ABSTRACT

Homi Bhabha’s essay ‘Signs Taken for Wonders: Questions of ambivalence and authority under a tree outside Delhi, May 1817’ first published in 1985 and reprinted in his influential book The Location of Culture (1994) is one of the most important essays in postcolonial theory. Its key coinages – ‘hybridity’, ‘sly civility’, ‘mimicry’ – have had such a profound impact that they are now part of the theory’s essential components. One of the more incisive critiques of the essay came from the Edinburgh textual critic and historian of books Bill Bell who took to task the historical evidence on which the essay draws its archival insights. In this essay I turn to both Bhabha’s essay and Bell’s historical excavation to show Bhabha’s continued relevance and address Bell’s turn to history through Indian readings of the same archive in the vernacular.

摘要

霍米·巴巴 (Homi Bhabha) 的散文《奇迹的标志：1817 年 5 月德里郊外一棵树下的矛盾和权威问题》于 1985 年首次出版，并在他颇具影响力的著作《文化的位置》中重印(1994) 是后殖民理论中最重要的论文之一。它的关键造词——“混合”、“狡猾的文明”、“模仿”——产生了如此深远的影响，以至于它们现在已成为该理论的基本组成部分。对这篇文章的更深刻的批评之一来自爱丁堡的文本评论家和书籍历史学家比尔·贝尔，他对这篇文章的档案见解所依据的历史证据提出了挑战。在这篇文章中，我转向巴巴的文章和贝尔的历史发掘，以展示巴巴的持续相关性，并通过印度对同一档案的白话文解读来解决贝尔转向历史的问题。