Empire of Touch - Women''s Political Labor and the Fabrication of East Bengal

Poulomi Saha offers an innovative account of women¿s political labor in East Bengal over more than a century. Through a material account of text and textile, An Empire of Touch crafts a new narrative of gendered political labor under empire.

List of contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: Reading the Body Politic
1. Virgin Suicides
Part II: The Fetish of Nationalism
2. The Fetish Touch
3. Oceanic Feelings
Part III: International Basket Case
4. Archive Asylum
5. Machine Made
Epilogue
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the author

Poulomi Saha is assistant professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley.

Summary

Poulomi Saha offers an innovative account of women’s political labor in East Bengal over more than a century. Through a material account of text and textile, An Empire of Touch crafts a new narrative of gendered political labor under empire.

Additional text

Saha proposes that the diaphanous nature first of muslin and then of other fabrics constitutes neither a simple product with exchange value nor an ephemeral or affective form of labor we have come to associate with certain kinds of women’s work. Forms of touch are woven into the fabric of colonial and postcolonial exchange. And they carry a spectral quality. Rather like the visor effect in Derrida’s reading of Hamlet in Specters of Marx, fabric casts a shadow on abstracted beings moving through history teleologically, and weaves a different affect.

Product details

• Authors: Poulomi Saha
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.12.2019
• EAN: 9780231192095
• ISBN: 978-0-231-19209-5
• No. of pages: 344
• Series: Gender and Culture Series
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Cultural history; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Women's Studies, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, Social & cultural history, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Women in Politics, LITERARY CRITICISM / Feminist, Social and cultural history, Gender studies: women, Sociology: work & labour, Gender studies: women and girls, Indian sub-continent, South Asia (Indian sub-continent), Sociology: work and labour, Textile Industries, Apparel, garment and textile industries, HISTORY / Asia / South / General