the British in India, but makes little mention of the locals and their exertions. Therefore when Levine mentions the local Indian reformers Ram Mohan Roy, and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (72), I am inclined to pay special attention to them, particularly Roy and his mission to outlaw suttee. I would [...]
Tags: Britain in India·Levine·Low Annabelle·modernism·Ram Mohan Roy·suttee
