Decoding history in archives a critical study of catachresis of land body and subject in selected historical works of William Dalrymple

Abstract

The thesis aims to deconstruct how meanings (of the land, the body and subject) are decoded and re-coded in the archives, and through the archives, and are communicated to the readers in an interpretative form by the historian. In the texts taken up for study the historian is seen studying the ancient space and the space of the archives with his refined reconstructive tools, using a kind of vocabulary laden with sweeping generalities. The main objective is to understand that we as readers should never forget, that even when this reality reaches us from the dust, it is still having dust on it the dust of cultural meanings, for evidence is heavily freighted with the cultural biases of the historian and his research. It becomes imperative for us as readers to decode the deductive rationality of the author which is coded heavily with his self-driven belief systems. newlineMy project therefore attempts to read his-story other (wise), and it also attempts to recuperate the catachresis done on the part of this writer/historian (William Dalrymple) in decoding the history of land, body and the subject in/from the archives. newline