Subaltern Citizens and their Histories

Deploying the provocative idea of the ‘subaltern citizen’, this book raises fundamental questions about subalternity and difference, dominance and subordination, in India and the United States. In contrast to other writings on subordinated and marginalized people, the essays presented here devote deliberate attention to diverse locations of subalternity: in the conditions and histories of slaves, dalits, peasants, illegal immigrants, homosexuals, schoolteachers, women of noble lineage; in the Third World and the First; in pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial times.With contributions from a diverse group of distinguished scholars, the anthology explores issues of gender and sexuality, migration, race, caste and class, education and law, culture and politics. The very juxtaposition of different bodies of scholarship serves to challenge common perceptions of inherited histories – claims to American and Indian ‘exceptionalism’ – and promotes a new awareness, not only of shared histories and shared struggles in the making of the modern world, but of particularities and facets of our different histories and societal conditions that are assumed as being well understood, and hence often taken for granted.Subaltern Citizens and Their Histories will be essential reading for scholars of colonial, postcolonial and subaltern studies, American studies, US and South Asian social science and history.

"[I]ts broad transdisciplinary reach, from law to literature, from the early twentieth century American popular parlor tunes to Indian medieval poetry, from North America to India, captivates the theoretical imagination as it opens up subaltern studies to exciting conversations...the volume serves as an exemplary performance of interdisciplinarity as it interrogates both the typical as well as untypical locations of subalternity...The overarching merit of the collection is nevertheless the consistency with which all contributions appropriately complexify the condition of subalternity across all the most important arenas of human life." - Kristine Suna-Koro, Journal of Postcolonial Theoery and Theology, Volume 1 (October 2010)"A seminal collection that makes the comparison of apparently quite disparate topics work because of inspiring points of departure." - Peter Geschiere, Sociétés Politiques Comparées, No. 30 (December 2010)"The volume, with its broad transdisciplinary reach - stretching from literature and culture studies to politics, law and history - is an exemplary piece of interdisciplinary study, and successfully synthesizes varying locations of subalternity within its scope. But it is perhaps here that its weaknesses overlap its merits. Combining such variety of perspectives and pedagogies in a single volume calls for a high degree of expertise on the part of the reader to fully appreciate the essays, their methodologies and styles. Some of them, compact and accessible in themselves, would perhaps prove more useful as stand alone than within an anthology like the current one." - Anasua Chatterjee; Seminar (www.india-seminar.com)

Gyanendra Pandey is Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor in the Department of History, Emory University. A founding member of the Subaltern Studies collective and editor of the Intersections: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories book series at Routledge, he is one of the leading theorists and originators of the subaltern studies approach and has published widely in the field of colonial and postcolonial studies.