Representing Calcutta

the long version

"Representing Calcutta: Modernity, nationalism, and the colonial uncanny is a spatial history of the colonial city, and addresses the question of modernity that haunts our perception of Calcutta. By examining architecture, city plans, paintings, literature, and official reports through the lens of postcolonial, feminist, and spatial theory, the book explores the conditions of colonialism and anti-colonial nationalism that produced the city as a modern artifact. At the center of this exploration resides the problem of "representing" the city, representation understood as description and narration, as well as political representation. In doing so Chattopadhyay questions the very idea of colonial cities as creations of the colonizers, and the model of colonial cities as dual cities, split in black and white areas, in favor of a more complicated view of the topography."--BOOK JACKET.