Imperial Infrastructure and Spatial Resistance in Colonial Literature, 1880–1930 (Race and Resistance Across Borders in the Long Twentieth Century)

Between 1880 And 1930, The British Empire's Vast Infrastructural Developments Facilitated The Incorporation Of Large Parts Of The Globe Into Not Only Its Imperial Rule, But Also The Capitalist World-system. Throughout This Period, Colonial Literary Fiction, In Recording This Vast Expansion, Repeatedly Cited These Imperial Infrastructures To Make Sense Of The Various Colonial Landscapes In Which They Were Set. Physical Embodiments Of Empire Proliferate In This Writing. Railways And Trains, Telegraph Wires And Telegrams, Roads And Bridges, Steamships And Shipping Lines, Canals And Other Forms Of Irrigation, Cantonments, The Colonial Bungalow, And Other Kinds Of Colonial Urban Infrastructure - All Of These Infrastructural Lines Broke Up The Landscape And Gave Shape To The Literary Depiction And Production Of Colonial Space. By Developing A Methodology Called 'infrastructural Reading', The Author Shows How A Focus On The Infrastructural Networks That Circulate Through Colonial Fiction Are Almost Always Related To Some Form Of Anti-imperial Resistance That Manifests Spatially Within Their Literary, Narrative And Formal Elements. This Subversive Reading Strategy - Which Is Applied In Turn To Writers As Varied As H. Rider Haggard, Olive Schreiner And John Buchan In South Africa, And Flora Annie Steel, E.m. Forster And Edward Thompson In India - Demonstrates That These Mostly Pro-imperial Writings Can Reveal An Array Of Ideological Anxieties, Limitations And Silences As Well As More Direct Objections To And Acts Of Violent Defiance Against Imperial Control And Capitalist Accumulation -- Introduction: Infrastructure, Resistance, Literature -- Mapping Humanitarianism: Flora Annie Steel And The Contradictions Of Colonial Capitalism -- Mapping Segregation: Literary Geographies Of South Africa -- Mapping Frontiers: John Buchan And The Topographies Of Imperial Ideology -- Mapping Nationalism: Allegories Of Uneven Development -- Towards An Infrastructural Reading Of The Present. Dominic Davies. D.phil. University Of Oxford 2015 Humanities Division Faculty Of English Language And Literature St. Anne's College. Includes Bibliographical References. Can A Book Change The World? 'fighting Words' Looks At How The Book Has Fuelled Resistance To Empire In The Long Twentieth Century. What Emerges Is A Complex Portrait Of The Vital And Multifaceted Role Played By The Book In Both The Formation And The Form Of Anticolonial Resistance, And The Development Of The Postcolonial World. From Communism To Postcapitalism : Karl Marx And Friedrich Engels's The Communist Manifesto (1848) / Dominic Davies -- Anna Julia Cooper's A Voice From The South (1892) : Black Feminism And Human Rights / Imaobong Umoren -- Emily Hobhouse, The Brunt Of The War And Where It Fell / Christina Twomey -- W.e.b. Du Bois's The Souls Of Black Folk (1903) : Of The Veil And The Colour-line, Of Double-consciousness And Second-sight / Reiland Rabaka -- Wake Up, India : A Plea For Social Reform (1913) : Annie Besant's Anti-colonial Networks / Priyasha Mukhopadhyay -- Sol Plaatje's Native Life In South Africa (1916) : The Politics Of Belonging / Janet Remmington -- Making Freedom : Jawaharlal Nehru's An Autobiography (1936) And The Discovery Of India (1946) / Elleke Boehmer -- Joseph B. Danquah's The Akan Doctrine Of God (1944) : Anticolonial Fragments? / Rouven Kunstmann -- The Resistant Forces Of Myth : Miguel Ángel Asturias's Men Of Maize (1949) / Johanna Richter -- The Hip-hop Legacies Of Cheikh Anta Diop's Nations Nègres Et Culture (1954) / Ruth Bush -- Culture In Transition : Rajat Neogy's Transition (1961-8) And The Decolonization Of African Literature / Asha Rogers -- Frantz Fanon's The Wretched Of The Earth (1961) : The Spectre Of The Third World Project / John Narayan -- The Match Is In The Spinifex : Frank Hardy, The Unlucky Australians (1968) / Benjamin Mountford -- Provenance, Identification And Confession In Sally Morgan's My Place (1987) / Michael R. Griffiths -- Freedom Fighter/postcolonial Saint : The Symbolic Legacy Of Nelson Mandela's Long Walk To Freedom (1994) / Erica Lombard. Edited By Dominic Davies, Erica Lombard And Benjamin Mountford. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. "Between 1880 and 1930, the British Empire's vast infrastructural developments facilitated the incorporation of large parts of the globe into not only its imperial rule, but also the capitalist world-system. Throughout this period, colonial literary fiction, in recording this vast expansion, repeatedly cited these imperial infrastructures to make sense of the various colonial landscapes in which they were set. Physical embodiments of empire proliferate in this writing. Railways and trains, telegraph wires and telegrams, roads and bridges, steamships and shipping lines, canals and other forms of irrigation, cantonments, the colonial bungalow, and other kinds of colonial urban infrastructure - all of these infrastructural lines broke up the landscape and gave shape to the literary depiction and production of colonial space. By developing a methodology called 'infrastructural reading', the author shows how a focus on the infrastructural networks that circulate through colonial fiction are almost always related to some form of anti-imperial resistance that manifests spatially within their literary, narrative and formal elements. This subversive reading strategy - which is applied in turn to writers as varied as H. Rider Haggard, Olive Schreiner and John Buchan in South Africa, and Flora Annie Steel, E.M. Forster and Edward Thompson in India - demonstrates that these mostly pro-imperial writings can reveal an array of ideological anxieties, limitations and silences as well as more direct objections to and acts of violent defiance against imperial control and capitalist accumulation" -- Provided by publisher Can a book change the world? If books were integral to the creation of the imperial global order, what role have they played in resisting that order throughout the twentieth century? To what extent have theories and movements of anti-imperial and anticolonial resistance across the planet been shaped by books as they are read across the world? This updated edition of Fighting Words responds to these questions by examining how the book as a cultural form has fuelled resistance to empire in the long twentieth century. Through fifteen case studies that bring together literary, historical and book historical perspectives, this collection explores the ways in which books have circulated anti-imperial ideas, as they themselves have circulated as objects and commodities within regional, national and transnational networks. What emerges is a complex portrait of the vital and multifaceted role played by the book in both the formation and the form of anticolonial resistance, and the development of the postcolonial world.