Author(s): Britney Judy

Presentation: oral

In his novel In an Antique Land Amitav Ghosh works to retell Middle Eastern history by unearthing Indian, Egyptian, Bengali, and other histories left out of dominant Western historical narratives. Ghosh makes a physical return to the world he is trying to redefine and in the process composes a historical, political, and cultural text. For this project I use postcolonial theory to argue that by unearthing the suppressed history of a twelfth century Indian slave and demonstrating the cosmopolitan, multicultural, and multi-religious world he inhabited, Ghosh is able to illustrate how the different religions and cultures of the Middle East managed to intermingle peacefully and even celebrate their diversity. Additionally, I will present a close reading of Ghosh’s physical return to Egypt to show how colonial disruptions continue to disturb the present-day Middle East. Ultimately, Ghosh comes to depict a social climate that subverts popular perceptions, which assume that the religions and cultures of the Middle East have always been at war with one another. As a whole, postcolonial literature thrives to challenge such inaccurate and prejudiced perceptions using this method of unearthing voices that have been historically silenced and of allowing those voices an opportunity to be heard. Student Research Grant Recipient

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