Between History and Identity: Reading the Authentic in South Asian Diasporic Literature and Community by Tamara Ayesha Bhalla A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (English Language and Literature) in The University of Michigan 2008 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Maria Sarita See, Chair Professor June M. Howard Professor Sidonie A. Smith Assistant Professor Christi A. Merrill Assistant Professor Megan L. Sweeney © Tamara Ayesha Bhalla 2008 Dedication To My Family (old and new) ii Acknowledgements One of the foundational pursuits of this dissertation has been to theorize how the act of reading, often considered a solitary pursuit, is in fact a communal and group-based activity. In completing the project, I have learned that the vexing and apparently solitary process of writing can be eased by interaction, feedback, and dialogue. And I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been accompanied by a number of thoughtful readers and fellow writers while completing this project. Firstly, I am enormously grateful to readers in the NetSAP-D.C. book club for welcoming me into the group (and often into their homes), for participating in my study, and for encouraging me to question my assumptions about reading and the role of the literary critic. I am particularly fortunate to have had a committee of scholars with quite diverse perspectives oversee and guide the development of this project. Megan Sweeney, who graciously agreed to join my committee very shortly after arriving at Michigan, provided indispensable advice on how to incorporate qualitative research methods into a literature project. I want to thank Meg for her intellectual camaraderie and empathy for the difficulties that I encountered in shaping my research methodology, not to mention her insightful advice on how to cope with its quandaries and frustrations. Meg’s work stands as a model that I will continue to aspire to. During my time at Michigan, Sidonie Smith has not only helped me with the conceptualization and completion of this project, but she also has taught me more broadly to think about the process of writing and revision. I know I am not alone when I say that iii Sid’s leadership is inspiring, and her capacity for multitasking awe-inspiring. I am very grateful to her for encouraging me to think more broadly about the responsibilities that come with this profession, and I will always be particularly grateful to Sid for teaching me when to “LFF.” Christi Merrill generously agreed to be the cognate member on my committee, but her help and guidance have in no way been ancillary. I am grateful to Christi for helping me think through the diaspora’s connections to South Asia, for her always acute, insightful suggestions, and for her generous investment in the project’s development. In many ways, I feel that June Howard made this project possible. As chair of my exam committee, June encouraged me to contemplate possibilities for research that I had not previously thought possible. The course that I took with June during my second year of graduate school opened up a realm of intellectual pursuit that ultimately shaped the parameters of this dissertation. The guidance that June has offered me throughout graduate school will continue to influence my development as a teacher and scholar. Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank Sarita See, the chair of my dissertation committee. Sarita has been an unwavering source of support throughout this project’s development and is my ideal of an educator, scholar, and colleague. She always asked tough and insightful questions and at the same time was always willing to help me think through ideas at their earliest, most amorphous stages. Sarita ushered me through all the milestones of graduate school and words are sadly inadequate to express the level of my gratitude to her. I thank her, nonetheless, for demonstrating the power of an expansive, critical intellect, for her exemplary integrity, her generous mentorship, and for always encouraging her students to take the time to celebrate their achievements. iv The Rackham Merit Fellowship and Rackham Dissertation Grant funded through School of Graduate Studies at the University of Michigan provided crucial financial support for the completion of my dissertation. The Institute for Research on Women and Gender “Community of Scholars Program” and the Center for the Education for Women generously funded my research with a fellowship and a research grant respectively. These organizations improve and diversify the University of Michigan community and I am very grateful for their support. In the English Department, I would like in particular to thank Jan Burgess for her expertise, efficiency, and institutional knowledge. Her help has been indispensable to me over the past six years. I have benefited from the informal and formal mentorship of several faculty members at the University of Michigan. In particular, I would like to thank Sandra Gunning, Susan Najita, Maria Sanchez, Josh Miller, Arlene Keizer, and Ifeoma Nwankwo. And without Ji-Hyae Park, Emily Lutenski, Elspeth Healey, Manan Desai, Madhur Kulkarni, Xiwen Mai, Clare Counihan, Jan Christian Bernabe, and Gavin Hollis graduate school would have been a much more dismal place. I would like to thank my family for their support even when they weren’t quite sure what I was up to. I thank my mother for teaching me the joys of reading, for encouraging me to do what I love, and for demonstrating through her own copious achievements the power of determination. I thank my father for his unconditional love, his unfailingly generous spirit, and for helping me always to keep things in perspective. I am so grateful to my sister, Natasha, for patiently listening to many self-indulgent complaints over the years and for always making me laugh. Maggie and Nick Cords have been incredibly encouraging during the later stages of this process and I feel very v fortunate that they are part of my family. Finally, I would like to thank John Cords for helping me every time I got stuck, for reading every page of this dissertation, for offering consistently helpful, challenging feedback, and for quite simply making every day a lot more fun. vi Table of Contents Dedication ......................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements............................................................................................................ iii List of Appendices .......................................................................................................... viii Abstract.............................................................................................................................. ix Chapter 1 Introduction: Toward a Dialogic Reading Practice: Rethinking South Asian Diasporic Identity, the Model Minority Myth, and the Multicultural Canon.......................................1 Chapter 2 Necessary Omissions: Authenticity and Reading Reception in Kamala Markandaya’s Nectar in a Sieve ................................................................................................................40 Chapter 3 Beyond the Binaries of South Asian Diasporic Literature: Literary Academia and the Lay Reading Public in Indu Sundaresan’s The Feast of Roses and Lavanya Sankaran’s The Red Carpet .........................................................................................................................77 Chapter 4 The Problem of Placement and the Discourse of Choice in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and Chitra Divakaruni’s The Mistress of Spices ........................................137 Chapter 5 Identification, Readerly Desire, and Feminist Recuperation in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake .........................................................................................................................181 Epilogue ...........................................................................................................................220 Appendices.......................................................................................................................226 References........................................................................................................................230 vii List of Appendices Appendix 1: Interview Questions for NETSAP Book Club Interviewees............................................226 Appendix 2: List of Interviewees (Table 1)..........................................................................................228 Book Club Meeting Dates (Table 2)................................................................................229 viii Abstract Combining textual analysis, literary reception history, and qualitative sociological research, this study of a contemporary South Asian American book club historicizes and analyzes the various taste-making, ideological effects that multiple literary publics have on one another. Even as it documents how South Asian American readers strategically approach South Asian diasporic literature that purportedly mirrors their own cultural and diasporic experiences, this dissertation is a critical examination of the politics of self- recognition in an immigrant community, which oscillate between self-Orientalization and refutations of ethnic authenticity. Book club participants use South Asian diasporic literature to challenge and assert essentialized notions of gender, class