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Journal

2015 | 14 | 1 | 95-118

Article title

Interrogating Urban Spaces: Kali and the Intellectual in two Contemporary Novels

Title variants

Languages of publication

EN

Abstracts

EN
This article focuses on the complexity of the encounter between two Western male writers and the East as represented by the metropolis of Calcutta and Kali, its patron goddess. The novels under discussion are Dan Simmons’ Song of Kali and Paul Theroux’s A Dead Hand: A Crime in Calcutta. The theoretical framework of the comparative analysis argues for the conceptual blurring of boundaries between ‘flâneur’ and ‘badaud’, elusive hypostases of the male writer protagonists in the Eastern urban context.

Keywords

EN
badaud   Calcutta   flâneur   Kali   urban   writer  

Publisher

Journal

Year

Volume

14

Issue

1

Pages

95-118

Physical description

Dates

published
2015-12-01
online
2016-02-29

Contributors

  • Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey, 26 Agustos Yerlesimi, Kayisdagi Cad. 34755, Atasehir/Istanbul, Turkey

References

  • Baudelaire, Charles. 1986. “The Painter of Modern Life” in The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays. Jonathan Mayne, ed. and trans. New York: Da Capo Press, pp. 1-40.
  • Benjamin, Walter. 1997. Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism, Harry Zohn, trans. London and New York: Verso.
  • Hollander, John. 1988. “The Poetics of Ekphrasis.” Word & Image 4:209-19.
  • Humes, Cynthia Ann. 2003. “Wrestling with Kali: South Asian and British Constructions of the Black Goddess” in Encountering Kali: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West. Rachel Fell McDermott and Jeffrey J. Kripal (Eds.). Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 145-69.
  • Kinsley, David R. 2003. “Kali” in Encountering Kali: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West. Rachel Fell McDermott and Jeffrey J. Kripal (Eds.). Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 23-39.
  • Kripal, Jeffrey. K, and Rachel McDermott. 2003. “Introducing Kali Studies” in Encountering Kali: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West. Rachel Fell McDermott and Jeffrey J. Kripal (Eds.). Berkeley: University of California Press, pp.1-19.
  • Magee, Michael. 1995. The Magic of Kali.
  • McDonough, Tom. 2002. “The Crimes of the Flaneur”. MIT Press. [Online]. pp. 101-122. Available: [Accessed 2015, June 18].
  • Menon, Usha and Richard A. Shweder. 2003. “Dominating Kali: Family Values and Tantric Power” in Encountering Kali: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West. Rachel Fell McDermott and Jeffrey J. Kripal (Eds.). Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 80-100.
  • Shaya, Gregory. 2004. “The Flaneur, the Badaud, and the Making of a Mass Public in France, circa 1860-1910” in The American Historical Review [Online]. pp. 41-77. Available: [Accessed2015, June 18]
  • Simmons, Dan. 1985. Song of Kali. New York: Tor Books.
  • Tagore, Rabindranath. Sacrifice.)
  • Taylor, Meadows. 1986. Confessions of a Thug. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Theroux, Paul. 2010. A Dead Hand: A Crime in Calcutta. London: Penguin Books.
  • Van Woerkens, Martine. 2002. The Strangled Traveler: Colonial Imaginings and the Thugs of India. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Document Type

Publication order reference

Identifiers

YADDA identifier

bwmeta1.element.doi-10_1515_genst-2016-0007
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