Table Of ContentSPRINGER BRIEFS IN SOCIOLOGY
Roland Benedikter · Judith Hilber
The Art of
Multiculturalism
Bharati Mukherjee’s
Imaginal Politics for
the Age of Global
Migration
123
SpringerBriefs in Sociology
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/10410
Roland Benedikter Judith Hilber
(cid:129)
The Art of Multiculturalism
’
Bharati Mukherjee s Imaginal Politics
for the Age of Global Migration
With a Foreword by Chiara Bottici, The New School for
å
Social Research New York, and a Preface by Bo Str th,
University of Helsinki
123
RolandBenedikter Judith Hilber
Centerfor AdvancedStudies Technical College
Eurac Research MaxValier
Bozen-Bolzano-Bulsan Bozen-Bolzano-Bulsan
Italy Italy
ISSN 2212-6368 ISSN 2212-6376 (electronic)
SpringerBriefs inSociology
ISBN978-3-319-89667-0 ISBN978-3-319-89668-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89668-7
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I am aware of multiple contingencies. It is the
universe we inhabit.
The trajectory of hate and love would
intersect on this field…
He had instructed… to merge the metaphoric
with the literal…
Bharati Mukherjee:
The Holder of the World (1993)
Critical Acclaim for This Book
“We are witnesses to an ongoing global refugee and migration crisis. This crisis
seems a nightmare with no immediate wake-up exit—if we listen to media reports
and the rhetoric of politicians. Refugees and migrants embody a multi-cultural
world for which despite all attempts we are still mostly unprepared. Hence, the
crisis of displacement and place-claiming.
Such multi-cultural world is as much empirical as it is imaginal, as Roland
BenedikterandJudithHilbershowusthroughtheirmasterlyexaminationofBharati
Mukherjee’s (1940–2017) early literary works from the 1970s to the 1990s.
Benedikter and Hilber exemplify how an ‘immigrant’ from India to the U.S. like
Bharati Mukherjee can become a world-famous literary phenomenon and lay a
claim to place-making. Mukherjee’s work as a literary and biographical phe-
nomenon shows how one could live in a house where everybody is welcomed to
make themselves at home in a cosmopolitan way.
Comingmyselffromacountrywheremillionsareworkingasmigrantworkers—
and most of them are subjected to exploitation as a way of ‘unwelcoming’ them—
and where at the same time refugees have been welcomed, in my view this book
makes an original and timely contribution to a topic whose importance will be
continuously increasing throughout the world. It focalizes one’s geographical ori-
entation and widens it to encompass the comprehension of the particularity of the
problems and potentials of an intercultural world that is the signature of our time.
Concise yet comprehensive, inspired and inspiring, this book engages us to
understand both the simplicity and complexity of art and multiculturalism, which
runstheriskofbeingrenderedclichédandfacileifnothandledwithdepth,clarity,
and heartfelt understanding. Educators, politicians, cultural professionals and the
schools should ‘use’ this book—in the strict sense of the term.
In a world that purports to be global yet undermines this claim constantly by
constructing restrictions, I recommend this book precisely to dismantle these
restrictions. I strongly recommend it to students, universities, and socio-political
networksinhopesthattheywilluseartandmulticulturalismasatooltoproducea
pluralistic and intercultural world.”
—Lorna Q. Israel, The Asian Center, University of the Philippines-Diliman
vii
viii CriticalAcclaimforThisBook
“Benedikter’sandHilber’sbook,whilehighlyconcentratedinlengthandsize,isan
outstandingcontributiontoanincreasinglycrucialtopicofourtime.Intimesofan
ongoing global migration crisis, the problem of multiculturalism reflected and
conceived as a multi-dimensional and multi-faceted socio-political ‘art’ is exem-
plifiedin this book inexemplary ways. Thistopicwill necessarily grow ininterest
overthecomingyears.Mostprobably,alwaysmoregeopoliticalareaswillhaveto
dealwithissueslikemulticulturalismandthepoliticsoftheimaginariesbehinditto
gain access to the deeper, human dimensions involved.
Benedikter’s and Hilber’s book is a concise jewel in experimentally addressing
theseissues.Itcomesexactlyattherighttime.Itisaclearcondensationofanoften
over-complexissue.Atthesametime,thisbookisentertaining,whileitisanalytic
and intellectually sharp.
Inmyview,thisbookcanservebestasanintroductorytextforasetofquestions
without which the issue of multiculturalism is hardly debatable on a sound basis:
the relation between multiculturalism, global cultural alignment and the role of
power; the basics of ‘postmodernity’ and their (often contradictory) relations to
politics; and to what has been called, by leading female theorists in the U.S. and
beyond,‘ImaginalPolitics’(ChiaraBottici)whichwillprobablybecomeoneofthe
most important ‘contextual political’ dimensions of the coming years.
We urgently have to prepare ourselves for a new phase of integration by
preparing our imaginaries. By exemplarily addressing the work of Bharati
Mukherjee’s work of the 1970s to the 1990s, Benedikter and Hilber show the full
weight of her work for the present. I recommend this book with the utmost
conviction.”
—Beatrix Aigner, Dott., C. Professor of Transcultural Educational Sciences,
TrilingualFreeUniversityofBozen-Bolzano-Bulsan,AutonomousProvinceof
South Tyrol, Northern Italy
Foreword by Chiara Bottici, The New School
for Social Research, New York City
This book is about Bharati Mukherjee, born 1940 in Calcutta, India, passed away
2017 in Manhattan, United States, an acclaimed American writer of novels on
multiculturalism, globalization, and the postmodern condition. It focuses on her
imaginalworld,asitisdisclosedthroughliteratureandaninterdisciplinaryconcept
of art.
This book achieves multiple goals at the same time: It provides an introduction
into one of the most important literary works of the past decades with regards to
comparing identities and the textures in which they are expressed; it is an intro-
duction to multiculturalism and “postmodernity” as mindsets; it gives insight into
the mutual teachings and enrichments between painting and writing; and it is an
exploration of both artistic and political multiculturalism, its limits and potentials.
In particular, it explains the intersection between different strands of formal pro-
cedures,suchaspaintingandwritingare,toachieveoneandthesamegoalwhichis
atthecenterofMukherjee’stexts:raiseawarenessaboutthenecessityof“difference
in unity”, and about the beauty of “the Other”.
Benedikter’sandHilber’sbookhighlightstheimportant contributionofBharati
Mukherjee’s work for rethinking what contemporary “Imaginal Politics” currently
is, and what it could become. I recommend this text to all interested in contem-
porary writing, in multiculturalism, in contemporary politics, and in the achieve-
ments of a great female artist. This book will enrich the reader with its sometimes
playful, always original and very accessible style, its great accuracy and philo-
sophicaldepth,andnotleastwithitsdrywit.Itisagreatintroductorytextforhigh
school, college, and university teaching, for which I recommend it warmly.
New York City, New York Prof. Chiara Bottici, Ph.D.
August 2018 The New School for Social Research
Author of Imaginal Politics. Images Beyond Imagination and the Imaginary,
Columbia University Press, 2014.
ix
å
Preface by Bo Str th, University of Helsinki
WhenreadingRolandBenedikter’sandJudithHilber’sbookonBharatiMukherjee
andherrethinkingof“ImaginalPolitics”andtheidea ofmulticulturalismfromthe
viewpoint of fiction and art, and when writing these lines, more than 60 million
humans were on enforced move around the world, in Africa and Asia, in the
AmericasandinEurope,escapingwars,politicalviolenceandpersecution,poverty
and misery in the search for a better and securer future.
While richness has become global and is not restricted to a certain area of the
world, poverty and exclusion are growing in what used to be the rich world of
universal welfare. Populations in what still might be called the rich world are
wakingupfromindolenceastothedistressoftheworld.They,too,lookforabetter
and securer future through protection from what they define as a new threat.
Overwhelmedpoliticiansareelectrifiedandtrytofindananswertothequestionof
howtoreacttoarisingwaveofethnicnationalismrequiringexclusionofthosewho
knock on the door.
Thisbookisaboutrethinkingmulticulturalisminnewwaysthroughitsfocuson
the literary work of Bharati Mukherjee and about her search for ways to translate
the principles of literature and art to the sociopolitical sphere. Mukherjee was an
immigrant herself on a transitional voyage from being an “Old World” (Indian)
citizentobecominga“NewWorld”(firstCanadian,thenU.S.)outsider,expatriated
and experiencing racial discrimination and xenophobia. She came to know the no
man’s land between the country of her past and the continent of her future,
homelessandinsuspension,searchingforfirmground.Theseexperiencespermeate
her literary work.
The backdrop of her writings—and of the authors who write about her in this
volume—is the imagery of postmodernity with the massive questioning of the
modernization narrative. Postmodernity is a social critique arguing that no grand
narrative andclaims ofabsolute truths arepossible anymore.Obviously,imageries
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