Title Unthinking mastery : dehumanism and decolonial entanglements / Julietta Singh

Published Durham : Duke University Press, 2018 ©2018

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Description 1 online resource (xi, 201 pages) Contents Introduction: reading against mastery -- Decolonizing mastery -- The language of mastery -- Posthumanitarian fictions -- Humanimal dispossessions -- Cultivating discomfort -- Coda: surviving mastery Summary Challenges a core, fraught dimension of geopolitical, cultural, and scholarly endeavor: the drive toward mastery over the self and others. Drawing on postcolonial theory, queer theory, new materialism, and animal studies, the author traces how pervasive the concept of mastery has been to modern politics and anticolonial movements. The author juxtaposes destructive uses of mastery, such as the colonial domination of bodies, against more laudable forms, such as intellectual and linguistic mastery, to underscore how the concept -- regardless of its use -- is rooted in histories of violence and the wielding of power. For anticolonial thinkers like Fanon and Gandhi, forms of bodily mastery were considered to be the key to a decolonial future. Yet as the author demonstrates, their advocacy for mastery unintentionally reinforced colonial logics. In readings of postcolonial literature by J.M. Coetzee, Mahasweta Devi, Indra Sinha, and Jamaica Kincaid, the author suggests that only by moving beyond the compulsive desire to become masterful human subjects can we disentangle ourselves from the legacies of violence and fantasies of invulnerability that lead us to hurt other humans, animals, and the environment Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes This work is licensed by Knowledge Unlatched under a Creative Commons license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/arr/4.0/legalcode Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL Print version record digitized 2021. HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL Subject Coetzee, J. M., 1940- -- Criticism and interpretation Mahāśvetā Debī, 1926-2016 -- Criticism and interpretation Sinha, Indra -- Criticism and interpretation Kincaid, Jamaica -- Criticism and interpretation SUBJECT Kincaid, Jamaica -- Criticism and interpretation Sinha, Indra -- Criticism and interpretation Mahāśvetā Debī, 1926-2016 -- Criticism and interpretation Coetzee, J. M., 1940- -- Criticism and interpretation Coetzee, J. M., 1940- fast Kincaid, Jamaica fast Mahāśvetā Debī, 1926-2016 fast Sinha, Indra fast Subject Postcolonialism in literature. Power (Social sciences) in literature. BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Literary. Postcolonialism in literature Power (Social sciences) in literature Herrschaft Motiv Literaturtheorie Postkoloniale Literatur Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. Form Electronic book LC no. 2017021286 ISBN 9780822372363 0822372363 9780822369226 0822369222

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