English 456: C20 Criticism and Theory Questions on
Gauri Viswanathan's "Lessons of History" Al Drake | Cyber Cafe | Thurs. 4-6 1. According to Viswanathan from 70-73, how did James Mill (John Stuart Mill's father) apply the historicist criteria indirectly set forth by Warren Hastings? Why did James Mill object to the Indian interpretive practice of allegorizing narratives from Indian sacred and literary texts? 2. How, according to Viswanathan from 74-77, does the "historical orientation" differ from the "rationale of Christian instruction"? What does she say about the Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith's theory of the "impartial spectator"? 3. How did English education of Indians avoid generating the perception that it was the imposition of a foreign culture on a native one? See pages 78-79. 4. What role did the works of Sir Francis Bacon play in the British curriculum for Indian students? That is, why did British administrators and instructors find books like the Novum Organum useful for their aims? See pages 81-83. 5. Ultimately, what would you say is Viswanathan's point about the role that education, and most particularly literary education, played in the British scheme to colonize and administer India? Is Gauri's presentation of British colonialism's methods different from the kind of procedures one would usually associate with colonialism? *The reading selection is from Davis, Robert Con and Ronald Schleifer. Contemporary Literary Criticism: Literary and Cultural Studies. Fourth edition. New York: Longman, 1998. 68-86.
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