Own Maps/Imagined Terrain

Bhattacharya, Atanu; Hiradhar, Preet Pankaj

doi:10.3828/extr.2014.16

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…This summary will suffice to indicate that the story is not ‘simply an inventory of scientific marvels’, as claimed by Bhattacharya and Hiradhar (2014, p. 287). Besides, technology is not ‘deified’ in Harvey’s house and the tone is not uniformly one of ‘wonder at the rapid automation of human lives’, as suggested by Sengupta (2010, p. 117).…”

Section: A Plot Synopsis Of Rahasya and The Colonial Negotiation Of Sciencementioning

confidence: 87%

The allusion to East Lynne, coloniality and inter‐cultural gender politics in the first Bengali science fiction story

Sarkar

2021

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This article contextualises and analyses the allusion to the novel East Lynne (1861) occurring in the first science fiction short story published in the Bengali language. The story entitled Rahasya ('Mystery' or 'Joke'; 1882) by Hemlal Dutta contains a passing and off-hand reference to the character named Cornelia present in the Victorian novel. Miss Cornelia Carlyle, who is shown to be an authoritarian and irritable unmarried woman in East Lynne, is briefly mentioned to indicate that Miss Harvey in the Bengali story possesses similar characteristics. However, the Bengali story ignores many of the respectable facets of Cornelia in favour of a reductive, sexist stereotype, thus betraying a patriarchal sentiment that is shared between the colonising and the colonised cultures. Miss Harvey's anger at the narrator's comically misdirected message shows her to be alien to the homosocial bond shared between the Bengali narrator and his English friend Harvey in the contact zone of the imperial metropolis. The allusion to Cornelia shows the story's awareness of the broad socio-cultural matrix in which science and technology are embedded. This article records the sparse evidence of the once-popular novel's reception in colonial India to indicate how the Bengali story alludes to the novel as part of its cultural capital and for naturalising gender stereotypes across a cultural divide.

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Section: A Plot Synopsis Of Rahasya and The Colonial Negotiation Of Sciencementioning

confidence: 87%

The allusion to East Lynne, coloniality and inter‐cultural gender politics in the first Bengali science fiction story

Sarkar

2021

Literature Compass

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“…5 “Runaway Cyclone” can thus be read in a broader context of colonial-era SF written by the colonized. Atanu Bhattacharya and Preet Hiradhar (2014) trace the beginnings of the genre back to two stories: Kylas Chunder Dutt’s (1817–1859) “A Journal of Forty Eight Hours of the Year 1945” (published in 1835) and “The Republic of Orissa: A Page From the Annals of the Twentieth Century” (published in 1845) by Shoshee Chunder Dutt (1824–1886). Bhattacharya and Hiradhar argue that both stories combine the fabular modes of Bengali storytelling with the “possibilities of the new science that had percolated among the newly emergent [Bengali] middle class” (2014: 287).…”

Section: Integrating Science Fiction and Magical Realismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In his short story, Bose introduces a new term for the genre of Bangla SF, thus officially founding the genre (Chattopadhyay, 2013: n.p.). This term, baigyanik rahasya , is the Bengali term for science fiction and literally translates into English as “scientific mystery” (Bhattacharya and Hiradhar, 2014: 287) — which is also the subtitle of Bose’s story. With “Runaway Cyclone”, Bose develops the genre into a critical tool that he uses to sketch his philosophy of Indian science and thereby to critique colonial power as based on Western scientific progress and knowledge.…”

Section: Integrating Science Fiction and Magical Realismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Jagadish Chandra Bose and the anticolonial politics of science fiction

Hoene

2020

The Journal of Commonwealth Literature

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In postcolonial studies there are two main strands of argument concerning the legacies and effects of cultural imperialism on science fiction as a literary genre. The first strand presents a critical reading of Western science fiction of the nineteenth and early twentieth century as a genre that is deeply embedded in the discourses and ideologies of colonialism and imperialism (Rieder, 2008; Kerslake, 2007). The second strand presents a critical reading of the writing back of postcolonial authors, stressing the subversive elements of both science and fiction and their power to undermine dominant narratives of cultural imperialism and (neo)colonialism (Chambers, 2003; Hoagland and Sarwal, 2010; Langer, 2011; Smith, 2012; Varughese, 2013 and 2017). In this article I focus on a piece of colonial-era science fiction from a non-Western writer: Jagadish Chandra Bose’s short story “Runaway Cyclone”. First published in 1896 and republished in an extended version by the author in 1921, I analyse how Bose’s story combines elements of science fiction and magical realism. I then argue that Bose turns the narrative tropes of Western science fiction on their head and thus undermines Western science as an epistemological tool of imperial control. Reading “Runaway Cyclone” alongside Bose’s non-fictional accounts on science in colonised India will then reveal a philosophy of science that embraces Western science and Indian philosophy, which in turn can be read as a politics of science that is in effect anticolonial.

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The Insectesimal tall tale: Historical catachresis and ethics in the science fiction of Premendra Mitra

Bhattacharya

Hiradhar²

2017

Journal of Postcolonial Writing

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Own Maps/Imagined Terrain

Cited by 7 publications

References 2 publications

The allusion to East Lynne, coloniality and inter‐cultural gender politics in the first Bengali science fiction story

The allusion to East Lynne, coloniality and inter‐cultural gender politics in the first Bengali science fiction story

Jagadish Chandra Bose and the anticolonial politics of science fiction

The Insectesimal tall tale: Historical catachresis and ethics in the science fiction of Premendra Mitra

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