Journal article
Tools to dismantle the Master’s DH(ouse): Towards a genealogy of partition, digital necropolitics and Bollywood cinema
Postcolonial Studies, Vol.22(4), pp.446-468
2019
Abstract
This essay challenges the patriarchal and Eurocentric biases of the digital humanities (DH) by critically placing the field in a genealogy of postcolonial studies. I do so to counter the ‘genesis narrative’ of DH in which an Italian priest named Father Roberto Busa ‘pioneered’ humanities computing. I draw on postcolonial digital humanities and additional framings to demonstrate Empire's intentional unavailability of technological resources, like census cards, that may have mediated against communal bloodshed while also serving as a testament to early technology that nurtured DH. After detailing the violent production of racialised colonialism's impossibility of an Indian modernity, I turn to Bollywood cinema as a technological realm through which we can trace an alternative genealogy anchored by digital necropolitics, or the right to expose people to harm in cyberspace. I conclude by arguing, especially in the context of the violent present, for the essential need for a way of engaging digital humanities and South Asia beyond canonical productions of both. This essay contributes to current dialogues in postcolonial studies, the digital humanities, and studies in biopolitics/ necropolitics.
Details
- Title
- Tools to dismantle the Master’s DH(ouse): Towards a genealogy of partition, digital necropolitics and Bollywood cinema
- Authors/Creators
- R.K. Gairola (Author/Creator)
- Publication Details
- Postcolonial Studies, Vol.22(4), pp.446-468
- Publisher
- Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
- Identifiers
- 991005544134007891
- Copyright
- © 2019 The Institute of Postcolonial Studies
- Murdoch Affiliation
- Asia Research Centre
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article
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- Citation topics
- 6 Social Sciences
- 6.288 Information & Library Science
- 6.288.2155 Digital Humanities
- Web Of Science research areas
- Cultural Studies
- History
- ESI research areas
- Social Sciences, general