User:Emmadavis123/sandbox

==22/12/2017 - Good Copy of A Passage to India - Criticism == 

The landscape of critical work on A Passage to India is largely based upon time and the nature of the critiques. While many earlier critiques found that Forster's book sowed an inappropriate friendship between colonizers and the colonized, new critiques on the work draw attention to the sexism, racism and imperialism inherent in the text.

Reviews of A Passage to India when it was first published challenged specific details and attitudes included in the book that Forster drew from his own time in India. Early critics also expressed concern with the interracial camaraderie between Aziz and Fielding in the book . Others saw the book as a vilification of humanist perspectives on the importance of interpersonal relationships, and the damage colonialism wrought on society. More recent critiques by postcolonial theorists and literary critics have reinvestigated the text as a work of Orientalist fiction contributing to a discourse on colonial relationships by a European. Today it is one of the seminal texts in the postcolonial Orientalist discourse, among other books like The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, and Kim by Rudyard Kipling.

A Passage to India emerged at a time where portrayals of India as a savage, disorganized land in need of domination were more popular in mainstream European literature than romanticized depictions. Forster's novel departed from typical narratives about colonizer-colonized relationships and emphasized a more "unknowable" Orient, rather than characterizing it with exoticism, ancient wisdom and mystery. Postcolonial theorists like Maryam Wasif Khan have termed this novel a Modern Orientalist text, meaning that it portrays the Orient in an optimistic, positive light while simultaneously challenging and critiquing European culture and society. However, Benita Parry also suggests that it also mystifies India by creating an "obfuscated realm where the secular is scanted, and in which India’s long traditions of mathematics, science and technology, history, linguistics and jurisprudence have no place.”

One of the most notable critiques comes from literary professor Edward Said, who referenced A Passage to India in both Culture and Imperialism and Orientalism. In his discussion about allusions to the British empire in early 20th century novels, Said suggests that though the work did subvert typical views of colonization and colonial rule in India, it also fell short of outright condemning either nationalist movements in India or imperialism. Of Forster's attitude toward colonizer-colonized relationships, Said says Forster:

". . . found a way to use the mechanism of the novel to elaborate on the already existing structure of attitude and reference without changing it. This structure permitted one to feel affection for and even intimacy with some Indians and India generally, but made on see Indian politics as the charge of the British, and culturally refused a privilege to India nationalism."

Blatant stereotyping and Orientalist thought is also explored in postcolonial critiques. Said suggests that Forster deals with the question of British-India relationships by separating Muslims and Hindus in the narrative. He says Forster connects Islam to Western values and attitudes while suggesting that Hinduism is chaotic and orderless, and subsequently uses Hindu characters as the background to the main narrative. He also identifies the failed attempt at friendship between Aziz and Fielding as a reinforcement of the perceived cultural distance between the Orient and the West. The inability of the two men to begin a meaningful friendship is indicative of what Said suggests is the irreconcilable otherness of the Orient, something that has originated from the West and also limits Western readers in how they understand the Orient.

Other postcolonial scholars have examined the book with a critical postcolonial and feminist lens. Maryam Wasif Khan's reading of the book suggests A Passage to India is also a commentary on gender, and a British woman's place within the colonial project. She argues that the female characters coming to "the Orient" to break free of their social roles in Britain represent the discord between Englishwomen and their social roles at home, and tells the narrative of "pioneering Englishwomen whose emergent feminism found form and voice in the colony".

Sara Suleri has also critiqued the book's Orientalist tendencies and its use of radicalized bodies, especially in the case of Aziz, as sexual objects rather than individuals.

22/11/2017 - Draft Section of A Passage to India - Critique

The landscape of critical work on A Passage to India is largely based upon time and the nature of the critiques. While many earlier critiques found that Forster's book sowed an inappropriate friendship between colonizers and the colonized, new critiques on the work draw attention to the sexism, racism and imperialism inherent in the text.

Reviews of A Passage to India when it was first published challenged specific details and attitudes included in the book that Forster drew from his own time in India. Early critics also expressed concern with the interracial camaraderie between Aziz and Fielding in the book . Others saw the book as a vilification of humanist perspectives on the importance of interpersonal relationships, and the damage colonialism wrought on society. More recent critiques by postcolonial theorists and literary critics have reinvestigated the text as a work of Orientalist fiction contributing to a discourse on colonial relationships by a European. Today it is one of the seminal texts in the postcolonial Orientalist discourse, among other books like The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, and Kim by Rudyard Kipling.

A Passage to India emerged at a time where portrayals of India as a savage, disorganized land in need of domination were more popular in mainstream European literature than romanticized depictions. Forster's novel departed from typical narratives about colonizer-colonized relationships and emphasized a more "unknowable" Orient, rather than characterizing it with exoticism, ancient wisdom and mystery. Postcolonial theorists like Maryam Wasif Khan have termed this novel a Modern Orientalist text, meaning that it portrays the Orient in an optimistic, positive light while simultaneously challenging and critiquing European culture and society. However, Benita Parry also suggests that it also mystifies India by creating an "obfuscated realm where the secular is scanted, and in which India’s long traditions of mathematics, science and technology, history, linguistics and jurisprudence have no place.”

One of the most notable critiques comes from literary professor Edward Said, who referenced A Passage to India in both Culture and Imperialism and Orientalism. In his discussion about allusions to the British empire in early 20th century novels, Said suggests that though the work did subvert typical views of colonization and colonial rule in India, it also fell short of outright condemning either nationalist movements in India or imperialism. Of Forster's attitude toward colonizer-colonized relationships, Said says he:

". . . found a way to use the mechanism of the novel to elaborate on the already existing structure of attitude and reference without changing it. This structure permitted one to feel affection for and even intimacy with some Indians and India generally, but made on see Indian politics as the charge of the British, and culturally refused a privilege to India nationalism."

Blatant stereotyping and Orientalist thought is also explored in postcolonial critiques. Said suggests that Forster deals with the question of British-India relationships by separating Muslims and Hindus in the narrative. He says Forster connects Islam to Western values and attitudes while suggesting that Hinduism is chaotic and orderless, and subsequently uses Hindu characters as the background to the main narrative. He also identifies the failed attempt at friendship between Aziz and Fielding as a reinforcement of the perceived cultural distance between the Orient and the West. The inability of the two men to begin a meaningful friendship is indicative of what Said suggests is the irreconcilable otherness of the Orient, something that has originated from the West and also limits Western readers in how they know the Orient.

Sara Suleri has also critiqued the books Orientalist tendencies and its use of radicalized bodies, especially in the case of Aziz, as sexual objects rather than individuals.

1/11/2017 - Contributing to A Passage to India

I would really like to look into editing the article on A Passage to India by E. M. Forster. Currently, the article is more of a plot summary and a detailed list of characters. The sections on literary critique and the book's reception is short and simply lists its awards, and the book that have critiqued it. This novel is a central part of many postcolonial literary critiques, and I think discussing its importance in this field of study would be worthwhile. I would aim to write a thorough examination of critical response to the book throughout history, the work's contribution to Orientalism and Western perceptions of India, and how postcolonial scholars and literary critics today would examine this work. I would like to briefly summarize their arguments about the book, and include a reference in the article's introduction to its influence on culture and understandings of India.

Possible Sources include:

Benita Parry - Delusions and Discoveries: India in the British Imagination

Edward Said - Culture and Imperialism 

Sara Suleri - The Rhetoric of the English in India

Maryam Wasif Khan - Enlightenment Orientalism to Modern Orientalism: The Archive of Forester's A Passage to India

18/10/2017 - Potential Topic Choices

1. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: This article about the life of Gayatri Spivak lacks the academic tone, accuracy, and critical analysis of her writing necessary for an overview of her life and work.
   • I would need to add citations to multiple sections of this work
   • I would need to rewrite a number of paragraphs and correct multiple spelling mistakes
   • I would want to expand the section on critiques of her work and remove any inkling of bias in favour of Spivak
   • I would want to describe her work and the conclusions she draws from it in detail - not just list out major life events.
2. A Passage to India: The entry for E. M. Forster's novel A Passage to India has a detailed and thorough entry in Wikipedia. However, the section on literary /postcolonial criticism of the book is lacking.
   • I would read the text itself
   • I would read the critiques of A Passage to India mentioned in the Wikipedia article: Benita Parry's Delusions and Discoveries: India in the British Imagination, Said's Culture and Imperialism and Sara Suleri's The Rhetoric of the English in India
   • I would summarize their arguments and any other arguments by postcolonial theorists/literary critics pertinent to the article
   • I would include any relevant counter-arguments
   • I would look for other areas in the Wikipedia entry where I could include information about its relevance to postcolonial studies.

Article Evaluation - Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

- This article seems to emphasize Spivak's success, but routinely takes poetic license in describing her work and her life. There are many instances of language that connotes intelligence and expertise where the author should be trying to maintain a neutral tone:

"In all her work, Spivak’s main effort has been to try to find ways of accessing the subjectivity of those who are being investigated. She is hailed as a critic who has feminized and globalized the philosophy of deconstruction, considering the position of the subaltern, a word used by Antonio Gramsci as describing ungeneralizable fringe groups of society who lack access to citizenship. In the early 80s, she was also hailed as a co-founder of postcolonial theory, which she refused to accept fully, as has been demonstrated in her book Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Towards a History of the Vanishing Present (1999), which suggests that so-called postcolonial theory should be considered from the point of view of who uses it in what interest."

- Seems more biographical then Encyclopedic: "This sustained attempt to access the epistemologies damaged by the millennial oppression of the caste system has allowed her to understand the situation of globality as well as the limits of high theory more clearly."

- Often seems to suggest an intimate knowledge of Spivak: Ex. ". . . on her regular attempts at self-improvement, Spivak purchased a book . . . ". How does the author know this about her? Where is the citation for this?

- Long lists of places, names, dates, often included but unnecessary, like this list "Wesleyan University, University of California, Santa Cruz, Stanford University, Université Paul Valéry in Montpellier, France, University of Mainz, Germany, Frankfurt University, Germany, Shelby Cullom Davis Center at Princeton University, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in Vadodara (as Tagore Professor), Women’s Section of University of Riyadh, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Center for Studies in Social Science, Kolkata, Brown University, Cornell University, University of Pennsylvania, University College, Galway, Ireland, University of California, Irvine, and the Guggenheim"

- Vague phrases, etc: "a good deal of the fiction" - what is a "good deal", comparatively?

- This article is full of awkward phrases and sentences. Ex. "has established Spivak among the ranks of feminists who consider history, geography, and class in thinking woman" and " landless illiterates"

- This article seems disjointed. Half of it is an exhaustive timeline of Spivak's life including rolling lists of titles, names, and places, while the other half is an aggrandizing evaluation of her work and contribution to the fields of literature and anthropology. I think the lists could be cut down considerably, and the whole article could be fleshed out and organized better. Instead of splitting it into three parts (a synopsis, a biography, and a discussion of her work) you could split it into multiple parts (early life, academic life, humanitarian efforts, work, criticism, reception, etc). I think creating a more thorough outline would be a good place for this author to start. That way they would be able to clearly see where the knowledge gaps are, and devote more space to each aspect of Spivak's work and life.

- There is a heavy bias in favour of Spivak's work and perspective, with little to no attention paid to critiques of her work. In some instances, it seems as if the author is trying to make an argument against these critiques. The author doesn't permit these critiques to stand independently, and often responds to them, which immediately changes the tone neutral tone of her work.

"Spivak's writing has received some criticism, including the suggestion that her work puts style ahead of substance. It has been argued in her defense, however, that this sort of criticism reveals an unwillingness to substantively engage with her texts"

"In speeches given and published since 2002, Spivak has addressed the issue of terrorism and suicide bombings. With the aim of bringing an end to suicide bombings, she has explored and "tried to imagine what message [such acts] might contain," ruminating that "suicidal resistance is a message inscribed in the body when no other means will get through." One critic has suggested that this sort of stylised language may serve to blur important moral issues relating to terrorism. However, Spivak stated in the same speech that . . . "

- While the sources are factual, and the links work, there are many situations where the author has not provided citations for things she has written, and supports facts that have no academic backing.

- One thing that seems to be missing is any discussion of the response to her work, how her work has contributed to the greater dialogue surrounding postcolonial and subaltern studies, and what the critiques are of her work. While there is plenty of vague conjecture about the success and affect of her work, the author neglects to delve into any deep critiques of her work, presenting only a handful of shallow jabs at Spivak which the author then rebuts, using Spivak's own words and other academic sources. Again, this is an example of the way in which the author becomes a subjective, invested individual by pitting critiques of Spivak's work against the assessments of others and Spivak herself, which effectively allows a one-sided dialogue within the article, instead of letting the critiques stand alone.

- The author tries to discuss what Spivak is doing right now by talking about her "current" projects. However, the author forgets that their article was written at a specific point in time, and will become out of date as soon as Spivak takes on a new project.

- The Talk page of the article contains a thread about an edit war between the writer and some users who changed some parts of the article. It seems like the author wasn't understanding and didn't appreciate edits being made on their page.

- This is part of WikiProjects