Postcolonial Careers of Santha Rama Rau

Burton Antoinette Burton

Description

Santha Rama Rau was one of the best known South Asian writers in postwar America. Born into India's elite in 1923, Rama Rau has lived in the United States since the 1940s. Although she is no longer well known, she was for several decades a popular expert on India. She provided an insider's view of Indian cultures, traditions, and history to an American public increasingly aware of the expanded role of the United States on the world stage. Between 1945 and 1970, Rama Rau published half a dozen books, including travelogues, novels, a memoir, and a Time-Life cookbook; she was a regular contributor to periodicals such as the New Yorker, the New York Times, McCall's, and Reader's Digest.Drawing on archival research and interviews with Rama Rau, historian Antoinette Burton opens Rama Rau's career into an examination of orientalism in the postwar United States, the changing idioms of cosmopolitanism in the postcolonial era, and the afterlife of British colonialism in the American public sphere. Burton describes how Rama Rau's career was shaped by gendered perceptions of India and "the East" as well as by the shifting relationships between the United States, India, Pakistan, and Great Britain during the Cold War. Exploring how Rama Rau positioned herself as an expert on both India and the British empire, Burton analyzes the correspondence between Rama Rau and her Time-Life editors over the contents of her book The Cooking of India (1969), and Rama Rau's theatrical adaptation of E. M. Forster's A Passage to India, which played on Broadway in 1961 and was the basis for David Lean's 1985 film. Burton assesses the critical reception of Rama Rau's play as well as her correspondence with Forster and Lean.

Sujets

• India

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 26 septembre 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822390503
• Langue: English

Extrait

women’s studies | american studies | postcolonial studies

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mrinalini sinha

parama roy

antoinette burton

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duke university press 90660 27708-0660

on the cover :

1945

1945

1940

robyn฀wiegman

1970

the postcolonial c areer s of santha r ama r au antoinette burton

 burton

duke

the postcolonial c areer s of santha r ama r au

The Postcolonial Careers of Santha Rama Rau

next wave: ne w directions in women’s studies

A series edited by Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, and Robyn Wiegman

The Postcolonial Careers

of Santha Rama Rau

antoinette burton

iversity Press  Durham and London Duke Un 2007

∫2007 Duke University Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper$

Designed by Katy Clove

Typeset in Fournier by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

appear on the last printed page of this book.

For Patricia Ryan in memoriam 1937–2007

beautiful loving brave

Contents

list of illustrationsviii

acknowledgmentsix

introductionThe East as a Postcolonial Career 1

1. Cold War Cosmopolitanism: The Education of Santha Rama Rau in the Age of Bandung, 1945–1960 32

2. Interpreting British India in Anglo-America: The Cultural Politics of Santha Rama Rau’sAPsaasegotdiIna, 1960–2005 71

3. Home to India: Cooking with Santha Rama Rau 109

epilogue145Cosmopolitanism by Any Other Name

notes153

select bibliography195

index209

List of Illustrations

A gallery of illustrations is located between pages 108 and 109.

acknowledgment s

As this project drew to a close I found myself overwhelmed by a sense of indebtedness to the myriad people who have helped to shape what it has become. Audiences at the ‘‘Crosstown Tra≈c’’ conference at Warwick, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois, the American Historical Association, the Organiza- tion of American Historians, Duke University,sunyStonybrook, Colum- bia, andnyuo√ered spirited feedback and often provocative suggestions for revision—all of which I have endeavored to incorporate. I am espe- cially grateful to Lou Roberts, Leora Auslander, Anu Rao, Lila Abu- Lughod, Susan Thorne, and Kathleen Wilson for organizing such stimu- lating venues in which to think through the analytical challenges of cosmopolitanism. Tony Ballantyne, Gerry Forbes, Barbara Ramusack, George Robb, Laura Mayhall, Herman Bennett, and Minnie Sinha have long been among my most faithful and critical readers; without them, my conviction about my ability to do justice to Santha Rama Rau’s storied careers would have flagged long ago. Tony’s knowledge, enthusiasm, and friendship have been especially wonderful, deepening even with distance. George read chapters and, even more importantly, embellished my re- search with his inveterate love of kitsch, whether of the Victorian or the Cold War kind. Various chapters and parts of chapters have also benefited greatly from the care and attention of Dane Kennedy, Jed Esty, Durba Ghosh, Clarence Walker, Adam Geary, Steve Johnstone, Philippa Levine, Brenda Gayle Plummer, Parama Roy, Sally Singh, Rebecca Walkowitz,