Audacious Raconteur

Regular price €22.99
Regular price €25.99 Sale Sale price €22.99
A01=Leela Prasad
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Leela Prasad
automatic-update
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=ASZ
Category=ATX
Category=HBJF
Category=JHMC
Category=NHF
colonial modernity
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Imperialism
Language_English
Native scholar
Oral history
PA=Available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
softlaunch
Storytelling/Narrative

Product details

  • ISBN 9781501752278
  • Weight: 454g
  • Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
  • Publication Date: 15 Nov 2020
  • Publisher: Cornell University Press
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Paperback
  • Language: English
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days

Our Delivery Time Frames Explained
2-4 Working Days: Available in-stock

10-20 Working Days
: On Backorder

Will Deliver When Available
: On Pre-Order or Reprinting

We ship your order once all items have arrived at our warehouse and are processed. Need those 2-4 day shipping items sooner? Just place a separate order for them!

Can a subject be sovereign in a hegemony? Can creativity be reined in by forces of empire? Studying closely the oral narrations and writings of four Indian authors in colonial India, The Audacious Raconteur argues that even the most hegemonic circumstances cannot suppress "audacious raconteurs": skilled storytellers who fashion narrative spaces that allow themselves to remain sovereign and beyond subjugation.

By drawing attention to the vigorous orality, maverick use of photography, literary ventriloquism, and bilingualism in the narratives of these raconteurs, Leela Prasad shows how the ideological bulwark of colonialism—formed by concepts of colonial modernity, history, science, and native knowledge—is dismantled. Audacious raconteurs wrest back meanings of religion, culture, and history that are closer to their lived understandings. The figure of the audacious raconteur does not only hover in an archive but suffuses everyday life. Underlying these ideas, Prasad's personal interactions with the narrators' descendants give weight to her innovative argument that the audacious raconteur is a necessary ethical and artistic figure in human experience.

Thanks to generous funding from Duke University, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

Leela Prasad is Professor of Ethics and Religious Studies at Duke University. She is the award-winning author of Poetics of Conduct and the codirector of the film Aftertones. Follow her on X @ProfLeelaPrasad.