Unthinking Mastery: Dehumanism and Decolonial Entanglements

by Julietta Singh

Overview

Julietta Singh challenges the drive toward the mastery over self and others by showing how the forms of self-mastery advocated by anticolonial thinkers like Fanon and Gandhi unintentionally reproduced colonial logic, thereby leading her to argue for a more productive human subjectivity that is not centered on concepts of mastery.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822369394
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	01/02/2018
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Julietta Singh is Associate Professor of English at the University of Richmond.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments  vii
Introduction. Reading against Mastery  1
1. Decolonizing Mastery  29
2. The Language of Mastery  65
3. Posthumanitarian Fictions  95
4. Humanimal Dispossessions  121
5. Cultivating Discomfort  149
Coda. Surviving Mastery  171
Notes  177
References  187
Index  197

What People are Saying About This

The Queer Art of Failure - Jack Halberstam

"Seeking new genealogies for decolonial acts and thought, Julietta Singh unknots the connections between stubbornly resilient mechanisms of rule and current forms of knowledge production. Singh sketches the disastrous consequences of the ongoing investments in mastery that result in a ravaged environment and persistent racialized hierarchies of being, thereby giving us a critique of the human, a glimpse of the decolonization of the human, and the promise of something beyond the human."

Insistence of the Material: Literature in the Age of Biopolitics - Christopher Breu

"Notions of mastery have remained uninterrogated in theory for too long. No matter how reflexive we have become about other forms of power, mastery has been invoked as an essential good. Julietta Singh powerfully challenges this unproblematic invocation of mastery while revolutionizing postcolonial theory by fusing it with new materialism, animal studies, and queer theory. Balancing theoretical sophistication, textual nuance, and self-reflexive engagement with brilliance and care, Singh produces a powerful new theoretical synthesis that accounts for mastery and colonial violence in all their forms."

Editorial Reviews

"A deft intervention in several different fields, Unthinking Mastery powerfully examines the insidious ways that the legacies of colonialism have infiltrated critical conversations in affect, queer, and ecocritical studies."

ASAP/Journal - Melinda Backer

"While the approach of Unthinking Mastery is clearly interdisciplinary, the author turns foremost to the field of comparative literature to unravel forms of systemic dehumanizing violence that become obvious in forms of embodiment and language/narration. ... Her engagement not only touches on feminist and queer theories but also provides a powerful interconnection between environmental and postcolonial studies."--Monika Jaeckel "Anthropocenes" (6/1/2020 12:00:00 AM)

"A deft intervention in several different fields, Unthinking Mastery powerfully examines the insidious ways that the legacies of colonialism have infiltrated critical conversations in affect, queer, and ecocritical studies."--Melinda Backer "ASAP/Journal" (12/27/2018 12:00:00 AM)

"Singh's work stands out in its truly transdisciplinary approach and simultaneous mobilization of feminist, posthuman, and decolonial thought."--Justyna Poary-Wybranowska "Contemporary Women's Writing" (1/1/2019 12:00:00 AM)

From the Publisher

"Singh’s work stands out in its truly transdisciplinary approach and simultaneous mobilization of feminist, posthuman, and decolonial thought."

Contemporary Women's Writing - Justyna Poary-Wybranowska

"While the approach of Unthinking Mastery is clearly interdisciplinary, the author turns foremost to the field of comparative literature to unravel forms of systemic dehumanizing violence that become obvious in forms of embodiment and language/narration. ... Her engagement not only touches on feminist and queer theories but also provides a powerful interconnection between environmental and postcolonial studies."

Anthropocenes - Monika Jaeckel

"Notions of mastery have remained uninterrogated in theory for too long. No matter how reflexive we have become about other forms of power, mastery has been invoked as an essential good. Julietta Singh powerfully challenges this unproblematic invocation of mastery while revolutionizing postcolonial theory by fusing it with new materialism, animal studies, and queer theory. Balancing theoretical sophistication, textual nuance, and self-reflexive engagement with brilliance and care, Singh produces a powerful new theoretical synthesis that accounts for mastery and colonial violence in all their forms."

Insistence of the Material: Literature in the Age of Biopolitics - Christopher Breu

"Seeking new genealogies for decolonial acts and thought, Julietta Singh unknots the connections between stubbornly resilient mechanisms of rule and current forms of knowledge production. Singh sketches the disastrous consequences of the ongoing investments in mastery that result in a ravaged environment and persistent racialized hierarchies of being, thereby giving us a critique of the human, a glimpse of the decolonization of the human, and the promise of something beyond the human."

The Queer Art of Failure - Jack Halberstam