Research Catalog

Title

Castes of mind : colonialism and the making of modern India / Nicholas B. Dirks.

Author

Dirks, Nicholas B., 1950-

Publication

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, [2001], ©2001.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiii, 372 pages; 24 cm

Summary

This volume traces the caste system from the medieval kingdoms of southern India through early colonial archives to the 20th century. It surveys the rise of caste politics and how caste-based movements have threatened nationalist consensus.

Subjects

• Caste > India
• Social classes > India
• India > History > British occupation, 1765-1947

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [317]-357) and index.

Contents

• Pt. 1. The "Invention" of Caste. 1. Introduction: The Modernity of Caste. 2. Homo Hierarchicus: The Origins of an Idea. 3. The Ethnographic State -- Pt. 2. Colonization of the Archive. 4. The Original Caste: Social Identity in the Old Regime. 5. The Textualization of Tradition: Biography of an Archive. 6. The Imperial Archive: Colonial Knowledge and Colonial Rule -- Pt. 3. The Ethnographic State. 7. The Conversion of Caste. 8. The Policing of Tradition: Colonial Anthropology and the Invention of Custom. 9. The Body of Caste: Anthropology and the Criminalization of Caste. 10. The Enumeration of Caste: Anthropology as Colonial Rule -- Pt. 4. Recasting India: Caste, Community, and Politics. 11. Toward a Nationalist Sociology of India: Nationalism and Brahmanism. 12. The Reformation of Caste: Periyar, Ambedkar, and Gandhi. 13. Caste Politics and the Politics of Caste. 14. Conclusion: Caste and the Postcolonial Predicament.
• Coda: The Burden of the Past: On Colonialism and the Writing of History.

ISBN

• 0691088942 (alk. paper)
• 0691088950 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 9780691088952 (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

2001021236

OCLC

• ocm45958332
• SCSB-4196380

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries