Metallic Modern : : Everyday Machines in Colonial Sri Lanka / / Nira Wickramasinghe.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Berghahn Books Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
• VerfasserIn: Wickramasinghe, Nira,
• Place / Publishing House: New York; , Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2014]; ©2014
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (192 p.)

Everyday life in the Crown colony of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) was characterized by a direct encounter of people with modernity through the consumption and use of foreign machines – in particular, the Singer sewing machine, but also the gramophone, tramway, bicycle and varieties of industrial equipment. The ‘metallic modern’ of the 19th and early 20th century Ceylon encompassed multiple worlds of belonging and imagination; and enabled diverse conceptions of time to coexist through encounters with Siam, the United States and Japan as well as a new conception of urban space in Colombo. Metallic Modern describes the modern as it was lived and experienced by non-elite groups – tailors, seamstresses, shopkeepers, workers – and suggests that their idea of the modern was nurtured by a changing material world.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Preface and Acknowledgements -- Introduction. Exploring Sri Lanka’s Modern -- Chapter 1. Following the Singer Sewing Machine -- Chapter 2. Creating a Market Imaginary -- Chapter 3. Paths to a Buddhist Modern -- Chapter 4. The Gramophone -- Chapter 5. An Asian Modern -- Chapter 6. Trams, Cars, Bicycles -- Chapter 7. A Tailor’s Tale and Machines in the Home -- Chapter 8. Working like Machines -- Conclusion. Metallic Modern -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Index