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In a message dated 5/7/05 6:35:52 PM, danielle.conger@... writes:

<< Other than that, I'm going to suggest a book. ;) Seriously, an
interesting and compelling argument (as I see it) for the importance of
print can be found in Partha Chatterjee's book _Imagined Communities_. >>

I was going to link this from a webpage but it looks like (without me doing a
lot of really hard internet button-pushing, on my second day of hardly any
sleep and I'm lazy today) Partha Chatterjee wrote some chapters or one chapter
or a critique? Wah. He probably wrote the good part. But... Danielle or
someone who's just available or in the mood, could you poke around some and bring
a link to something that gives book details (not necessarily ordering
details, just some review or something) or a summary of the Chatterjee good-parts?
I'm finding college-class syllabus chit chat.

Thanks

Sandra

Danielle Conger

SandraDodd@... wrote:

>In a message dated 5/7/05 6:35:52 PM, danielle.conger@... writes:
>
><< Other than that, I'm going to suggest a book. ;) Seriously, an
>interesting and compelling argument (as I see it) for the importance of
>print can be found in Partha Chatterjee's book _Imagined Communities_. >>
>
>I was going to link this from a webpage but it looks like (without me doing a
>lot of really hard internet button-pushing, on my second day of hardly any
>sleep and I'm lazy today) Partha Chatterjee wrote some chapters or one chapter
>or a critique? Wah. He probably wrote the good part. But... Danielle or
>someone who's just available or in the mood, could you poke around some and bring
>a link to something that gives book details (not necessarily ordering
>details, just some review or something) or a summary of the Chatterjee good-parts?
>I'm finding college-class syllabus chit chat.
>
>
Well, it would probably help if I'd given you the right author--Benedict
Anderson wrote _Imagined Communities_ not Chatterjee, though he wrote
some really cool stuff too. Anderson's chapter 5, "Old Languages, New
Models" probably touches most specifically on his idea of print
capitalism's impact on nationalism.

Here's a little blurb about it, though I think it makes it sound very
dry and boring--much too academic-speak for my taste, shame:

"The close of the era of successful national liberation movements in the
Americas coincided with the onset of the age of nationalism in Europe.
These ''new nationalisms'' were different in two respects: 1.) national
print languages were of central ideological and political importance,
and 2.) the nation became something capable of being consciously aspired
to from early on due to the ''models'' set forth by the Creole pioneers.
Vernacular print capitalism is important to class formation,
particularly the rise of the bourgeoisie. Prior to this, solidarities
were the products of kinship, clientship, and personal loyalties. The
bourgeoisie, however, achieved solidarities on an imaginary basis
through print capitalism. That is, they didn't know one another because
of marriage or proper transactions, but because they came to visualize
others like themselves through print. The nobility then were potential
consumers of the philological revolution. As soon as the events of the
Americas reached the European nobility through print, the imagined
realities of nation-states became models for Europe. " (source:
http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/socsja/SPCnotes/Anderson.html )

Here's a review that paints a better picture, I think:
"Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and
Spread of Nationalism - This is the book that most history students
venturing into the study of either cultural history or nationalism are
all assigned to read. It also happens to be fairly interesting,
well-written and rather useful. The premise is that communities cannot
be created by simply drawing some borders and declaring a nation, they
must be imagined, or understood by those people who are part of them. In
order for a nation of people to feel like a nation they have to see
themselves as somehow similiar and connected to other people in that
nation, no matter how far away or strange they may be. Anderson outlines
the many ways in which this can be achieved through language, the
reading of newspapers, national holidays, the development of roads and
cities and even though symbols and clothing. This is well worth the time
if you're interested in constructions of the social, the development of
nationalism or the creation of the modern nation state." (source:
http://www.reviewcentre.com/review150107.html )


I don't have a lot of time right now, with getting the house ready to
sell and all, but I'm sure you could get a copy of the book at the UNM
library and just xerox the relevent chapter. Some scribbled notes I have
in the margins for that chapter are: "rise of dictionaries and
philology, expansion of linguistic study, discovery of other ancient
languages participated in the leveling of great Western languages, open
field of comparison with travel, impact of exploration, entrance of
comparative critique, print created a "thing" out of revolution and
provided a model for other revolutions, coinciding of nation with
national languages, rise of the bourgeoisie depended upon print and
imagination, coalition readerships."

Maybe that's somewhat helpful. Sorry about the wrong name.

--
~~Danielle
Emily (7), Julia (6), Sam (4.5)
http://www.danielleconger.com/Homeschool/Welcomehome.html

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"With our thoughts, we make the world." ~~Buddha

Gwen McCrea

--- In [email protected], SandraDodd@a... wrote:

But... Danielle or
> someone who's just available or in the mood, could you poke around
some and bring
> a link to something that gives book details (not necessarily ordering
> details, just some review or something) or a summary of the
Chatterjee good-parts?


The author of Imagined Communities is Benedict Anderson. Here are
links to a couple of summaries, and amazon.com has tons of reviews.

http://ssr1.uchicago.edu/PRELIMS/Culture/cumisc1.html

http://www.nationalismproject.org/what/anderson.htm


In Partha Chatterjee's book The Nation and Its Fragments, he critiques
Anderson's book, and I've also found references to a critique of
Anderson in Chatterjee's book Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World.

I read some of this stuff in a graduate course on Gender, Sexuality
and Colonialism a few years ago. It's been a while, but as I recall,
the critique of Chatterjee and others (in the Subaltern Studies
Collective, if anyone is interested) is partly that Anderson looks
only at the way that nationalism developed in Europe and the ruling
classes of the colonies, and did not look at the very different forms
of nationalism that were/are anti-colonial--and based less on common
language and print capitalism, and more on struggles for social
justice and independence.


Gwen, who has a love/hate relationship with graduate school and academia.