Assignment Paper No. 205 – A : Cultural Studies

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Greetings, this blog is based on an Assignment writing of Paper No. 205 22410 – A : Cultural Studies  And I have chose topic is, 

Reclaiming the Margins: Cultural Materialism and New Historicism in Rewriting History through Popular Indian Adaptations - Ram-Leela and Veer

🔷 Personal Information:

Name: Divya Paledhara

Roll Number: 5

Enrollment Number: 5108240026

Batch: M.A. Sem–3 (2024–2026)

Email ID: divyapaledhara@gmail.com

🔷 Details of Assignment:

Topic: Reclaiming the Margins: Cultural Materialism and New Historicism in Rewriting History through Popular Indian Adaptations - Ram-Leela and Veer

Paper: Paper No. 205 – 22410 A : Cultural Studies

Submitted to:  Smt. Sujata Binoy Gardi Department of English, MKBU, Bhavnagar

Submission Date: November, 8, 2025

🔷 Table of Contents :

1. Abstract

2. Keywords

3. Introduction

4. Theoretical Framework: Cultural Materialism and New Historicism

5. Rewriting History through Indian Popular Adaptations

6. Case Study I: Ram-Leela – Cultural Syncretism and Gendered Power

7. Case Study II: Veer – Nationalism and Historical Mythmaking

8. Contemporary Analysis: Relevance of Cultural Materialism in 21st Century Bollywood

9. Critical Evaluation: The Politics of Representation and Reception

10. Conclusion

11. References

Abstract :

Adaptation and historicizing in popular cinema reconfigure cultural memory and social power. This paper applies Cultural Materialism and New Historicism to examine how Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela (2013) and Anil Sharma’s Veer (2010) rework historical narratives, local identities, and political affect. While Ram-Leela localizes Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to interrogate caste, honour, and community rivalry, Veer constructs an epic masculinity and nationalist past through star persona and spectacle. The analysis demonstrates how adaptations perform ideological negotiation—sometimes recuperating marginalized voices, sometimes reproducing hegemonic imaginaries—revealing the ambivalent politics of popular historiography.

Keywords :

Cultural Materialism; New Historicism; Film Adaptation; Bollywood; Ram-Leela; Veer; cultural memory; ideology; popular history; reception.

Introduction :

Literary and film adaptations perform historical work: they do not merely retell stories but recontextualize cultural pasts for contemporary publics. In postcolonial India, such re-writings are especially charged because cinematic narratives operate as sites where collective histories, identity politics, and ideological conflicts are dramatized for mass audiences. Cultural Materialism (CM) foregrounds the socio-economic conditions that shape cultural artifacts; New Historicism (NH) reads texts as negotiated sites where power circulates through cultural practices. Combining CM and NH enables a dual reading: we can examine the institutional, market, and class forces shaping a film (CM), while also attending to the play of representation, power, and micro-histories within the film’s textual strategies (NH).

This paper examines two popular Hindi films—Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela (referred to as Ram-Leela) and Anil Sharma’s Veer—as case studies in cultural rewriting. Ram-Leela remodels Romeo and Juliet within the socio-political terrain of contemporary Gujarat, turning Shakespearean romance into a commentary on clan rivalry, gendered violence, and cultural performance. Veer constructs a stylized historical epic that melds star-driven masculinity with a nostalgic, militarized past. Reading these films through CM and NH reveals how popular cinema participates in the politics of memory: sometimes recuperative and subaltern-sensitive, sometimes complicit with hegemonic narratives.

Theoretical Framework: Cultural Materialism and New Historicism

Cultural Materialism, as articulated by Raymond Williams and later practitioners, insists cultural texts be read in relation to the material and institutional conditions of their production and reception. CM asks: who funds, distributes, and consumes this cultural product? What class formations and ideological investments underpin its form? Williams’ attention to the “structure of feeling” and the relations between culture and ideology helps explain cinema as both commodity and social practice (see McGuigan on Williams). CM thus makes visible the power structures that regulate the production and circulation of meaning.

New Historicism, associated with Stephen Greenblatt, treats literary and cultural texts as dynamic participants in historical circulations of power and desire. NH reframes texts as cultural artifacts embedded in networks of social practices: texts both shape and are shaped by other discourses, institutions, and practices. NH emphasizes contingency, contradiction, and the often subversive slippages whereby marginalized voices surface within hegemonic discourse. This approach is useful for identifying how filmic representation negotiates authority and resistance.

Pairing CM and NH provides two complementary perspectives: CM grounds the text within economic, institutional and material contexts (industry structures, censorship, star systems), while NH inspects the text’s rhetorical strategies, intertexts, and moments of subversion.

Methodology:

This study uses close reading of the two films, contextualized by production histories, publicity, reception, and secondary criticism. Filmic elements (mise-en-scène, music, casting, dialogue, and visual symbolism) are analyzed alongside industry factors (star persona, marketing) and socio-political contexts (regional politics, cultural debates). Primary sources include the films themselves; secondary sources include scholarly articles, reviews, and theoretical texts (provided in the resources list). The comparative method highlights convergences and divergences in how each film negotiates history, identity, and ideology.

Case Study I: Ram-Leela — Localizing Shakespeare, Rewriting Community

Textual and Cultural Background

Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Ram-Leela adapts Romeo and Juliet but transposes the action into a Gujarati milieu of warring clans. The film’s aesthetic—lush, folkloric, and violently romantic—frames interpersonal passion against collective feuds. Bhansali’s cinema is noted for its opulent mise-en-scène and melodramatic romanticism (see Qureshi on Bhansali’s historical aesthetics).

Cultural Materialist Reading

CM draws attention to the film’s production context: mainstream Bollywood industry dynamics, star positioning (Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone), and market strategies that exploit spectacle as commodity. The film’s release in 2013 coincided with heightened debates on regional identity and communal politics in Gujarat and nationally; thus commercial interests intersect with cultural politics—spectacle sells, but it also circulates particular affective narratives about tradition, honour, and community.

From a CM view, Ram-Leela commodifies folk culture—music, dance, religious imagery—packaging it for national and transnational consumption. The film’s marketing foregrounded visceral local color: costumes, fairs, and ritual. Yet the industry’s appropriation of local forms raises questions of voice and authenticity—who profits from the representation of local histories and how are those histories stylized for cinematic drama?

New Historicist Reading

NH spotlights intertextuality and the film’s rhetorical negotiation of history. Ram-Leela inserts Shakespeare into Indian civic memory, producing resonance between early modern notions of family feud and present-day clan conflict. The film’s scenes of public ritual and violent enactment become micro-histories where larger social anxieties (honour killings, patriarchy, caste/communal rivalry) surface. Significantly, moments of subversion appear: while the central romance is tragic, Bhansali’s camera frequently lingers on women’s agency—gestures, sartorial power, and vocal resistance—opening space for marginal perspectives even within a melodramatic form.

The NH lens notices the film’s slippages: its celebration of masculine valor often coexists with poignant critique of male honor code. This contradiction allows for ambivalent readings: audiences may derive nationalist or communityist pride, or conversely feel incensed at the film’s exposure of violent custom. NH thus shows how the film participates in circulating social energy—both reinforcing and problematizing prevailing norms.

Reception and Memory Work

Reception studies (audience responses, reviews, controversies) illuminate how Ram-Leela reconfigured local memory. In Gujarat and among diasporic communities, the film prompted discussions about cultural representation, honour, and the aestheticization of violence. Critical essays (Periago; García-Periago; Chakraborty) document how the adaptation situates Shakespeare within Indian social idioms and how it mediates between global textual heritage and local political realities. Thus Ram-Leela acts as a site where collective memory is reshaped—Shakespearean tragedy remade as an Indian moral and political commentary.

Case Study II: Veer — Epic Masculinity and Manufactured Past

Textual and Cultural Background

Anil Sharma’s Veer (2010) is a star vehicle for Salman Khan that fashions a pseudo-historical epic drawing on folklore, martial heroism, and cinematic spectacle. The film’s representational strategy constructs a mythic past, foregrounding male heroism, martial identity, and the rhetorical recuperation of a heroic past.

Cultural Materialist Reading

CM asks: what industrial exigencies shape Veer? The film’s creation as a Salman Khan spectacle reflects star system economics: Khan’s persona as a symbol of virility and nationalist masculinity is centrally implicated. The film’s production choices—lavish battle sequences, star-centric marketing, and patriotic mobilization—suggest commodification of a manufactured historical ethos appealing to broad demographics (fan bases, rural viewership, male audiences).

From a CM perspective, Veer functions as cultural work that reproduces hegemonic narratives of masculinity and national pride. The film’s address to mass audiences operates within market incentives that reward simple narratives of honor and martial selfhood. The economic imperatives thus shape ideological outcomes: profitable myths of past glory are valorized.

New Historicist Reading

NH investigates how Veer choreographs historical affect: rather than represent actual pasts, the film manufactures a stylized past that secures emotional identification. Its rhetorical techniques—grand tableaux, melodramatic music, and archaic diction—perform a historicality that compensates for social anxieties (modern dislocation, loss of status). NH attends to how such textual devices naturalize nationalist myths: the past becomes a resource for present legitimation.

However, NH also locates moments where the film inadvertently exposes the constructedness of its own history. Overblown spectacle, caricatured villains, and anachronistic elements reveal the film’s fictive foundation. In these slippages, critical viewers can discern the film’s ideological claims as contestable rather than seamless truth.

Reception and Memory Work

Veer’s mixed critical reception indicates divergent public responses: aficionados valorize the film’s masculine myth; critics deride its ahistorical glamorization. The film thus participates in the politics of cultural memory by offering a palimpsest of heroic pasts that some audiences embrace as identity anchors, while others critique as instrumentalized nostalgia.

Comparative Analysis: Margins, Agency and Ideological Ambivalence

In the contemporary cultural landscape, the reinterpretation of historical and mythological narratives through popular Indian adaptations like Ram-Leela and Veer exemplifies the ongoing dialogue between power, ideology, and artistic representation. Both Cultural Materialism and New Historicism provide critical frameworks to analyze how such films reconstruct the past to reflect present political, social, and gendered realities. Cultural materialists, following Raymond Williams, argue that cultural production is inseparable from material conditions—these films function not merely as entertainment but as sites of ideological negotiation, reflecting and contesting dominant discourses of nationalism, religion, and gender.

New Historicism, as theorized by Stephen Greenblatt, reads these texts as cultural artifacts that circulate within networks of power and meaning. Ram-Leela’s reimagining of the Ramayana in a violent, sensual, and hyper-modern aesthetic foregrounds how myths are commodified within capitalist frameworks while simultaneously questioning patriarchal and religious orthodoxy. Similarly, Veer reconfigures the colonial resistance narrative, intertwining heroism with imperial nostalgia, thereby revealing the contradictions within postcolonial identity formation.

In today’s digital media ecosystem, these cultural retellings gain renewed political significance. They not only reinterpret national identity for the globalized viewer but also highlight how power continues to operate through representation. By merging theory and practice, such contemporary readings of Indian cinema reveal how art becomes a battleground for reclaiming marginalized voices, destabilizing hegemonic histories, and democratizing cultural memory. Thus, these adaptations function as modern palimpsests—rewriting the nation’s past to negotiate its plural and contested present.

Conclusion :

Applying Cultural Materialism and New Historicism to Ram-Leela and Veer shows that popular cinema is a crucial site of historical negotiation. Films perform memory work—recasting the past for contemporary publics—while industry forces shape which pasts are profitable and therefore visible. Ram-Leela negotiates margins by placing local rituals and subaltern experiences at the centre of melodrama; Veer manufactures a heroic past that consolidates dominant masculine and nationalist narratives. Together, they demonstrate the ambivalence of adaptation: it can both recover and reinscribe marginal voices within the logic of spectacle and capital. For scholars and critics, the task is to remain attentive to both the emancipatory gestures and the commodifying frames that shape popular historicization.

References :

    Guerin, W. L. (2005). A handbook of critical approaches to literature. Oxford University Press, USA.

   García-Periago, Rosa M. “In Search of a Happy Ending: The Afterlife of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ on the Asian Screen / Buscando Un Final Feliz: La Recepción de ‘Romeo y Julieta’ En El Cine Asiático.” Atlantis, vol. 38, no. 1, 2016, pp. 185–200. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24757764. Accessed 5 Nov. 2025.

  Garcia Periago, R. M. (2020). Localizing Romeo and Juliet: Ram-Leela, female agency and Indian politics. In Adaption: The Journal of Literature on Screen Studies. Retrieved November 5, 2025, from https://doi.org/10.1093/adaptation/apaa017

  Nayar, P. K. (n.d.). CONTEMPORARY LITERARY AND CULTURAL THEORY: From structuralism to ecocriticism. In Longman. Longman. https://www.mahitoshnm.ac.in/studyMaterial/134355CONTEMPORARY_LITERARY_AND_CULTURAL_THEOR.pdf

  Kaes, Anton. “New Historicism: Writing Literary History in the Postmodern Era.” Monatshefte, vol. 84, no. 2, 1992, pp. 148–58. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30161347. Accessed 5 Nov. 2025.

  Kumar, N. (2021). Revamping Shakespeare: Filmic Adaptation of Romeo and Juliet into Goliyon ki Rasleela Ram-Leela. Litinfinite Journal, 3(1), 49. https://doi.org/10.47365/litinfinite.3.1.2021.49-57

  Menon, M. (2025). Objectifying desire in goliyon ki Rasleela: Ram-Leela. Shakespeare, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450918.2025.2502089

  McGuigan, Jim. “Raymond Williams on Culture and Society.” Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism, no. 10, 2012, pp. 40–54. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26920315. Accessed 5 Nov. 2025.

 Neale, R. S. “Cultural Materialism: A Critique.” Social History, vol. 9, no. 2, 1984, pp. 199–215. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4285340. Accessed 5 Nov. 2025.

  Ultra 4K Movies. (2025, February 8). SALMAN KHAN Superhit Hindi Action Veer 2010 Full Movie 4K | Mithun Chakraborty, Zarine Khan, Jackie [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved November 5, 2025, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqoa6xsNSes

 Veenstra, Jan R. “The New Historicism of Stephen Greenblatt: On Poetics of Culture and the Interpretation of Shakespeare.” History and Theory, vol. 34, no. 3, 1995, pp. 174–98. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2505620. Accessed 5 Nov. 2025.

  Wikipedia contributors. (2025, November 3). Veer (2010 film). Wikipedia. Retrieved November 5, 2025, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veer_(2010_film)

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Assignment Paper No. 204 – Contemporary Western Theories and Film Studies

 Hello Readers! 

Greetings, this blog is based on an Assignment writing of Paper No. 204 – Contemporary Western Theories and Film Studies  And I have chose topic is, 

The Politics of Knowledge: Reconfiguring Text, Power, and Cultural Memory in the Age of Algorithmic Mediation

🔷 Personal Information:

Name: Divya Paledhara

Roll Number: 5

Enrollment Number: 5108240026

Batch: M.A. Sem–3 (2024–2026)

Email ID: divyapaledhara@gmail.com

🔷 Details of Assignment:

Topic: Digital Humanities and the Politics of Knowledge: Reconfiguring Text, Power, and Cultural Memory in the Age of Algorithmic Mediation

Paper: Paper No. 204 – 22409 Contemporary Western Theories and Film Studies

Submitted to: Smt. Sujata Binoy Gardi

Department of English, MKBU, Bhavnagar

Submission Date: November, 8, 2025

🔷 Table of Contents:

1. Abstract

2. Keywords

3. Introduction: From Humanities to Digital Humanities

4. Theoretical Framework: Power, Knowledge, and Text in Digital Contexts

5. Algorithmic Mediation and the New Politics of Knowledge

6. Digital Archives and the Rewriting of Cultural Memory

7. The Question of Authorship and Posthuman Agency

8. Platform Capitalism and Data Colonialism in the Humanities

9. Case Studies: Google Books, Wikipedia, and AI Texts

10. Ethical Challenges and the Future of Digital Humanities

11. Conclusion: Rethinking Humanism in a Digital World

12. References

Abstract :

The emergence of Digital Humanities (DH) represents a paradigm shift in how we interpret, archive, and circulate knowledge. Rooted in interdisciplinary collaboration, DH fuses computational tools with humanistic inquiry, reshaping not only the medium of knowledge but also its politics. This paper explores how digital technologies mediate the production, consumption, and preservation of texts, raising questions about authority, access, and cultural memory. Drawing upon theories from Michel Foucault, Franco Moretti, Johanna Drucker, and Matthew Kirschenbaum, it examines how algorithmic mediation restructures power relations and redefines intellectual labor. The essay further investigates the role of artificial intelligence, digitization, and platform capitalism in redefining humanistic values and collective memory. Ultimately, it argues that Digital Humanities is both an emancipatory and a hegemonic field—opening spaces for democratized knowledge while simultaneously reinscribing structures of control through data colonialism and algorithmic bias.

Keywords :

Digital Humanities, Algorithmic Mediation, Power and Knowledge, Cultural Memory, Textuality, Posthumanism, Data Colonialism, Digital Archives.

1. Introduction: From Humanities to Digital Humanities

Digital Humanities (DH) is not simply an evolution of literary studies—it is a cultural revolution in how we produce, process, and preserve knowledge. Originating in the 1940s with Father Roberto Busa’s Index Thomisticus, the field expanded with the rise of digital technologies in the late twentieth century. By integrating computational analysis with humanistic interpretation, DH redefines traditional scholarship through digital archives, visualization, text mining, and algorithmic reading.

The digital turn challenges older conceptions of text as stable, bounded, and author-centered. Instead, texts are now fluid, networked, and infinitely reproducible. The humanities thus become not only about reading culture but also about coding it—about how databases and algorithms themselves produce meaning. As Johanna Drucker (2012) argues, “data are not given; they are capta—taken, constructed, and interpreted.” DH, therefore, becomes an epistemological inquiry into how knowledge is structured and who controls it.

2. Theoretical Framework: Power, Knowledge, and Text in Digital Contexts

Michel Foucault’s concept of power/knowledge forms a key theoretical foundation for understanding DH. For Foucault, knowledge is never neutral; it is a tool of governance. In the digital age, this insight becomes more urgent. Algorithms, search engines, and metadata act as new instruments of power that shape visibility, access, and authority.

Franco Moretti’s distant reading further transforms the act of interpretation. Rather than close reading a single text, DH allows scholars to analyze thousands of texts through computational models. However, as critics note, such methods risk abstracting the human experience and ignoring linguistic nuance. This tension between quantification and interpretation defines the epistemological struggle within Digital Humanities.

Additionally, Derrida’s concept of différance resonates with the digital condition. Digital texts endlessly defer meaning, producing a web of hyperlinks and intertextual relations. The archive, once physical, becomes virtual—a “living organism” (Manoff, 2004) that continually reconfigures memory and authority.

3. Algorithmic Mediation and the New Politics of Knowledge

Algorithms are the new arbiters of truth. Search results, digital archives, and even AI-generated research all depend on algorithmic hierarchies that determine what becomes visible. As Safiya Noble’s Algorithms of Oppression (2018) reveals, Google’s search algorithms often reinforce racial and gender biases, demonstrating how technology reproduces existing inequalities.

This algorithmic mediation alters the epistemological landscape of the humanities. For example, when literary datasets are fed into machine-learning models, the patterns they reveal depend on prior assumptions encoded in the data. The humanities thus face a paradox: while digital tools expand access, they also risk reducing interpretation to automated pattern recognition, replacing critical reflection with computational prediction.

4. Digital Archives and the Rewriting of Cultural Memory :

The emergence of digital archives has profoundly altered the ways societies remember, preserve, and transmit culture. Memory, once tied to the physicality of manuscripts and monuments, now inhabits the virtual world of databases, cloud storage, and algorithms. This digital transformation has led to what media theorist Lev Manovich calls the “database logic” of culture—a shift from narrative sequence to searchable data. In the humanities, this logic represents a major epistemological break: instead of interpreting linear texts, scholars now interpret systems of metadata, hyperlinks, and digital collections.

The act of archiving has always been political. In the analog era, the library was a space of both preservation and exclusion; certain voices—particularly those of marginalized groups—were systematically omitted from the canon. The digital age offers a chance to correct this imbalance through open-access repositories, digital storytelling projects, and community archives. For instance, projects like the “Digital Public Library of America” (DPLA) and “South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)” expand access to historically suppressed narratives. Yet, as Lisa Gitelman cautions in Raw Data Is an Oxymoron (2013), “all data are framed, shaped, and interpreted.” The illusion of neutrality persists even in the digital domain.

Digital archives also blur the line between preservation and performance. The archive is no longer a static container but a living interface that evolves with each click, edit, and algorithmic update. Every user interaction becomes a form of reinterpretation, generating a new version of the archive. This idea aligns with Pierre Nora’s concept of lieux de mémoire (sites of memory) but extends it into a digital ecology where memory is continuously rewritten.

At the same time, the material fragility of digital archives raises concerns about loss and impermanence. Unlike stone monuments or printed books, digital media depend on servers, formats, and corporate infrastructure that may vanish or become obsolete. As Matthew Kirschenbaum (2012) notes, “digital preservation is paradoxical—it promises permanence through the most ephemeral of means.” Thus, the rewriting of cultural memory in digital form is both liberating and precarious. It decentralizes authority but subjects memory to the volatility of code, copyright, and corporate control.

Furthermore, algorithmic curation—the use of algorithms to prioritize and recommend archival material—creates a hidden hierarchy within open archives. What appears democratic is subtly structured by corporate logic, privileging what is popular, monetizable, or linguistically dominant. Therefore, while digital archives appear to democratize memory, they simultaneously inscribe new asymmetries of power.

5. The Question of Authorship and Posthuman Agency :

In traditional literary studies, authorship has been central to meaning-making. The author was seen as the ultimate source of intention, creativity, and authority. However, in the digital ecosystem, authorship has become diffused, decentralized, and hybrid. As Roland Barthes anticipated in “The Death of the Author” (1967), the locus of meaning now lies not with a single creator but within a network of readers, editors, algorithms, and digital systems. This theory has become a lived reality in the posthuman condition of digital culture.

Digital Humanities complicates the notion of authorship through collaborative production. A scholarly article might now involve text-mining experts, visual designers, coders, and machine-learning models. The digital project becomes a collective assemblage rather than a singular creation. Tara McPherson, in her essay Why Are the Digital Humanities So White?, reminds us that even digital collaboration reproduces social hierarchies, since access to technological literacy is unequally distributed. Thus, authorship in DH is not only posthuman but also political—structured by gender, race, and class.

The phenomenon of AI-generated writing further radicalizes this shift. With models like GPT, Sudowrite, and Google Gemini, machines now participate in acts once thought uniquely human—composition, storytelling, translation, even analysis. AI no longer imitates creativity; it simulates it. As N. Katherine Hayles explains in How We Became Posthuman (1999), this erodes the boundary between the biological and the informational. The author becomes a curator of algorithmic outputs rather than an originator of meaning.

This raises pressing ethical and philosophical questions. Can a machine be an author? Does it possess intentionality, context, or moral responsibility? In academia, such questions have real implications. When AI tools generate summaries, code, or essays, who owns the intellectual product—the user, the algorithm, or the company that trained it? The U.S. Copyright Office’s recent decisions to deny copyright to AI-generated art underscore the tension between human agency and machine automation.

Beyond AI, the remix culture of the internet—through memes, fan fiction, and open-source platforms—has redefined creativity itself. Authorship now thrives on circulation and adaptation rather than originality. As Lev Manovich argues, digital culture celebrates modularity: texts are designed to be recombined endlessly. Thus, posthuman authorship is not the end of creativity but a reconfiguration of it, emphasizing process over product and network over individual genius.

6. Platform Capitalism and Data Colonialism in the Humanities :

Digital Humanities cannot exist in isolation from the global infrastructures that sustain it. Every search query, digitized manuscript, or online journal functions within the larger machinery of platform capitalism, a system where data functions as both commodity and currency. Nick Srnicek (2017) defines this model as “capitalism built around the extraction, analysis, and monetization of data.” In this paradigm, knowledge production—traditionally a public good—becomes privatized and surveilled.

For instance, platforms like JSTOR, ProQuest, and Elsevier control access to vast repositories of academic research. Although these databases serve the academic community, they also reinforce economic hierarchies by restricting access behind paywalls. This creates a form of intellectual enclosure, mirroring the enclosures of land during industrial capitalism. Knowledge becomes a proprietary asset, governed by corporate interests rather than scholarly ideals of open inquiry.

Meanwhile, open-access movements like Project Gutenberg or Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) resist this commodification. They embody the utopian spirit of Digital Humanities—free, democratic, and participatory. Yet even open-access platforms rely on data infrastructures owned by big tech corporations (Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud). Thus, digital freedom often exists within the architecture of digital control.

Data colonialism, as described by Nick Couldry and Ulises Mejias (2019), extends this critique further. It refers to the systematic appropriation of human experience as data for profit. Just as empires once extracted natural resources, tech companies now extract behavioral data, search patterns, and academic metadata. For instance, every click on Google Scholar contributes to a corporate model of academic knowledge circulation. The digital scholar becomes both a producer and a product in this data economy.

The geopolitics of servers also reveals the unequal global distribution of digital power. Most major data centers are located in North America and Europe, giving Western institutions disproportionate control over digital infrastructure. Consequently, the knowledge produced in the Global South is often mediated through Western servers and standards. This reproduces epistemic colonialism, where digital representation privileges certain languages, institutions, and paradigms.

Another significant dimension is the rise of surveillance capitalism (Shoshana Zuboff, 2019), where user behavior is commodified for targeted advertising. Educational platforms—such as Turnitin, Coursera, and even Google Classroom—collect massive data under the guise of learning analytics. The digital classroom thus becomes a site of both pedagogy and surveillance. DH scholars must critically question whether such tools empower learning or domesticate it within the logic of profit.

Lastly, the environmental cost of platform capitalism cannot be ignored. Data extraction consumes energy, generates e-waste, and contributes to the climate crisis. Server farms powering AI models use enormous amounts of electricity and water for cooling. Thus, the politics of knowledge is inseparable from the politics of ecology—a connection explored by scholars in Eco-Digital Humanities. The call for digital sustainability demands not only ethical data practices but also environmentally conscious computing.

In summary, platform capitalism and data colonialism represent the shadow side of Digital Humanities. They expose how digital empowerment can coexist with digital exploitation. The challenge for the 21st-century humanist is to engage technology critically—using it not as a tool of domination, but as an instrument for decolonizing and democratizing knowledge.

7. Case Studies: Google Books, Wikipedia, and AI Texts

a) Google Books:

The Google Books Project (2004–) aimed to digitize the world’s libraries. While it democratized access to knowledge, it also raised issues of copyright and corporate control. Google’s algorithms decide what metadata appears, shaping scholarly visibility.

b) Wikipedia:

Wikipedia epitomizes collaborative knowledge but also reflects systemic bias. Studies show that less than 20% of Wikipedia editors are women, leading to underrepresentation of female authors and topics. Thus, while the platform embodies DH ideals of openness, it simultaneously reveals structural inequalities in participation.

c) AI-Generated Texts:

The use of AI in writing (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini) challenges traditional academic boundaries. When machines generate essays or summarize literature, they participate in meaning-making. This raises ethical and philosophical questions: Can a machine possess interpretive authority? Or is meaning still dependent on human critical consciousness?

8. Ethical Challenges and the Future of Digital Humanities

The expansion of DH necessitates an ethical re-evaluation. Issues such as data privacy, algorithmic bias, digital accessibility, and academic integrity become central to its discourse. Scholars must ask: Who benefits from digitization? Whose histories are included or excluded?

Furthermore, the environmental cost of digital infrastructures—server farms, AI training models, and e-waste—links DH to global sustainability concerns. The digital revolution, therefore, must be understood not merely as a technical transformation but as an ecological and moral phenomenon.

The future of DH lies in critical digital literacy—equipping scholars to question digital systems rather than simply use them. It calls for interdisciplinary collaboration between computer science, cultural studies, and ethics.

9. Conclusion: Rethinking Humanism in a Digital World

Digital Humanities redefines what it means to be human in an age of code, data, and networks. It reveals that knowledge is no longer static but continually mediated through algorithms. Yet amid the noise of automation, DH also reaffirms humanistic values—interpretation, empathy, and reflection—as essential to digital culture.

The challenge is to navigate between technological determinism and human agency, to ensure that the digital future of the humanities remains ethical, inclusive, and transformative. As Drucker reminds us, “The humanities must humanize the digital, not digitize the human.”

References :

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 Gibbs, Raymond W. “QUESTIONS OF AUTHORSHIP.” Intentions in the Experience of Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 205–233. Print.

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  Jung, J., & Kim, J. (2025). Rethinking media users in the age of AI and algorithmic mediation. Media and Communication, 13. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.10915

  Kizhner, I., Terras, M., Maxim Rumyantsev, Valentina Khokhlova, Elisaveta Demeshkova, Ivan Rudov, & Julia Afanasieva. (2020). Digital cultural colonialism: measuring bias in aggregated digitized content held in Google Arts and Culture. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 2020, 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqaa055

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Assignment Paper No. 203 – Postcolonial Studies

Hello Readers !!! 

Greetings, this blog is based on an Assignment writing of Paper No. 203 – Postcolonial Studies And I have choose topic is, 

(Decolonizing the Mind and Body: Frantz Fanon’s Vision of Revolutionary Subjectivity)

🔷 Personal Information :

Name :- Divya  Paledhara

Roll Number :- 5

Enrollment Number :- 5108240026

Batch :- M. A. Sem - 3 (2024-2026) 

Email Id :- divyapaledhara@gmail.com

🔷 Details of Assignment :

Topic :-  Decolonizing the Mind and Body: Frantz Fanon’s Vision of Revolutionary Subjectivity

Paper :- Paper No. 203 – Postcolonial Studies

Submitted to :- Smt. Sujata Binoy Gardi, Department of English, MKBU, Bhavnagar. 

Submission date :-  November, 8, 2025

🔷 Table of Contents :

1. Abstract

2. Keywords

3. Aim of Topic

4. Introduction

5. Colonialism and the Colonized Mind

6. The Psychological Dimension of Decolonization

7. The Body as a Site of Colonial Domination

8. Revolutionary Violence and the Formation of Subjectivity

9. Decolonizing Culture and National Consciousness

10. The Legacy and Contemporary Relevance of Fanon

11. Conclusion

12. References

Abstract :

This assignment explores Frantz Fanon’s vision of revolutionary subjectivity in The Wretched of the Earth, focusing on his twin emphasis on decolonising both mind and body. Fanon argues that colonial domination is not only a political and economic phenomenon but a profound psychic and bodily condition, where the colonised internalise inferiority and live within a Manichaean world of “us” and “them”. Decolonisation, therefore, must operate at both levels: the body must act and reclaim agency, and the mind must think and feel anew. Through an analysis of Fanon’s arguments on violence, bodily insurrection, psychiatric insights, and cultural renewal, this paper argues that Fanon situates revolutionary subjectivity as the transformation of the colonised into subjects of history rather than objects of it. The paper also critically engages with limitations of Fanon’s masculine emphasis, his valorisation of violence, and considers how his ideas remain relevant for twenty-first-century postcolonial and decolonial thought.

Keywords :

Decolonisation; subjectivity; mind; body; violence; agency; colonial trauma; Frantz Fanon; The Wretched of the Earth; revolutionary consciousness.

Aim of the Topic :

The aim of this topic is to examine how Fanon conceptualises revolutionary subjectivity through the processes of decolonising both the mind (psyche, identity, culture) and the body (agency, action, violence). It seeks to trace how colonial domination infiltrates the corporal and mental dimensions of the colonised, how Fanon argues for rupture, and what this means for anti-colonial praxis and postcolonial theory. Moreover, it aims to critically assess the strengths and limitations of Fanon’s model, and to situate its relevance in contemporary global postcolonial/decolonial contexts.

1. Introduction :

In the mid-twentieth century, amid anti-colonial struggles, Frantz Fanon emerged as a radical thinker who refused to limit the analysis of colonialism to overt political or economic exploitation. His seminal work, The Wretched of the Earth (1961) — originally Les Damnés de la Terre — underscored the psychic, cultural and bodily dimensions of colonisation. For Fanon, colonisation was first and foremost a lived condition: a structure of domination that moulded the body, bent the mind, and created a world in which the colonised existed as “other”, as lesser, as object. In that sense, the process of decolonisation must be more than a transfer of power—it must be a rebirth of subjectivity in the colonised.

This paper contends that Fanon’s vision of revolutionary subjectivity is inherently embodied: the body of the colonised must move, act, revolt; the mind must imagine, feel, think differently. Fanon charts this dual process through his psychiatric insights, his experiences in Algeria, and his revolutionary ethic of violence and agency. The paper will first analyse how colonial subjectivity is constituted in body and mind, next explore the phases of rupture and emergence of revolutionary subjectivity (bodily agency and psychic liberation), then consider how culture and identity must be re-fashioned, and finally critically assess Fanon’s model in its historical and contemporary resonance.

2. Colonialism and the Colonized Mind :

Fanon begins by identifying the mind as the first and most deeply colonized space. The colonizer creates hierarchies of race and culture that make the native internalize inferiority. The process of colonization functions through education, religion, and representation — convincing the colonized that European values are universal and superior.

Colonial discourse shapes identity through psychological control rather than mere political domination. The colonized person starts to desire the colonizer’s approval, language, and habits. This psychological dependence produces alienation, a feeling of being cut off from one’s own history and culture. Fanon observes that the colonized becomes trapped between two worlds: unable to fully belong to the colonizer’s world, yet alienated from his own.

The consequence of this mental colonization is self-hatred. The colonized subject measures their worth by colonial standards and, in doing so, loses a sense of self. For Fanon, decolonization begins when this illusion is shattered — when the colonized recognize the constructed nature of their inferiority and reclaim the right to define themselves.

3. The Psychological Dimension of Decolonization :

As a psychiatrist, Fanon understood that colonialism inflicts trauma not only through physical violence but also through the psyche. He treated numerous Algerian patients during the war of independence, observing that colonial oppression produced disorders like depression, anxiety, and paranoia.

He explains that the colonial world divides humanity into two: the human and the subhuman. The colonized are constantly reminded of their place through humiliation and control. This division creates a psychological environment in which the colonized lose faith in their own capacity to act.

Fanon argues that decolonization must therefore involve a psychological reawakening — a process of cleansing the mind of colonial values. The individual must learn to reject the internalized belief that the colonizer’s world is superior. Through this transformation of consciousness, the colonized can begin to envision freedom.

“The colonized man finds his freedom in and through violence.” (The Wretched of the Earth, p. 86)

 

This statement reveals Fanon’s idea that liberation is a process of mental healing. Violence, for him, is not merely physical resistance; it is a symbolic act of rejecting inferiority and reclaiming self-worth. It represents a psychological rupture from colonial dependence and the rebirth of subjectivity.

4. The Body as a Site of Colonial Domination :

Fanon emphasizes that the body, like the mind, is a target of colonial power. The colonized body is objectified, sexualized, and marked as inferior. In Black Skin, White Masks, he shows how the black body is made hyper-visible — turned into a symbol of difference and inferiority within the colonial gaze.

Colonial rule disciplines the body through violence and surveillance. The colonized subject is forced to obey, to labor, and to internalize gestures of submission. The body becomes a language through which the colonizer’s authority is continuously expressed. Torture, forced labor, and racialized violence are not only political tools but psychological instruments that inscribe fear into the body’s memory.

Fanon thus sees liberation as a process of reclaiming the body. The colonized must learn to inhabit their physical being with dignity and defiance. The revolutionary body becomes a site of agency — no longer controlled, but self-determining.

5. Revolutionary Violence and the Formation of Subjectivity :

For Fanon, the process of decolonization reaches its climax in revolutionary struggle. Violence, though controversial, is central to his theory because it represents the moment when the colonized reclaim both their world and their humanity.

He argues that colonialism itself is maintained through systemic violence; therefore, it can only be overthrown through an equal and opposite force. Violence unites the colonized people, erasing tribal divisions and creating a shared sense of purpose. It allows them to see themselves not as passive victims but as agents of history. 

“At the level of individuals, violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction.” (The Wretched of the Earth, p. 94)

This transformation of selfhood through action is what Fanon means by revolutionary subjectivity. In the act of rebellion, the colonized ceases to be an object and becomes a subject — capable of choice, meaning, and creation. Violence is, therefore, the means by which the colonized reclaim control over their destiny.

6. Decolonizing Culture and National Consciousness :

Fanon warns that political independence without cultural decolonization is incomplete. He criticizes postcolonial leaders who imitate European models rather than develop indigenous structures of governance and thought. A true national culture, he argues, must emerge from the experience of resistance, not from colonial mimicry.

Cultural decolonization involves restoring pride in native traditions, language, and art, while also transforming them through the experience of struggle. It requires the creation of new narratives that reflect the people’s own values and history. Fanon believes that national culture is not static but dynamic — it grows through conflict, solidarity, and action.

This emphasis on culture links the psychological with the collective: the individual’s liberation is tied to the cultural renewal of the nation. When a people reclaim their culture, they also reclaim their sense of self as a community.

7. The Legacy and Contemporary Relevance of Fanon :

Fanon’s ideas continue to shape postcolonial theory and social movements across the world. His work influenced thinkers such as Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, and Gayatri Spivak, each of whom engaged with the question of representation and identity that Fanon first articulated.

In contemporary times, Fanon’s vision resonates with anti-racist and decolonial movements such as Black Lives Matter, Indigenous resistance, and campaigns to decolonize education. His idea of psychological liberation parallels efforts to challenge Eurocentric curricula and reclaim epistemic agency.

Moreover, Fanon’s discussion of the body anticipates modern debates on race and biopolitics — the ways in which power controls bodies through institutions like prisons, borders, and surveillance. His revolutionary subjectivity continues to inspire struggles against global forms of oppression that echo colonial hierarchies.

8. Conclusion :

Frantz Fanon’s theory of decolonization is not merely political; it is existential and humanistic. He views the liberation of colonized people as a total transformation — of mind, body, and social structure. The decolonized person is not just free from foreign rule but free from psychological enslavement.

By merging psychiatry with revolution, Fanon introduces the idea that freedom is both an inner and outer act. His revolutionary subjectivity symbolizes the rebirth of the human being through struggle and consciousness. Fanon reminds us that decolonization is not the end of history but the beginning of a new one — one where the colonized no longer imitate the colonizer, but create their own paths of being and knowing.

References :

   Fanon, F. (2021). The wretched of the Earth.

   Fanon, F. (1963). THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH (By Jean-Paul Sartre; Constance Farrington, Trans.). Grove Press. https://monoskop.org/images/6/6b/Fanon_Frantz_The_Wretched_of_the_Earth_1963.pdf

   Fairchild, Halford. (1994). Frantz Fanon's the Wretched of the Earth in Contemporary Perspective. Journal of Black Studies - J BLACK STUD. 25. 191-199. 10.1177/002193479402500204. 

    

    Gibson, N. C., & Beneduce, R. (2017). Frantz Fanon, Psychiatry and Politics. Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd. https://www.rowmaninternational.com

    

   Jilani, S. (2023). Becoming in a colonial world: approaching subjectivity with Fanon. Textual Practice, 38(10), 1583–1600. https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236x.2023.2243908

  Webber, N. (2012). Subjective elasticity, the “Zone of Nonbeing” and Fanon’s new humanism in black skin, white masks. Postcolonial Text, 7(4), 2–4.

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