Provincializing Island Poetics: The Personal as the Spatial in N S Madhavan's *Litanies of Dutch Battery*
Affect towards islands is a unique approach to engage with in discussions of the phenomenology of fictional islands. This affect complements the already identified tropes within island poetics: those of sensorial exploration, spatial practices, and textural detailing of islands. This article turns t...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Island Studies Journal
2024-03-01
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| Series: | Island Studies Journal |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.24043/001c.94614 |
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| author | Soni Wadhwa Jintu Alias |
| author_facet | Soni Wadhwa Jintu Alias |
| author_sort | Soni Wadhwa |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Affect towards islands is a unique approach to engage with in discussions of the phenomenology of fictional islands. This affect complements the already identified tropes within island poetics: those of sensorial exploration, spatial practices, and textural detailing of islands. This article turns to a work of fiction about a fictional island based on the island city of Kochi in south India to unpack an alternative aesthetic of spatiality, the kind that changes the personal/political relationship to personal/spatial one. We argue that the novel, *Litanies of Dutch Battery* (the novel in question) by N.S. Madhavan, expands inquiries into phenomenology of fictional islands by making space for corporeal memory and collective memory in storytelling. These memory-oriented narrative devices, we suggest, "provincialize" island poetics to add a hermeneutic of postcolonial angst to the repertoire of formal features of literary islandness. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-091fa5b5680f4eeba82134982938efd5 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 1715-2593 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-03-01 |
| publisher | Island Studies Journal |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Island Studies Journal |
| spelling | doaj-art-091fa5b5680f4eeba82134982938efd52025-08-20T02:26:44ZengIsland Studies JournalIsland Studies Journal1715-25932024-03-0120110.24043/001c.94614Provincializing Island Poetics: The Personal as the Spatial in N S Madhavan's *Litanies of Dutch Battery*Soni WadhwaJintu AliasAffect towards islands is a unique approach to engage with in discussions of the phenomenology of fictional islands. This affect complements the already identified tropes within island poetics: those of sensorial exploration, spatial practices, and textural detailing of islands. This article turns to a work of fiction about a fictional island based on the island city of Kochi in south India to unpack an alternative aesthetic of spatiality, the kind that changes the personal/political relationship to personal/spatial one. We argue that the novel, *Litanies of Dutch Battery* (the novel in question) by N.S. Madhavan, expands inquiries into phenomenology of fictional islands by making space for corporeal memory and collective memory in storytelling. These memory-oriented narrative devices, we suggest, "provincialize" island poetics to add a hermeneutic of postcolonial angst to the repertoire of formal features of literary islandness.https://doi.org/10.24043/001c.94614 |
| spellingShingle | Soni Wadhwa Jintu Alias Provincializing Island Poetics: The Personal as the Spatial in N S Madhavan's *Litanies of Dutch Battery* Island Studies Journal |
| title | Provincializing Island Poetics: The Personal as the Spatial in N S Madhavan's *Litanies of Dutch Battery* |
| title_full | Provincializing Island Poetics: The Personal as the Spatial in N S Madhavan's *Litanies of Dutch Battery* |
| title_fullStr | Provincializing Island Poetics: The Personal as the Spatial in N S Madhavan's *Litanies of Dutch Battery* |
| title_full_unstemmed | Provincializing Island Poetics: The Personal as the Spatial in N S Madhavan's *Litanies of Dutch Battery* |
| title_short | Provincializing Island Poetics: The Personal as the Spatial in N S Madhavan's *Litanies of Dutch Battery* |
| title_sort | provincializing island poetics the personal as the spatial in n s madhavan s litanies of dutch battery |
| url | https://doi.org/10.24043/001c.94614 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT soniwadhwa provincializingislandpoeticsthepersonalasthespatialinnsmadhavanslitaniesofdutchbattery AT jintualias provincializingislandpoeticsthepersonalasthespatialinnsmadhavanslitaniesofdutchbattery |