Affective Communities

Gandhi Leela Gandhi

Description

"If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country." So E. M. Forster famously observed in his Two Cheers for Democracy. Forster's epigrammatic manifesto, where the idea of the "friend" stands as a metaphor for dissident cross-cultural collaboration, holds the key, Leela Gandhi argues in Affective Communities, to the hitherto neglected history of western anti-imperialism. Focusing on individuals and groups who renounced the privileges of imperialism to elect affinity with victims of their own expansionist cultures, she uncovers the utopian-socialist critiques of empire that emerged in Europe, specifically in Britain, at the end of the nineteenth century. Gandhi reveals for the first time how those associated with marginalized lifestyles, subcultures, and traditions-including homosexuality, vegetarianism, animal rights, spiritualism, and aestheticism-united against imperialism and forged strong bonds with colonized subjects and cultures.Gandhi weaves together the stories of a number of South Asian and European friendships that flourished between 1878 and 1914, tracing the complex historical networks connecting figures like the English socialist and homosexual reformer Edward Carpenter and the young Indian barrister M. K. Gandhi, or the Jewish French mystic Mirra Alfassa and the Cambridge-educated Indian yogi and extremist Sri Aurobindo. In a global milieu where the battle lines of empire are reemerging in newer and more pernicious configurations, Affective Communities challenges homogeneous portrayals of "the West" and its role in relation to anticolonial struggles. Drawing on Derrida's theory of friendship, Gandhi puts forth a powerful new model of the political: one that finds in friendship a crucial resource for anti-imperialism and transnational collaboration.

Sujets

• Human rights

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 11 janvier 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822387657
• Langue: English

Extrait

politics, history, and culture

A√ective Communities

A series from the International Institute at the University of Michigan

Series Editors:George Steinmetz and Julia Adams

Series Editorial Advisory Board

Fernando Coronil Mamadou Diouf Michael Dutton Geo√ Eley Fatma Müge Göcek Nancy Rose Hunt Andreas Kalyvas Webb Keane

David Laitin Lydia Liu Julie Skurski Margaret Somers Ann Laura Stoler Katherine Verdery Elizabeth Wingrove

Sponsored by the International Institute at the University of Michigan and published by Duke University Press, this series is centered around cultural and historical studies of power, politics, and the state—a field that cuts across the disciplines of history, sociology, anthropology, political science, and cultural studies. The focus on the relationship between state and culture refers both to a methodological approach—the study of politics and the state using culturalist methods—and a substantive one that treats signifying practices as an essential dimension of politics. The dialectic of politics, culture, and history figures prominently in all the books selected for the series.

LeelaGandhi

xc o m m u n i t i e sa f f e c t i v e

Anticolonial Thought, Fin-de-Siècle

Radicalism, and the Politics of

Friendship

Duke University Press

Durham & London

2006

∫2006 Duke University Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America on

acid-free paper$

Designed by C. H. Westmoreland

Typeset in Adobe Caslon

by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Publication Data Gandhi, Leela, 1966– A√ective communities : anticolonial thought, fin de siecle radicalism, and the politics of friendship / Leela Gandhi. p. cm. — (Politics, history, and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn0-8223-3703-7 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn0-8223-3715-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Radicalism—England—History—19th century. 2. Radicalism—England—His- tory—20th century. 3. Anti-imperialist movements—England—History—19th century. 4. Anti-imperialist movements— England—History—20th century. I. Title. II. Series. h n400.r3g36 2006 320.530942%09034—dc22 2005025992

For Pauline Nestor and Bronte Adams

manifesto Anticolonial Thought and the Politics of Friendship13

introduction A√ective Communities1

Acknowledgmentsix

contents

sex The Story of Late Victorian Homosexual Exceptionalism34

conclusion An Immature Politics177

191 237

meat A Short Cultural History of Animal Welfare at the Fin-de-Siècle67

god Mysticism and Radicalism at the End of the Nineteenth Century115

5

4

6 art Aestheticism and the Politics of Postcolonial Di√erence142

Notes Index

7

3

2

x

1

x

acknowledgments

Several individuals and institutions have supported and accompanied the making of this book. A generous grant from the Australian Re- search Council directly facilitated research and helped release invalu- able writing time. La Trobe University was likewise supportive in cru- cial ways, extending financial assistance, allowing for periods of leave from teaching, and, most of all, providing a uniquely collegiate and intellectually sustaining milieu. So too, the business of actual research was eased considerably through the assistance and patience of sta√ and archivists at the following libraries: St. Stephens College, Teen Murthi, the Bodleian, La Trobe University, Monash University, and Sri Auro- bindo Ashram. Over the last few years I have benefited greatly from scholarly hospi- tality at the Universities of Lisbon, Evora, Trento, Oxford, Massachu- setts, Monash, Melbourne, Sydney, New South Wales, and Delhi, and the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research in Canberra. For a√ective ac- commodation at these institutions as well as for their intellectual and personal generosity, I wish to thank especially Maria Alzira Seixo, Tapan Basu, Liana Borghi, Brinda Bose, Barbara Caine, Giovanna Covi, Ros Diprose, Alison Donnell, Simon During, Debjani Ganguly, Costanza and Mario Garavelli, Paola Giacomoni, Chris Healy, Victor Mendes, Suroopa Mukherji, Michele Nicoletti, John Noyes, Ira Raja, Manav Rati, Linnell Seacomb, Lalitha Subbu, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, Ferdinando Targetti, Jurgen Todesco, and Joy Wang. I owe additional thanks to Robert Young, who has also been the most supportive and stimulating of readers for this work. At a delicate stage of writing I received invaluable support and editorial feedback from Julia Adams, George Steinmetz, and others involved in the Politics, History, and Culture Series for Duke University Press. At the press itself, I received particular support from my editor Valerie Millholland and from Fred