Imperial White: Race, Diaspora, and the British Empire

by Radhika Mohanram

Overview

Radhika Mohanram shows not just how British imperial culture shaped the colonies, but how the imperial rule of colonies shifted—and gave new meanings to—what it meant to be British.

Imperial White looks at literary, social, and cultural texts on the racialization of the British body and investigates British whiteness in the colonies to address such questions as: How was the whiteness in Britishness constructed by the presence of Empire? How was whiteness incorporated into the idea of masculinity? Does heterosexuality have a color? And does domestic race differ from colonial race? In addition to these inquiries on the issues of race, class, and sexuality, Mohanram effectively applies the methods of whiteness studies to British imperial material culture to critically racialize the relationship between the metropole and the peripheral colonies.

Considering whether whiteness, like theory, can travel, Mohanram also provides a new perspective on white diaspora, a phenomenon of the nineteenth century that has been largely absent in diaspora studies, ultimately rereading—and rethinking—British imperial whiteness.

Radhika Mohanram teaches postcolonial cultural studies in the School of English, Communication and Philosophy at Cardiff University, Wales. She is the author of Black Body: Women, Colonialism, Space (Minnesota, 1999) and edits the journal Social Semiotics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780816647804
Publisher:	University of Minnesota Press
Publication date:	11/15/2007
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	5.88(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Radhika Mohanram is professor of English in the Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory at Cardiff University. She is the author or editor of several books and most recently author of Imperial White: Race, Diaspora and the British Empire.  

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     ix
Introduction: Postcolonial, Non-Victorian Nonwhite     xi
In the Metropole
White Masculinity: Playing at Rugby and the Sepoy Mutiny     3
The Whiteness of Women: In Theory and under Lock and Key     26
Victoria's Secret: The History of White Sexuality     57
In the South
White Water: Race and Oceans Down Under     89
Mourning and Melancholia: The Wages of Whiteness     122
Dermographia: How the Irish Became White in India     149
Epilogue: Europe as an Other     175
Notes     179
Index     207