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India at the Limits

Inquiries at the Limit Zones of an Idea

India at the Limits cover

India at the Limits

Inquiries at the Limit Zones of an Idea

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Pre-order. Available Nov 12 2026
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Description

Built on nine essays exploring cultural production in India, this book questions which voices, perspectives, and forms of art constitute a national identity.

Who gets to complain about the loss of the idea of India? Whose lament for idyllic India gets recorded?

India at the Limits explores what India looks and feels like via the art, film, and music that are widely amplified in its public sphere. From a dancing body in Manipur to ghost malls doubling up as pleasure zones for poor youth to the spread of Indian cinematic sensibilities in Afghan films, this volume examines the limits, boundaries, and liminal spaces that impact perceptions of what India is and can be both inside and outside its geographic border. Ultimately, readers are able to view India outside of its state-driven formations, offering instead an ecosystem of signs and signposts to ground cultural understanding.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Moving with Encumbrance and (in)corporeal Knowledge in Manipur
Debanjali Biswas (Independent Researcher, Anthropology/Performance Studies)
Chapter 2. Voicing “Newness”: In search of 'Inclusivity', “Geography', and “Globality”
Sebanti Chatterjee (SRM University, Anthropology)
Chapter 3. Cinephilia, Nostalgia, and Melancholy: Space and Film History Inside The Orphanage
Suvij Sudershan (Yale, English)
Chapter 4. Three Genres of India: The Obsolete, the Ruinous, the Unfinished
Atreyee Majumder (NLSIU, Social Sciences) and Kundan Sen (UChicago, Anthropology)
Chapter 5. The Haunted Bungalow as the Untimely Dwelling of History
Suvendu Ghatak (English, University of Florida)
Chapter 6. Of Borders and Bordering: The Colonial Himalaya between a Noun and a Verb
Sandeep Banerjee (English, McGill University)
Chapter 7 “Symbolic Destitution”, and the Compulsions of the Indian State
Vishnupad Mishra and Vandana Singh (Social Sciences, SRM University)
Chapter 8. The Foreignness of Law in India's Constitutional Imagination
Moiz Tundawala (Law, University of Oxford; Jindal University)
Chapter 9. Tagore's India as a Universal Idea
Salmoli Choudhuri (Law, Humboldt University; NLSIU)

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published Nov 12 2026
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Pages 224
ISBN 9798216440949
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Dimensions 229 x 152 mm
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Atreyee Majumder

Atreyee Majumder is associate professor of social…

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