Only materialist historiography reconnects canonized texts to their production conditions.
Evidence
Literary and cultural writings which then address those documents of High Canonicity replicate the methods of both literary aestheticism and speculative thought in detaching the documents from their historical locations and the determinate conditions of their production, in order to contemplate them as detached moments in which the Indian spirit sets out to delight the senses, instruct the mind and satisfy the soul’s inexhaustible yearning for lassitudinous metaphysic. Only in the more materialist school of modern Indian historiography, and in writings which have emerged under the influence of that school of historians of Ancient India, do we find sustained efforts to lift such fog. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 1149
Categorization
Category: Connection Points
- ADDENDUM: Directly parallels the core claim of the On Sacrifice essay about ritual-religious interpretive frames obscuring material conditions, and how classic texts require secular/materialist reading.
- XREF: Parallels Ahmad’s broader In Theory project: materialist reading counters both literary aestheticism and discourse-centrism (Said/Spivak line) that detach texts from production conditions.