Examining a range of South Asian Anglophone diasporic fiction and poetry, this monograph opens a new dialogue between diaspora studies and gender studies. It shows how discourses of diaspora benefit from re-examining their own critical relation to concepts of the maternal and the motherland. Rather than considering maternity as a fixed or naturally given category, it challenges essentialist conceptions and explores mothering as a performative practice which actively produces discursive meaning. This innovative approach also involves an investigation of central metaphors in nationalist and diasporic rhetorics, bringing critical attention to the strategies they employ and the unique aesthetic forms they produce.
Examining a range of South Asian Anglophone diasporic novels and poetry, this monograph opens a new dialogue between diaspora studies and gender studies, arguing that discourses of diaspora benefit from re-examining their own critical relation to concepts of the maternal and the motherland.
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ix | |
| Acknowledgements |
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xi | |
| Abbreviations |
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xiii | |
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1 Introduction: More than one mother |
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1 | (32) |
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7 | (4) |
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1.2 Theories of the maternal |
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11 | (12) |
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23 | (5) |
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28 | (5) |
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2 Historical performances: Reading Mother India in nationalist discourse and Kipling |
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33 | (41) |
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33 | (23) |
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2.2 Kipling's imperial Mother India |
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56 | (18) |
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3 Citational performances: "Talking major mother country" in Rushdie's Midnight's Children |
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74 | (29) |
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3.1 Diasporic maternal practices |
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74 | (1) |
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75 | (7) |
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3.3 The performance of mothering |
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82 | (5) |
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3.4 "De-condensing" Mother India |
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87 | (7) |
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94 | (9) |
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4 Exile performances: Pakistani mother-daughter relationships in Bapsi Sidhwa's Cracking India and Sara Suleri's Meatless Days |
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103 | (37) |
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104 | (17) |
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4.2 Suleri's mother elegy |
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121 | (19) |
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5 Maternal performances: Mother tongues in Ravinder Randhawa's A Wicked Old Woman and Monica Ali's Brick Lane |
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140 | (35) |
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5.1 Performing the mother tongue |
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140 | (7) |
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147 | (5) |
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5.3 Herethics and diasporic mothering |
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152 | (4) |
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156 | (7) |
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5.5 Ali's coming-of-agency |
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163 | (12) |
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6 Outlook and conclusion: Diasporic maternal aesthetics |
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175 | (18) |
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6.1 Indo-Caribbean labours |
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175 | (11) |
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6.2 Retrospects and prospects |
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186 | (7) |
| Works Cited |
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193 | (18) |
| Index |
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211 | |
Dr. Sarah Knor is a lecturer and researcher in English literature, specialising in postcolonial and diasporic writing. She studied at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich and at Royal Holloway College, University of London. Her doctoral project was part of the international Marie Curie initial training network on "Diasporic Constructions of Home and Belonging" (Cohab) involving the universities of Münster, Oxford, SOAS, Mumbai, Stockholm and Northampton.
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