Romancing Theory, Riding Interpretation

Ranjan Ghosh teaches in the Department of English, University of North Bengal, India. He is published in leading journals such as The Oxford Literary Review, SubStance, History and Theory, Parallax, Symploke, Comparative Drama, Rethinking History, Angelaki, Interdisciplinary Literary Studies, and South Asia. He is the author and editor of many books on critical theory, historiography, and South Asian studies, including Edward Said, The Literary, Social and the Political World (2009) and A Lover’s Quarrel with the Past: Romance, Representation, Reading (2012).

«Asserting that theory has consequences and requires responsiveness, Ranjan Ghosh gives us a volume that persuasively demonstrates the consequences of an (in)fusion approach to literary interpretation partly through the invited responses of critics who challenge, extend, and apply this hermeneutic theory. Ghosh skillfully sets up the demonstration with a provocative introduction that explains his (in)fusion approach as a creative cross-cultural appropriation of interpretive concepts and ideational correspondences. The collected essays then enact the very cross-cultural critical engagement Ghosh advocates, as they move from theory to practice beginning with theoretical comparisons to Foucauldean reception study and ending with an array of applied readings of Salman Rushdie’s novels. Romancing Theory, Riding Interpretation definitely shows that theory is alive and well in the so-called post-theory age.» (Steven Mailloux, President’s Professor of Rhetoric, Loyola Marymount University)

• Contents: Ranjan Ghosh: Romancing Theory, Riding Interpretation – Philip Goldstein: Reception and/or (In)fusion: Interpretation and Literary Institutions in the 21st century – Stephen R Yarbrough: Is (In)fusionism a Perspectivism or an Interactionism? – John W. P. Phillips: Hodos Infusion and Method – John de Reuck/Jenny de Reuck: (In)fusing Moments of Transient Alignment into Diverse Communities of Understanding – Timothy Clark: Green Infusion? – Joseph Pugliese: Fractal T®opologies: (Re-)citation, (Mani-)folds, Alterity: (In)fusing Midnight’s Children – Sara Upstone: (In)fusion and the ‘Postcolonial’: Salman Rushdie’s Shame as Ethical-Political Fiction – Naheem Jabbar: The Satanic Verses as Secular Transcendence – Allen Hibbard/Savitri Ashok: The Moor’s Last Sigh as Palimpstine, a Country of Fusions and Infusions – Juliette Taylor-Batty: Singular Multiplicity: The Ground Beneath Her Feet – Neelam Srivastava: Reading Fury as an Imperial.