Ritu Birla
Director, South Asian Studies; Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Toronto
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(Special Issue of the journal Public Culture, 23:2, Spring 2011; co-authored with Faisal Devji) Addressing the recent revival of interest in Gandhi among scholars, artists and activists, this special issue of Public Culture guest edited by Ritu Birla and Faisal Devji considers Gandhian thought in its robust itinerancy, as a global formation and moveable practice, as well as in its world-making power. Based on interdisciplinary conversations across Johannesburg and Mumbai on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of Hind Swaraj, the articles here wrench Gandhi from hagiography and the nation-state, and map new sightings of Gandhi in history, film, visual culture, and contemporary politics. Itineraries of Self-Rule engages the transnational contexts of Gandhi’s early thought, its inward-looking ethical terrain, and political performativity to consider new channels for reading its current afterlives and emergent forms of global politics more broadly.