The Rumour of Calcutta: Tourism, Charity and the Poverty of Representation

by John Hutnyk

Overview

An extraordinary study of the politics of representation, this book explores the discursive construction of a 'city of intensities'.

The author analyses representations of Calcutta in a wide variety of discourses: in the gossip and travellor-lore of backpackers and volunteer charity workers; in writing - from classic literature to travel guides; in cinema, photography and maps. The book shows how the rumours of westerners contribute to the elaboration of an imaginary city; and in doing so, circulate in ways fundamental to the maintenance of international order.

A provocative and original reading of both Heidegger and Marx, the book also draws upon writers as diverse as Spivak, Trinh, Jameson, Clifford, Virilio, Bataille, Derrida, Deleuze and Guattari. As such it is essential reading for students and scholars in cultural studies, anthropology, development and sociology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781856494083
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	10/01/1996
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.58(d)

About the Author

John Hutnyk is currently Associate Professor in Sociology at Ton Duc Thang University, Vietnam. In 2016 he was a Government of India GAIN scholar at Jadavpur University. Before that he was Visiting Professor at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. In 2015 he was in InterCultural Studies at Nagoya City University Japan, and since 2014 was Visiting Researcher at RMIT University in Australia, and also in 2014 at Mimar Sinan University in Turkey. He has held visiting scholar posts in Germany at the South Asia Institute and Institute fur Ethnologie at Heidelberg University, and Visiting Professor posts at Zeppelin University and Hamburg University, Germany. For fourteen years he was at Goldsmiths University of London in Anthropology and since 2008 as Professor of Cultural Studies. Hutnyk is the author of The Rumour of Calcutta: Tourism, Charity and the Poverty of Representation (1996), Critique of Exotica: Music, Politics and the Culture Industry (2000); Bad Marxism: Capitalism and Cultural Studies (2004); Pantomime Terror: Music and Politics (2014); and co-authored with Virinder Kalra and Raminder Kaur: Diaspora and Hybridity (2005). Contact at: [e-mail]).

Table of Contents

1. Calcutta Cipher
2. Travellers in Calcutta
3. Writing Calcutta: travelling with Lèvi-Strauss and Gunter Grass
4. Cartographies
5. Photogenic Calcutta
6. Cinematic Calcutta
Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

Excellent... in some places exciting, in others brilliant. I can pay Hutnyk no greater compliment than to say that his story of Calcutta should survive as a living imagery.” —Ashis Nandy, Center for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi

“A substantial contribution to an established and rapidly developing interdisciplinary literature on tourism as a key topic in the study of contemporary cultures... among the most intensive, original and theoretically sophisticated critical studies of contemporary tourism” —George Marcus, Professor of Anthropology, Rice University

From the Publisher