The curious nature of print in early colonial S Asia. New interventions in book history.

full name / name of organization: 
Tapati Bharadwaj
contact email: 

The curious nature of print in early colonial S. Asia.
New interventions in book history.

Scholarship on early print culture in India is still in its nascent stages. Facsimile: A center for early print: 1780-1820 (www.colonialprint.wordpress.com), in collaboration with Lies and Big Feet, a newly established independent publishing house (www.liesandbigfeet.wordpress.com) is looking for new innovative interpretations for a collection of essays on the early realm of print culture in colonial India (1780-1820s). The theoretical approach that we have to keep in mind undermines the model of technological determinism which considers print and the book as affecting systems of thought. Such a deterministic approach considers print as having an ontological status, existing prior to culture; for example, the title of Elizabeth Eisenstein's text, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, makes use of such an approach as the emphasis is on how print had introduced epistemic changes affecting the very nature of what comprised knowledge during the early modern period.

We can agree that there is a mutual reciprocity between social events and technology—as print in South Asia was introduced under colonization and as a result of the efforts of the East India Company, and this social process determined the very nature of how print evolved. Print culture is seen as operating and emerging from within a large socio-literary realm, one which involves native and English bookmakers, publishers, and distributors and a reading audience. Socio-cultural conditions determine, to a very large extent, the logic of how print operates.

Undoubtedly, print that had been introduced under a non imperialistic social structure would have operated differently from print that was part and parcel of British colonization. For example, colonization did determine the intervention and perpetuation of English as a language of rule and communication, which needed to be mastered by the Indians. New literary forms and genres were introduced in a manner that would not have occurred in other conditions. A print-induced public sub-sphere was formed, one that soon was conversant with the techniques of print. English print culture was a part of a multilingual sphere of textuality, coexisting alongside oral and scribal cultures, and could be used to address both the imperialists and the natives.

Essays are welcome which address these aspects of print culture. Some suggested unexplored subjects in this early realm of imperial print are:
1. tabloid journalism in early print culture in colonial India.
2. heteroglossic texts.
3. global readership – did it matter?
4. imperial citizens and print.
5. newspapers, advertisements and habits of consumption.

For more information, please email: earlycolonialprint@gmail.com or Tapati Bharadwaj: tbharadwaj@yahoo.com. Deadline for abstract submission: Feb. 20th, 2015.