published_or_final_version / Fine Arts / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Comparative Asian Studies / Master / Master of Arts

This thesis demonstrates how a specific tradition of English poetry written by Indians in the nineteenth-century borrowed its subject matter from Orientalist research into Indian antiquity, and its style and forms from the English poetic tradition. After an examination of the political, historical and social motivations that resulted in the birth of colonial poetry in India, the poets dealt with comprise Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1809-31), the first Indian poet writing in English ; Kasiprasad Ghosh (1809-73), the first Bengali Hindu to write English verse; and Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824-73), who converted to Christianity in the hope of reaching England and becoming a great 'English' poet. A subsequent chapter examines the Dutt Family Album (London, 1870) in the changing political context of the latter half of the century. In the Conclusion it is shown how the advent of Modernism in England, and the birth of an active nationalism in India, finally brought about the end of all aspects of what is here called 'Orientalist' verse. This area has not been dealt with comprehensively by critics; only one book, Lotika Basu's Indian Writers of English Verse (1933), exists on this subject to date. This thesis, besides filling the gaps that exist in the knowledge available in this area, also brings an additional insight to bear on the current debate on colonialism and literature. After Said's Orientalism (1978), a spate of theoretical work has been published on literary studies and colonial power in British India. Without restricting the argument to the constraints of the Saidian model, this study addresses the issues raised by these works, showing that a subtler reading is possible, through the medium of this poetry, of the interaction that took place in India between the production of literature and colonialism. In particular, this thesis demonstrates that although Orientalist poetry was in many ways derivative, it also evinces an active and developing response to the imposition of British culture upon India.

This dissertation investigates the vocation of politics in the Maratha Empire from the release and restoration of Chhatrapati Shahu Bhonsle in 1708 to the British East India Company’s final victory against the Marathas in 1818. Founded in the mid-seventeenth century by the ambitious general and first Chhatrapati Shivaji Bhonsle, the Maratha Empire encompassed a decentralized web of allied governments stretching from the western Deccan into far-flung parts of the Indian subcontinent. While the Company’s pejorative moniker of “confederacy” has cast a long shadow over historical understanding of the politics of the Maratha state, this dissertation argues that the ascendancy of scribal-bureaucratic networks and their practices of communication enabled Maratha governments to foster a modern diplomatic framework of deliberation, adjudication, and collaboration. The creation of a flexible language and practice of communication transcending linguistic, cultural, religious, and political divisions was the signal achievement of the scribal-bureaucratic networks that increasingly came to dominate politics and government in the eighteenth-century Maratha Empire. Through a case study of individuals and households of the Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu sub-caste, this dissertation demonstrates that both non-Brahman and Brahman officials skilled in the arts of verbal and written communication rose from the lower ranks of the Maratha bureaucracy to the highest circles of political decision-making. They not only advanced their socioeconomic claims to wealth, title, and property, but also shaped government agendas, resolved disputes, and forged alliances through the dialogic exchange of oaths, treaties, objects, and sentimental words. Moreover, scribal-bureaucrats drew on this mode of communication to build strategic multilateral coalitions and to pen novel reflections on the meaning and purpose of politics once the dominance of the British East India Company was impossible to ignore. Communicative politics comes into vivid focus through a critical examination of the records and manuscripts that described, evaluated, and enacted relationships between Maratha governments. While the focus is on the critically important governments of Satara, Nagpur, and Pune, close attention is paid to conduits of power, persuasion, and affiliation between them and their rivals and allies in the eighteenth-century Deccan. Over the course of six chapters, this dissertation traces a chronological arc from the re-constitution to the dissolution of Maratha sovereignty as well as a thematic one from the structures and practices, to the personnel, and finally to the shifting meanings of politics. Chapters 1 and 2 explore how the delicate frameworks and practices preserving relationships between governments were made and unmade in the context of Maratha expansion in the Deccan. Turning to the personnel of politics, Chapters 3 and 4 follow the careers of Kayastha Prabhu scribal officials who attained influence at the courts of Satara, Kolhapur, Nagpur, and Baroda. Finally, Chapters 5 and 6 highlight the ways in which the meaning of politics shifted in response to the emergence of Company power. The story of Maratha politics is thus the story of a concatenation of deliberative, pragmatic compromises suited to the realities of a dynamic inter-imperial world.

Lui, Hong Yee Kelvin. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 169-178). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / ABSTRACT (English) --- p.i / ABSTRACT (Chinese) --- p.iii / ACKNOWLEDGMENTS --- p.v / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.vi / LIST OF TABLES --- p.xi / Chapter CHAPTER 1 --- INTRODUCTION / Chapter 1.1 --- Rationale of the Study --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Context of the Study --- p.2 / Chapter 1.2.1 --- India as a Multilingual Country --- p.3 / Chapter 1.2.2 --- The Language Situation in Hong Kong - a Macro-Sociolinguistic Perspective --- p.5 / Chapter 1.3 --- The Indian Community in Hong Kong --- p.6 / Chapter 1.4 --- Research Questions --- p.8 / Chapter 1.5 --- Organisation of Thesis --- p.10 / Chapter CHAPTER 2 --- LITERATURE REVIEW / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.11 / Chapter 2.2 --- "Globalisation, Migration and Multilingualism" --- p.11 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Conceptualising Globalisation --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Mapping Theories of Transnational Migration --- p.13 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- "Globalisation, Multilingualism and English as a Lingua Franca" --- p.15 / Chapter 2.3 --- Language and Identity --- p.17 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Conceptualising Identity --- p.18 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Different Approaches to Identity --- p.18 / Chapter 2.3.2.1 --- The Variationist Approach to Identity --- p.19 / Chapter 2.3.2.2 --- The Sociopsychological Approach to Identity --- p.20 / Chapter 2.3.2.3 --- The Poststructuralist Approach to Identity --- p.21 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Types of Identity Ascriptions and Affiliations --- p.22 / Chapter 2.3.3.1 --- National and Ethnic Identities --- p.23 / Chapter 2.3.3.2 --- Language identity --- p.24 / Chapter 2.3.3.3 --- Migrant identity --- p.25 / Chapter 2.3.4 --- Identity in Discourse: Analytical Frameworks --- p.26 / Chapter 2.3.4.1 --- The Positioning Theory --- p.27 / Chapter 2.3.4.2 --- The Stancetaking Theory --- p.28 / Chapter 2.4 --- Language Ideology --- p.30 / Chapter 2.5 --- Previous Research on Negotiation of Identities in Multilingual Context---- --- p.32 / Chapter 2.6 --- The Problematic Concept of Mother Tongue --- p.34 / Chapter 2.7 --- Summary --- p.35 / Chapter CHAPTER 3 --- METHODOLOGY / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.37 / Chapter 3.2 --- Restatement of Research Aims --- p.37 / Chapter 3.3 --- Research Design --- p.39 / Chapter 3.4 --- Pre-Study Fieldwork --- p.42 / Chapter 3.5 --- Participants --- p.44 / Chapter 3.6 --- Data Collection --- p.45 / Chapter 3.6.1 --- Questionnaire Survey --- p.45 / Chapter 3.6.1.1 --- Piloting for Questionnaire Survey --- p.47 / Chapter 3.6.2 --- Semi-Structured Interviews --- p.48 / Chapter 3.6.2.1 --- Selection Criteria for Participants in Semi-Structured Interviews --- p.49 / Chapter 3.6.2.2 --- Piloting for Semi-Structured Interviews --- p.50 / Chapter 3.6.3 --- Multiple-Case Study --- p.52 / Chapter 3.6.3.1 --- Selection Criteria for Focal Participants --- p.53 / Chapter 3.6.3.2 --- Language-Diary Study and Diary-Focused Interviews --- p.55 / Chapter 3.6.3.3 --- Unstructured Interviews --- p.56 / Chapter 3.6.3.4 --- Piloting for Language-Diary Study and Diary-Focused Interviews --- p.57 / Chapter 3.7 --- Data analysis --- p.58 / Chapter 3.8 --- Validity and Triangulation --- p.60 / Chapter 3.9 --- Summary --- p.61 / Chapter CHAPTER 4 --- GROUNDWORK FOR CASE STUDIES / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.63 / Chapter 4.2 --- Demographic Data --- p.63 / Chapter 4.3 --- Mapping the Terrain - Analysis of Survey Results --- p.66 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Language Repertoire --- p.67 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Language Competencies --- p.69 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- Language Choice Patterns --- p.72 / Chapter 4.3.4 --- Identity and Sense of Belonging --- p.78 / Chapter 4.4 --- Synopsis of Focal Cases --- p.82 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- Profiling Takesh --- p.82 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- Profiling Santhosh --- p.83 / Chapter 4.4.3 --- Profiling Rishaana --- p.83 / Chapter 4.5 --- Summary * --- p.84 / Chapter CHAPTER 5 --- INDIA AT HEART - THE CASE OF TAKESH / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.85 / Chapter 5.2 --- Overview of Takesh's Life History and Sociolinguistic Background --- p.85 / Chapter 5.3 --- """I've been living in Hong Kong but I still consider myself an Indian"" - Maintenance of Indian Identity" --- p.87 / Chapter 5.4 --- "Self Identification as Chinese in Relation to the Non-Cantonese Speaking Ethnic Minority ""Other""'" --- p.93 / Chapter 5.5 --- """Home is already the place I use Tamil for 24 hours"" - Compartmentalisation of Language Choice" --- p.100 / Chapter 5.6 --- Takesh: At Home in India and Hong Kong --- p.105 / Chapter CHAPTER 6 --- "INDIAN NATIONALITY, HONG KONG IDENTITY? THE CASE OF SANTHOSH" / Chapter 6.1 --- Introduction --- p.106 / Chapter 6.2 --- Overview of Santhosh's Life History and Sociolinguistic Background --- p.106 / Chapter 6.3 --- """I'm not into ancestors' stuff'-Negotiating Distance from Heritage" --- p.108 / Chapter 6.4 --- """My Putonghua is Better than my Tamil"" - Ideology and Identity in Construction of Self-" --- p.115 / Chapter 6.5 --- Simultaneous Construction of an English Speaking Identity --- p.120 / Chapter 6.6 --- Santhosh: Only At Home in Hong Kong --- p.127 / Chapter CHAPTER 7 --- INDIAN IDENTITY WITHOUT AN INDIAN LANGUAGE? THE CASE OF RISHAANA / Chapter 7.1 --- Introduction --- p.129 / Chapter 7.2 --- Overview of Rishaana's Life History and Sociolinguistic Background --- p.129 / Chapter 7.3 --- "Construction of a Monolingual, Multicultural Identity - School and Individual Ideologies" --- p.131 / Chapter 7.4 --- """Tamil is important when it is considered with a bunch of other things"": Negotiating Proximity with Heritage With or Without Language" --- p.136 / Chapter 7.5 --- """Without it, I'd be less Indian"" - Classical Arts Substituting Tamil as Symbolic Marker of Tamil/ Indian Identity" --- p.141 / Chapter 7.6 --- "Mother as the ""Other"" - Discursive Construction of a Transnational Youth Identity in Interaction" --- p.145 / Chapter 7.7 --- Rishaana: Interpreting an Alternative Indian Identity --- p.149 / Chapter CHAPTER 8 --- CONCLUSION / Chapter 8.1 --- Overview --- p.150 / Chapter 8.2 --- Findings to Research Questions ´Ø --- p.150 / Chapter 8.2.1 --- Findings to Research Question (1) - Language Repertoire and Choice --- p.151 / Chapter 8.2.2 --- Findings to Research Question (2) - Identity Negotiation in a Transnational Context --- p.153 / Chapter 8.2.3 --- Findings to Research Question (3) - Language Ideology --- p.158 / Chapter 8.3 --- Empirical Significance of the Study --- p.161 / Chapter 8.4 --- Methodological Significance of the Study --- p.164 / Chapter 8.5 --- Limitations and Directions for Future Studies --- p.165 / References --- p.169 / Chapter Appendix A - --- Questionnaire Survey --- p.180 / Chapter Appendix B - --- Interview Guide for Semi-Structured Interview --- p.185 / Chapter Appendix C - --- Language-Diary Entry --- p.190

The proto-histories of Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand previously have been considered in isolation, and have been written predominantly by European researchers. This thesis shows that the history of the Hindu religions, adopted by at least the ruling classes in Southeast Asian countries, had been developed far earlier than previous researchers had acknowledged. By taking a regional view, by considering the religion upon which the ‘Indianisation’ process rested, by using Geographic Information Systems and by not pre-judging possible outcomes, this thesis shows that the ‘Brahmanic’ temples of Southeast Asia were originally established to a pattern which represented the Brahmanic priests’ views of their place in both space and time, which in turn related to the greater astronomical cosmos as well as to their inner cosmos. This thesis demonstrates a need for the re-consideration of the proto-history of Southeast Asia, in particular that of Viet Nam, to better reflect the basis on which the ‘Indianisation’ process was adopted by the indigenous peoples and to better collate the data from the various parts of the central to south Vietnamese coast before providing an alternative meta-narrative to that which has been accepted for over 100 years by much of the archaeological community. / Doctor of Philosophhy (PhD)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--Göttingen. / Includes selected texts from Tripiṭaka in Pali (romanized) and German. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-240) and index.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Western Ontario, 1999. / Vita: p. 137. Includes bibliographical references (p. 132-136). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp03/MQ39834.pdf.

Revision of the author's Thesis (Ph. D.)--Sukhadia University, Udaipur, 1987). / Includes bibliographical references (p. [153]-162) and index.