Gaurav Majumdar Livres

Migrant Form_ examines Joyce's, Rushdie's, and Satyajit Ray's works for the anti-colonial arguments in their unsettled, and sometimes unsettling, aesthetics.  Among the questions it engages are the What are the aesthetic moves through which art expresses its resistance to dominance and demands for conformity?  How can we define anti-colonial aesthetics?  How do these aesthetics manifest themselves in different media such as literature and film?  Contending that Joyce inaugurates an anti-colonial "aesthetics of reconstitution," the book mines such aesthetics in _Ulysses_ and _Finnegans Wake_ to propose a formal model for postcolonialism in its opening section.  Its next section draws on that exercise to consider how Rushdie extends a play with reconfigured forms into an overt politics in two of his novels (_Midnight's Children_ and _The Satanic Verses_).  Turning its attention to film, the study contests the common view of Ray as a gentle realist and examines a formal restlessness in Ray's earlier work, _Charulata_ (_The Lonely Wife_), before demonstrating how Ray stages his preference for restlessness in his final film, _Agantuk_ (_The Stranger_).

Exploring the distinction between informality and intimacy, this book examines how modernist literature from 1900 to 1940 engages with sensory experiences, aesthetic presentation, ethical considerations, and social attitudes. It delves into the role of informality in shaping narrative and character, offering insights into the complexities of modernist thought and its reflection on societal norms. Through this lens, it invites readers to reconsider the implications of informal expressions in literature during a transformative period.