The funny bit in the new edition of Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities is Anderson’s usage of IC… “Aside from the advantages of brevity, IC restfully occludes a pair of words from which the vampires of banality have by now sucked almost all the blood.” [via]. Ouch. Yes, some have flogged the imagining horse to death. Yet, we should take note of an earlier, more substantial engagement by Ronald Inden – Imagining India. With both of these texts, I have more than a passing familiarity, as I assume many of my readers would. Hence, I point you to Amardeep Singh’s call for papers for Imagining South Asia – a special journal issue. If it suits you, submit something. I will see if Ron wants to send along a short ‘Reflections on the usage of the term ‘Imagining’…’
Amardeep September 21, 2006 at 2:08 pm
Thanks for the link, my friend.
As a side note, I always find myself turning faintly green when I utter the phrase “imagined communities” aloud. I still do it sometimes. But there are more interesting ways to talk about what nationalism is/does…