Disturbing Conventions: Decentering Thai Literary Cultures

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Disturbing Conventions draws the study of Thai literature out of the relative isolation that has to date impeded its participation in the wider field of comparative and world literature. Predominantly penned by Thai academics, the collection decentres Thai literary studies in order to move beyond the traditionalist, conservative concerns of the academy which have, until relatively recently, foreclosed the use of Western theory in the study of Thai literature. The book introduces new frames of analysis to the study of Thai literature to bring it into dialogue with debates in wider fields and the world beyond its national borders. As a result, Disturbing Conventions offers an essential contribution to the comparative study of world literature and Asian cultural studies.

Reviews

[The book] offers a unique collection of contemporary Thai literature and Thai society as a whole. . . .We must salute the talented editing work led by Rachel Harrison: the general introduction and introductions of each part are solid and particularly well documented and thoughtful. . . .Let us hope that this collection will quickly become an essential reference for those who want to study literature and Thai society. * Moussons *
Located at the crossroads of postcolonial studies, literary theory, and world literature, Disturbing Conventions opens out a fascinating field of contemporary literary production and theoretical reflection. This wide-ranging collection should be read by anyone interested in thinking freshly about the uses and transformations of global theory in a complex and contested local environment. -- David Damrosch, Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature, Harvard University
Disturbing Conventions challenges head on the conservative nationalist ideology that has dominated Thai literary studies, assembling for the first time in one volume many of the leading figures bringing critical theoretical perspectives to Thai cultural studies and comparative literature. Disturbing Conventions also opens new, much needed conversations in world literature by extending postcolonial analysis to locate the modern literatures of nominally independent Siam/Thailand in a semicolonial frame. In overturning entrenched views of the Thai canon, this book is a direct intervention in the culture wars being fought today in Thailand, where democratic openness and freedom of expression in media and the arts are threatened by reactionary politicians and draconian censorship laws. And in throwing down the gauntlet to postcolonial studies to incorporate semicolonial societies into a genuinely global critique of imperialism this book places modern Thai literature centre-stage in debates on the direction of 21st century critical theory. -- Peter Jackson, Professor of Thai Cultural Studies, Australian National University
Can a book change a critical cultureDisturbing Conventionsshows us how to: by showing how those conventions were formed in the first place, what they obscure or exclude, and the many ways in which they can be challenged. Through an extraordinarily lively critical conversation and pathbreaking analytical work,Disturbing Conventionspokes at taboos in Thai literary culture, unearths alternative genealogies, and suggests new methodologies and avenues of enquiry. A must read for anyone interested in critical Asian Studies,Disturbing Conventionsoffers exciting possibilities for comparative work in Cultural Studies. -- Francesca Orsini, Professor of Hindi and South Asian Literature, SOAS University of London

Author Bio

Rachel V. Harrison is a Reader in Thai Cultural Studies in the Department of South East Asia at SOAS, University of London. She has published widely on issues of gendered difference, sexuality, modern literature and cinema in Thailand as well as the comparative literature of South East Asia. She is the co-editor, in collaboration with Peter A. Jackson, of The Ambiguous Allure of the West: Traces of the Colonial in Thailand (Hong Kong University Press and Cornell University Press). She is also editor of the journal South East Asia Research.