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A Genealogy of the Ibis Trilogy: Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Bengali Culture The tension between a local dimension and a more cosmopolitan one has become increasingly crucial in Amitav Ghosh’s writing. Whereas his earlier works, such as In an Antique Land, tended towards what was defined as a “subaltern cosmopolitanism” (Hawley 2005; Grewal 2007), more recent novels show attention for a local dimension as well: Bengal. In Bengali cultural tradition, nationalism and cosmopolitanism have always been at the centre of poetic reflection. The influence of this cultural and artistic tradition on Ghosh’s works can hardly be overestimated. Therefore, an examination of how nationalism and cosmopolitanism were dealt with by Bankimchandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore and Satyajit Ray will contribute to the full understanding of Ghosh’s work. In particular, this paper will demonstrate how Amitav Ghosh, despite his increased focus on the local, does not embrace nationalism, as Bankimchandra Chatterjee, but reproduces the situation of “ideological liminality” (Saha 2013: 21) between the local and the global that can be found in the works of Rabindranath Tagore and Satyajit Ray.

The tension between a local dimension and a more cosmopolitan one has become increasingly crucial in Amitav Ghosh's writing. Whereas his earlier works, such as In an Antique Land, tended towards what was defined as a "subaltern cosmopolitanism" (Hawley 2005; Grewal 2007), more recent novels show attention for a local dimension as well: Bengal. In Bengali cultural tradition, nationalism and cosmopolitanism have always been at the centre of poetic reflection. The influence of this cultural and artistic tradition on Ghosh's works can hardly be overestimated. Therefore, an examination of how nationalism and cosmopolitanism were dealt with by Bankimchandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore and Satyajit Ray will contribute to the full understanding of Ghosh's work. In particular, this paper will demonstrate how Amitav Ghosh, despite his increased focus on the local, does not embrace nationalism, as Bankimchandra Chatterjee, but reproduces the situation of "ideological liminality" (Saha 2013: 21) between the local and the global that can be found in the works of Rabindranath Tagore and Satyajit Ray. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of globalisation and its attendant crises including capital flight, the decline of manufacturing in developed regions, environmental degradation, reduced labour standards, and extreme economic inequality are sometimes seen to be so complex as to defy coherent representation. While postmodernism has been considered as one response to the disaggregation of society under these pressures, the neo-Victorian aesthetic provides an alternative. This article studies how Amitav Ghosh's Sea Of Poppies (2008) exploits the genre of neo-Victorian fiction, representing an earlier stage of globalisation in order to provide a critique of its unresolved legacy in the neoliberal present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author comments on Amitav Ghosh's essay, “The Shadow Lines.” He declares that Ghosh's essay reveals how modern cosmopolitanism emerge within dramas of home. The essay traces the invisible border between domesticity and cosmopolitan. It encourages the understanding of the home and world as collaborative rather than competing realities. The author argues that cosmopolitanism should not be treated as a feeling of being “at home” in the world but recognizing “the world” through the home.