What I've been writing, reading, and browsing (academic edition)

My book, Technology and Nationalism in India: Cultural Negotiations from Colonialism to Cyberspace, was published a few months ago by Cambria Press. I'm delighted with the final product. Having worked for a bit in academic publishing many years ago in India, and having liaised with several academic presses to bring out edited and single author volumes as a research assistant whilst in graduate school, I have a pretty good idea of the enormous amount of work and care that go into bringing out a book. It was a wonderful experience working on the book with everyone at Cambria Press-- thanks!! The book is out in the world now, and I hope it is treated fairly. The more time I spend in the academy, the more convinced I am that the single most important academic virtue is fairness.

While reviewing three fine books on the Indian railways, Laura Bear's Lines of the Nation, Ian. J. Kerr's, Engines of Change, and Kerr's edited volume, 27 Down: New Departures in Indian Railway Studies, I discovered the Indian Railways Fan Club website.

If you have taken even one trip on the Indian railways and have been intoxicated, even if ever so slightly, by the romance of rail travel in India, do spend some time enjoying the delights of the site. And if you are in Delhi and have some time to spare, visit the National Rail Museum, in Chanakyapuri.

I managed to keep a toehold in literature, with an entry on I. Allan Sealy for the Blackwell Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century World Fiction, which should be out in 2010. Sealy is a criminally underrated and under-read reader, in my opinon. As an inveterate list maker, I would rank his book, The Everest Hotel, among the top five works of post-independence Indian fiction.

I am in the enjoyable stage of initial research for my next single author research project, which is about failures of communication in different theaters of the modern, from the colonial modern to the global modern. Along with other blog posts, I am going to try using this space as a research notebook for recording interesting things I encounter of relevance to the project.