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Imperial Encounters : Religion and Modernity in India and Britain / Peter van der Veer.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2020]Copyright date: ©2001Description: 1 online resource (216 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9781400831081
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 291.17 22
LOC classification:
  • BL65.S8 V44 2001eb
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- CHAPTER ONE. Secularity and Religion -- CHAPTER TWO. The Moral State: Religion, Nation, and Empire -- CHAPTER THREE. The Spirits of the Age: Spiritualism and Political Radicalism -- CHAPTER FOUR. Moral Muscle: Masculinity and Its Religious Uses -- CHAPTER FIVE. Monumental Texts: Orientalism and the Critical Edition of India's National Heritage -- CHAPTER SIX. Aryan Origins -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary: Picking up on Edward Said's claim that the historical experience of empire is common to both the colonizer and the colonized, Peter van der Veer takes the case of religion to examine the mutual impact of Britain's colonization of India on Indian and British culture. He shows that national culture in both India and Britain developed in relation to their shared colonial experience and that notions of religion and secularity were crucial in imagining the modern nation in both countries. In the process, van der Veer chronicles how these notions developed in the second half of the nineteenth century in relation to gender, race, language, spirituality, and science. Avoiding the pitfalls of both world systems theory and national historiography, this book problematizes oppositions between modern and traditional, secular and religious, progressive and reactionary. It shows that what often are assumed to be opposites are, in fact, profoundly entangled. In doing so, it upsets the convenient fiction that India is the land of eternal religion, existing outside of history, while Britain is the epitome of modern secularity and an agent of history. Van der Veer also accounts for the continuing role of religion in British culture and the strong part religion has played in the development of Indian civil society. This masterly work of scholarship brings into view the effects of the very close encounter between India and Britain--an intimate encounter that defined the character of both nations.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781400831081

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- CHAPTER ONE. Secularity and Religion -- CHAPTER TWO. The Moral State: Religion, Nation, and Empire -- CHAPTER THREE. The Spirits of the Age: Spiritualism and Political Radicalism -- CHAPTER FOUR. Moral Muscle: Masculinity and Its Religious Uses -- CHAPTER FIVE. Monumental Texts: Orientalism and the Critical Edition of India's National Heritage -- CHAPTER SIX. Aryan Origins -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Picking up on Edward Said's claim that the historical experience of empire is common to both the colonizer and the colonized, Peter van der Veer takes the case of religion to examine the mutual impact of Britain's colonization of India on Indian and British culture. He shows that national culture in both India and Britain developed in relation to their shared colonial experience and that notions of religion and secularity were crucial in imagining the modern nation in both countries. In the process, van der Veer chronicles how these notions developed in the second half of the nineteenth century in relation to gender, race, language, spirituality, and science. Avoiding the pitfalls of both world systems theory and national historiography, this book problematizes oppositions between modern and traditional, secular and religious, progressive and reactionary. It shows that what often are assumed to be opposites are, in fact, profoundly entangled. In doing so, it upsets the convenient fiction that India is the land of eternal religion, existing outside of history, while Britain is the epitome of modern secularity and an agent of history. Van der Veer also accounts for the continuing role of religion in British culture and the strong part religion has played in the development of Indian civil society. This masterly work of scholarship brings into view the effects of the very close encounter between India and Britain--an intimate encounter that defined the character of both nations.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 15. Sep 2020)