ABSTRACT

Empires and Boundaries: Rethinking Race, Class, and Gender in Colonial Settings is an exciting collection of original essays exploring the meaning and existence of conflicting and coexisting hierarchies in colonial settings. With investigations into the colonial past of a diversity of regions – including South Asia, South-East Asia, and Africa – the dozen notable international scholars collected here offer a truly inter-disciplinary approach to understanding the structures and workings of power in British, French, Dutch, German, and Italian colonial contexts.

Integrating a historical approach with perspectives and theoretical tools specific to disciplines such as social anthropology, literary and film studies, and gender studies, Empires and Boundaries: Rethinking Race, Class, and Gender in Colonial Settings, is a striking and ambitious contribution to the scholarship of imperialism and post-colonialism and an essential read for anyone interested in the revolution being undergone in these fields of study.

chapter 1|22 pages

Introduction

Empires, Boundaries, and the Production of Difference

chapter 2|18 pages

“Education for Work” in Colony and Metropole

The Case of Imperial Germany, c. 1880–1914

chapter 3|25 pages

Hierarchies of Punishment in Colonial India

European Convicts and the Racial Dividend, c. 1860–1890

chapter 4|20 pages

Boundaries of Race

Representations of Indisch in Colonial Indonesia Revisited

chapter 5|21 pages

Contested Boundaries of Whiteness

Public Service Recruitment and the Eurasian and Anglo-Indian Association, 1876–1901

chapter 7|17 pages

Gendering the Colonial Enterprise

La Mère-Patrie and Maternalism in France and French Indochina

chapter 8|20 pages

A Hybrid Gaze from Delacroix to Djebar

Visual Encounters and the Construction of the Female “Other” in the Colonial Discourse of Maghreb *

chapter 9|13 pages

In the Empire's Eyes

Africa in Italian Colonial Cinema Between Imperial Fantasies and Blind Spots

chapter 10|16 pages

Rationalizing the World

British Detective Stories and the Orient

chapter 12|21 pages

The Boundaries of Blackness

African-American Culture and the Making of a Black Public Sphere in Colonial South Africa