Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-271) and index
Introduction: Aporias of modernity -- Fractured frames: imperial parallax and disjointed time -- Commodity and sublimity: mimesis of the immaterial -- Romanticism's horizons, or the transmission of critique -- Atmospherics of imperialism: Benjamin's sublime -- Neo-epic constellation: out of British India -- Hali's transvaluation of modernity: allegories of Marsiya -- Iqbal, or the Sturm und Drang of late colonial India: resemblances of pure content -- Utility and culture: modern subjectivity and Hindi neo-traditional aesthetics -- Epilogue: Melancholic ornament: TV Ramayana, nostalgia, and kitsch as counter-Enlightenment
