Listening to the textlooms of vemana

memory, history and the archives of betrayal

pp. 271-306

in: , Cultures of memory in South Asia, Berlin, Springer, 2014

Abstract

Colonialism ruptures mnemocultures through new modes of knowledge production and representation. These new modes displace the embodied and performative practices of recitation and privilege archival accumulation of documented pasts. This chapter shows how a 17th century Telugu poet, Vemana, was turned into an archival object and projected as an underclass rebel. How this colonial legacy continues to dominate readings of Vemana is analyzed in this chapter.