This thesis investigates British fictional representations of India in novels, plays and poetry from 1772 to 1823. Rather than simply correlating literary portrayals to shifting colonial context and binary power relationships, the project relates representations to the impact of India on British popular culture, and print capitalism’s role in defining and promulgating national identity and proto-global awareness. The study contends that the internal historical development of the literary modes – the stage play, the novel and verse – as well as consumer expectations, were hugely influential in shaping fictional portrayals of the subcontinent. In addition, it argues that the literary representations of India were contingent upon authors’ gender, class and their lived or lack of lived experience in the subcontinent. The project seeks to use literary texts as case studies to explore the growing commoditisation of culture, the developing literary marketplace and an emerging sense of national identity. The thesis proposes that the aforementioned discourses and anxieties are embodied within the very literary forms of British India narratives. In addition, it seeks to determine shifts in how Britain’s relationship with the subcontinent was imagined and how events in colonial India were perceived by the general public. Furthermore, the project utilises literary texts as sites to explore the discursive and epistemological strategies that Britons engaged in to either justify or confront their country’s role as a colonising nation.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 174-186). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2000. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. 174-186).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1995. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [213]-222).

Thesis--Wisconsin. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 318-326).

Storywall follows the journey of Shagun Mathur from his dysfunctional family to his life as an itinerant actor in a street theater troupe. Abused sexually in high school and playing the roles of both men and women, Shagun is ill-at-odds with his own body, a discomfort that comes strongly to the fore when he meets, and falls in love with Marc Wyndham, an Anglo-Indian musician.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2003. / Director: Modhumita Roy. Submitted to the Dept. of English. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 260-280). Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;

No description available.