00000nam##2200000#a#4500162463SLIM2120190114124900.0190114s 0000 00eng dBorah, AbikalPluralising the NarrativeReconfiguring ‘Vernacular Modernism’ in Assamese Literary CultureBorah, AbikalSouth Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies Vol. 41, No.3; Sep 2018: p.551-566The term ‘vernacular modernism’ came into being amidst proliferating conceptual frameworks to explain the diverse paradigms of modernity as a global process. More specifically, ‘vernacular modernism’ as a category of analysis emerged in an effort to democratise the term ‘modern’ with respect to non-metropolitan cultural formations. However, this conceptual category does not necessarily encompass the complex elements of all non-metropolitan vernacular cultural formations; rather, it offers a complementary gesture towards a universal history of modernity. Historicising a debate on modernism in Assamese literary culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this paper grapples with the problematic that ‘vernacular modernism’ as a conceptual category represents.HistoriographyCosmopolitanismHybridityPost-Colonial TheoryLiterary HistoryColonial ModernityAssamese LiteratureVernacular ModernismBorah, AbikalNJENGRM162463Y