Revolution at the Crossroads: Street Theater and the Politics of Radical Democracy in India and in Algeria
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Revolution at the Crossroads: Street Theater and the Politics of Radical Democracy in India and in Algeria by Neil A. Doshi A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Comparative Literature) in The University of Michigan 2009 Doctoral Committee: Assistant Professor Christi Ann Merrill, Co-Chair Associate Professor Jarrod L. Hayes, Co-Chair Professor Emeritus L. Ross Chambers Professor Vassilios Lambropoulos Professor William B. Worthen, Barnard College © Neil A. Doshi ___________________________ 2009 To my parents, Arun and Malvi Doshi ii Acknowledgements This dissertation is the culmination of a long, often circuitous personal journey, and I am grateful for the amazing patience and support of the family, friends, and mentors who have helped me along the way. To thank everyone would be impossible, but I would like to acknowledge those who have played a major role as I worked to complete my degree. I am deeply indebted to the outstanding scholars on my dissertation committee, who have served as both mentors and dear friends. I could not have asked for better co- chairs than Professors Christi Merrill and Jarrod Hayes, both of whom have contributed tremendously to my professional development and my research project. Professor Merrill provided invigorating enthusiasm for my work, even as I struggled to define the project. She has been incredibly generous with her time and incisive critique, and I am grateful to her for pushing me to broaden my thinking and to take risks with writing. Professor Hayes offered equal support, and I am grateful for his detailed feedback, and steadfast confidence. I greatly appreciate his intellectual rigor and clarity. I have been fortunate to have worked with Professor Ross Chambers, whose erudition, patience, and magnanimity are an inspiration. Professor Bill Worthen breathed life into this project with his expertise, and I am thankful to him for encouraging me to think about performance in new and vastly interesting ways. Last but not least, I remain grateful to Professor Vassilis Lambropoulos for his thoughtful reading of the dissertation. His questions and feedback are already extremely generative for me. iii In addition to my committee, I have benefitted from the invaluable support and feedback of other faculty. I would like to thank in particular: Yopie Prins, Tobin Siebers, George Hoffman, Santiago Colas, Frieda Ekotto, Tahsin Siddiqi, and H. D. Cameron. I am happy to also acknowledge here Professors Simon Gikandi and Aamir Mufti, who guided me early in my graduate study. Professor Michèle Hannoosh encouraged me to pursue an academic career when I was an undergraduate at UC Davis, and she has offered valuable guidance at the University of Michigan. I have enjoyed the support of many divisions of the University of Michigan: the Department of Comparative Literature, the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, the Department of Classical Studies, the Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, the Department of English Language and Literature, the Sweetland Institute, and the Rackham Graduate School. Staff members at these units and at the Hatcher Graduate library consistently offered help and support in all areas: research, teaching, and administrative. I’d like to specially thank Sonia Schmerl, Nancy Harris, and Paula Frank in Comparative Literature, Joanna Semanske in Great Books, and the staff of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. Outside of Michigan, thanks are due to the Fulbright-Hays office/Fulbright-India office in Delhi, the Institut Mémoires de l’édition contemporaine in Caen, France, and to Gérard Cesaroni at the Association Avenir et mémoire for enabling my research. The Jana Natya Manch theater troupe—particularly Sudhanva Deshpande and Mala iv Hashmi—were my “second family” in India. They taught me what it truly means to give of oneself, though I did not realize it at the time when, as a bright-eyed perhaps overly- eager graduate student, I followed them in their peregrinations around New Delhi. Many friends both in and outside of Ann Arbor have offered care, intellectual debate, and a good laugh at moments when I particularly needed it. I’d like to particularly thank Rodwin Pabello, Catherine Lee, Meenesh Pattni, Barry McNeill, Maxime Foerster, Dominica Chang, Matty Wegehaupt, Dani Arroyo, Vi Le Meur, Jere Righter, Ilka Rasch, and Laura Brueck. Pavitra Sundar, Shradha Shah, Camille Zeil, and Akash Goel merit special mention for their kindness and support as I made my way through the last stages of research and writing. For my family, I have no adequate words of thanks. My sister Bella Doshi and her family, along with Josie and Lawrence Thibeaux provide me with a boundless font of love. Most of all, I thank my father Arun Doshi, who will sadly not see the completion of this project, and my mother Malvi Doshi who, it must be said, shortly after our arrival in the United States, taught her confused son how to read. v Table of Contents Dedication...........................................................................................................................ii Acknowledgements............................................................................................................iii Chapter I.............................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction: Street Theater and Local Performance as Revolution in the Vernacular.. 1 A Funeral and Collective Body....................................................................................... 1 Popular Theater and the Exile of Language.................................................................... 4 Theaters of Liberation..................................................................................................... 5 Theater on the Post-Colonial Periphery.......................................................................... 6 Street Theater Genres as Vernacularization.................................................................... 9 Collectivity and Radical Democratic Practice .............................................................. 12 Deconstructing Language ............................................................................................. 13 The Pitfalls of Postcolonial Community....................................................................... 16 Chapter II .......................................................................................................................... 20 The Author on Stage: Kateb Yacine’s Le polygone étoilé and JANAM’s Shambukh Vadh.............................................................................................................................. 20 Reclaimed “Authenticities” and the Crisis of Community........................................... 20 Re-imagining Post-Colonial Community ..................................................................... 24 Performing Shambukh Vadh: Between Text, Theater, and Street Performance .......... 31 Unsettling the Authority of the Ramayana ................................................................... 33 Playing with Genres: Between the Street and the Stage............................................... 36 The Political Imperative of Performance...................................................................... 38 Kateb Yacine’s Le polygone étoilé and the Inscription of a Collective Voice............. 43 Contexts for Reading Polygone: The Critical Reception of Kateb’s Work.................. 46 Revolution and Collective Memory in Polygone Étoilé............................................... 50 Reading and Textuality: Interpretation as a Performative Act ..................................... 53 Rethinking National Genres.......................................................................................... 60 Chapter III......................................................................................................................... 62 Performing the People: Street Theater and the Politics of Publicity in Kateb Yacine’s Mohamed prends ta valise and JANAM’s Honda ke Gunda........................................ 62 Reclaiming the Heterogeneous, Contested, Public Sphere in the Nation.................... 67 Postcolonial Street Theater and the Formation of Political Solidarities....................... 68 Street Theater and Intersubjectivity.............................................................................. 70 Internationalism in the Name of Nation: Kateb’s Mohamed prends ta valise.............. 71 The Dialectic of Immigrant Labor and Unemployment: Critiquing Neo-Colonial Influence ....................................................................................................................... 77 Chapter IV:........................................................................................................................ 86 Performance and Political Tactics: Street Theater and the Politics of Oppositionality86 JANAM’S ĀkhiriJulūs: Labor Politics in India and Current JANAM Production ...... 90 Appropriative Irony and Popular Song:........................................................................ 98 vi Towards a Performative Politics of Internationalism: ................................................ 105 Performativity under the Sign of Irony....................................................................... 121 Conclusion .................................................................................................................