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GEOPOLITICS OF FORGERY: LITERATURE, CULTURE AND MEMORY OF THE POSTCOLONIAL SOUTH ASIAN SECURITY STATE

Priyanimal, Karunanayake Dinidu
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami156354614875673

Abstract Details

2019, Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, English.
Taking an interdisciplinary approach that attends to the tryst between British postcolonialism and US neoliberalism in South Asia in the post-World War II era, this dissertation examines how the US state became a disciplinary biopolitical model for the postcolonial South Asian security state on the one hand, and a premise to forge new forms of identities, memories, belonging, and rights for South Asian subjects on the other hand. Through an examination of a broad archive, I make three major claims. First, I argue that while hegemonic memory discourses look for verifiable truths and empirical evidence, writers and artists from postcolonial South Asia propose alternative mnemonic accounts to decenter such hegemonic official and national archives. Second, I analyze how writers and artists delineate ways for South Asian subjects to articulate rights through mnemonic forms of citizenship, thus unsettling the mainstream discourse of human rights that places emphasis on subjects’ material claims (or a lack of them) to space. In particular, memory is channeled to reterritorialize notions of “home”—a focal point of Western human rights—thereby allowing the homeless and stateless to claim historical and political subjectivities in postcolonial terrains that have officially disowned them. Third, I examine how the postwar USA has provided tools for the postcolonial South Asian state to galvanize securitization as a governing rationality as well as tools for oppressed subjects to resist from below. Through a reading of Salman Rushdie’s 'Shalimar the Clown' (2005) and 'The Golden House' (2017), the first chapter probes how Rushdie’s media-saturated literary memory protests neoliberal metamorphoses that take effect through militarization, hyper-securitization, surveillance, and displacement. The second chapter uses Rohinton Mistry’s 'A Fine Balance' (1995) and Shyam Selvadurai’s 'The Hungry Ghosts' (2013) as touchstones to illustrate queer memory assemblages that contest collusions of security, religion, caste, race, and sexuality. Through a comparative study of V.V. Ganeshananthan’s 'Love Marriage' (2008), Jhumpa Lahiri’s “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine” (1999), and Shailja Patel’s 'Migritude' (2010), the third chapter inquires into “postmemorial” (Hirsch) and “uncanny” (Freud) mnemonic invocations by second-generation Asian American daughters. The final chapter investigates the crisis of citizenship and human rights in postwar Sri Lanka as captured by two art projects. Drawing upon postcolonial studies, human rights, and memory studies, the dissertation thus charts the ways in which South Asian American studies advances current dialogues in Asian American studies on citizenship, belonging, and human rights.
Nalin Jayasena (Committee Chair)
Anita Mannur (Committee Member)
Yu-Fang Cho (Committee Member)
Cathy J. Schlund-Vials (Committee Member)
Jana Braziel (Other)
102 p.
Asian American Studies; Asian Literature; Comparative Literature; Literature
postcolonial literature, Asian America, South Asia, memory, security, human rights

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Priyanimal, K. D. (2019). GEOPOLITICS OF FORGERY: LITERATURE, CULTURE AND MEMORY OF THE POSTCOLONIAL SOUTH ASIAN SECURITY STATE [Doctoral dissertation, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami156354614875673

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Priyanimal, Karunanayake . GEOPOLITICS OF FORGERY: LITERATURE, CULTURE AND MEMORY OF THE POSTCOLONIAL SOUTH ASIAN SECURITY STATE. 2019. Miami University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami156354614875673.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Priyanimal, Karunanayake . "GEOPOLITICS OF FORGERY: LITERATURE, CULTURE AND MEMORY OF THE POSTCOLONIAL SOUTH ASIAN SECURITY STATE." Doctoral dissertation, Miami University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami156354614875673

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

miami156354614875673
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© 2019, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Miami University and OhioLINK.