The Lost Land of Lemuria: Fabulous Geographies, Catastrophic Histories (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780520244405)

During the nineteenth century, Lemuria was imagined as a land that once bridged India and Africa but disappeared into the ocean millennia ago, much like Atlantis. A sustained meditation on a lost place from a lost time, this elegantly written book is the first to explore Lemuria's incarnations across cultures, from Victorian-era science to Euro-American occultism to colonial and postcolonial India. The Lost Land of Lemuria widens into a provocative exploration of the poetics and politics of loss to consider how this sentiment manifests itself in a fascination with vanished homelands, hidden civilizations, and forgotten peoples. More than a consideration of nostalgia, it shows how ideas once entertained but later discarded in the metropole can travel to the periphery--and can be appropriated by those seeking to construct a meaningful world within the disenchantment of modernity. Sumathi Ramaswamy ultimately reveals how loss itself has become a condition of modernity, compelling us to rethink the politics of imagination and creativity in our day.

Author: Sumathi Ramaswamy
ISBN-10: 0520244400
ISBN-13: 9780520244405
Publisher: University of California Press
Language: English
Published: 09/27/2004
Pages: 384
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.07lbs
Size: 8.84h x 6.20w x 0.85d

Review Citation(s):
Books & Culture 05/01/2005 pg. 24