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dannmaloney816's review against another edition
4.0
I won't pretend I understand all of the arguments (nor will I pretend that I agree with all those that I understood), but I thought this was a fascinating analysis of the "colonial archive," and how that archive already possesses the materials that allow for disruptive readings. Occasionally the "absence is presence" mentality is bit confounding and a bit of a stretch; however Arondekar deftly reviews documents to show how sexuality was used and understood as a tool for marginalization. Of particular interest was her chapter on Richard Burton's lost report and how the documentation surrounding the report was equally important than the fact that it was "missing." Her chapters on Victorian pornography and their place in the archive were "interesting" but I don't know I quite understood it all; even if it was a bit amusing to parse 19th century smut so carefully. Toward the end of the piece she alludes to contemporary issues and ironies: how the Right-wing Indian forces paint queerness as a byproduct of colonialism and thus as a non-Indian concern; in fact, the very laws they wish to preserve in squashing homosexuality in India were imposed by the British when the colonizers painted India as a place of exotic sexuality. It was quite thought-provoking.
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