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Title TRAVERSING THE COLONIAL SCRIPTORIUM: A POSTCOLONIAL CRITIQUE OF ORIENTAL FOLKTALES AND LEGEND

Author(s) Shiraz Ahmed

Abstract Thesis Title: Traversing the Colonial Scriptorium: A Postcolonial Critique of Oriental Folktales and Legends The study explores the construction of the European cultural imaginary of the Orient in the colonial folkloristics projected by the selected British functionaries who collected, translated, and published the indigenous folktales and legends of Punjab during the British colonial era. The study delineates how the production of the colonial discourse about the Punjabi Orient is an attempt to define and perpetuate its otherness through targeted marginalization. Otherness can be unfolded by rethinking and reconstructing the manners appropriated and used by the colonial masters to misrepresent, repress, omit, and stereotype the colonized. The study, through the textual analyses of the selected folktales and legends from Richard Carnac Temple’s The Legends of the Panjab (Vol I, II, & III) and Charles Swynnerton’s Romantic Tales from the Punjab, has investigated the contribution of the colonial folk narratives in reinforcing the orientalized exotic images of the Punjab and its inhabitants via circulation among European readers, focusing too strongly on the difference. The study employs an eclectic approach consisting of multiple postcolonial perspectives informed by the theoretical insights of Peter van der Veer on syncretism and Edward Said’s framework on Orientalism. It also invokes Spivak’s theorization of epistemic violence to showcase the coloniality of the texts under discussion. The researcher focuses on the colonial construction of oriental syncretic saints through the analyses of the figures of Puran Bhagat and Sakhi Sarwar. Moreover, the researcher investigates how the colonial narratives construct and propagate the saint-like oriental lovers to orientalize and marginalize the indigenous other through the romantic tales of Hir and Ranjha, Sassi and Punnun, and Mirza and Sahiban. These colonial folk narratives have underscored an ambiguously syncretic religious identity of the Orient in Punjab. To validate this viewpoint, the researcher has used the native versions of a few similar folk narratives to underline the discourse of difference vis-à-vis the colonial assertions. It is envisaged that the study will inspire certain future research projects illustrating the production of the Orient in different indigenous languages by colonial folklorists.

Type Thesis/Dissertation PhD

Faculty Languages

Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2024-01-24

Subject PhD English Literature

Publisher Department of English (GS)

Contributor(s) Prof. Dr. Muhammad Safeer Awan

Format As per departmental guidelines

Identifier Dr. Muhammad Haseeb Nasir (PhD English Program Coordinator)

Source PhD

Relation PhD

Coverage PhD

Rights PhD

Category PhD English Literature Thesis

Description Thesis Title: Traversing the Colonial Scriptorium: A Postcolonial Critique of Oriental Folktales and Legend