Heritage, Culture, and Politics in the Postcolony

Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science, History
Cover of the book Heritage, Culture, and Politics in the Postcolony by Daniel Herwitz, Columbia University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Daniel Herwitz ISBN: 9780231530729
Publisher: Columbia University Press Publication: September 25, 2012
Imprint: Columbia University Press Language: English
Author: Daniel Herwitz
ISBN: 9780231530729
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publication: September 25, 2012
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Language: English

The act of remaking one's history into a heritage, a conscientiously crafted narrative placed over the past, is a thriving industry in almost every postcolonial culture. This is surprising, given the tainted role of heritage in so much of colonialism's history. Yet the postcolonial state, like its European predecessor of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, deploys heritage institutions and instruments, museums, courts of law, and universities to empower itself with unity, longevity, exaltation of value, origin, and destiny.

Bringing the eye of a philosopher, the pen of an essayist, and the experience of a public intellectual to the study of heritage, Daniel Herwitz reveals the febrile pitch at which heritage is staked. In this absorbing book, he travels to South Africa and unpacks its controversial and robust confrontations with the colonial and apartheid past. He visits India and reads in its modern art the gesture of a newly minted heritage idealizing the precolonial world as the source of Indian modernity. He traverses the United States and finds in its heritage of incessant invention, small town exceptionalism, and settler destiny a key to contemporary American media-driven politics. Showing how destabilizing, ambivalent, and potentially dangerous heritage is as a producer of contemporary social, aesthetic, and political realities, Herwitz captures its perfect embodiment of the struggle to seize culture and society at moments of profound social change.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

The act of remaking one's history into a heritage, a conscientiously crafted narrative placed over the past, is a thriving industry in almost every postcolonial culture. This is surprising, given the tainted role of heritage in so much of colonialism's history. Yet the postcolonial state, like its European predecessor of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, deploys heritage institutions and instruments, museums, courts of law, and universities to empower itself with unity, longevity, exaltation of value, origin, and destiny.

Bringing the eye of a philosopher, the pen of an essayist, and the experience of a public intellectual to the study of heritage, Daniel Herwitz reveals the febrile pitch at which heritage is staked. In this absorbing book, he travels to South Africa and unpacks its controversial and robust confrontations with the colonial and apartheid past. He visits India and reads in its modern art the gesture of a newly minted heritage idealizing the precolonial world as the source of Indian modernity. He traverses the United States and finds in its heritage of incessant invention, small town exceptionalism, and settler destiny a key to contemporary American media-driven politics. Showing how destabilizing, ambivalent, and potentially dangerous heritage is as a producer of contemporary social, aesthetic, and political realities, Herwitz captures its perfect embodiment of the struggle to seize culture and society at moments of profound social change.

More books from Columbia University Press

Cover of the book Melancholy Order by Daniel Herwitz
Cover of the book The Collapse of Western Civilization by Daniel Herwitz
Cover of the book Beautiful Circuits by Daniel Herwitz
Cover of the book On Becoming a Rock Musician by Daniel Herwitz
Cover of the book Character and Environment by Daniel Herwitz
Cover of the book As Wide as the World Is Wise by Daniel Herwitz
Cover of the book Social-Ecological Resilience and Law by Daniel Herwitz
Cover of the book The Economics of Air Pollution in China by Daniel Herwitz
Cover of the book Why Only Art Can Save Us by Daniel Herwitz
Cover of the book From Selma to Moscow by Daniel Herwitz
Cover of the book Where Film Meets Philosophy by Daniel Herwitz
Cover of the book Origins of Darwin's Evolution by Daniel Herwitz
Cover of the book An Ethics for Today by Daniel Herwitz
Cover of the book East Asia Before the West by Daniel Herwitz
Cover of the book Bodies, Commodities, and Biotechnologies by Daniel Herwitz
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy