| Summary/Abstract |
Mimesis is a key theme in scholarly discussions of conventions of representation. The crucial role mimesis plays in behaviour formation has been noted by European theorists such as Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin and Reinhart Koselleck. However, in post-colonial discussions of historiography, mimesis rarely appears as a concept deserving of sustained scholarly attention. Addressing this lacuna, I discuss here mimeticist aspects of anti-colonial historiography. For this purpose, I analyse the historiographical agenda of the Hindu nationalist author, Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay (1838–94). I demonstrate that as Chattopadhyay attempted to promote a mimetic relationship with the pre-colonial past, he also undermined, at times, the nineteenth-century principles of factual history.
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