Main entry:

Hofmeyr, Isabel.

Title & Author:

Gandhi's printing press : experiments in slow reading / Isabel Hofmeyr.

Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. ; London, England : Harvard University Press, ©2013.

Description:

218 pages : illustrations, maps ; 22 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction : a Gandhian theory of text : reading, speed and sovereignty -- Printing cultures in the Indian Ocean world -- Gandhi's printing press : a biography -- Indian Opinion : texts in transit -- Binding pamphlets, summarizing India -- A Gandhian theory of reading : the reader as satyagrahi -- Conclusion : "no rights reserved" : reading and sovereignty then and now -- Appendix : pamphlets reprinted from Indian Opinion.

Summary:

At the same time that Gandhi, as a young lawyer in South Africa, began fashioning the tenets of his political philosophy, he was absorbed by a seemingly unrelated enterprise: creating a newspaper. Gandhi's Printing Press is an account of how this project, an apparent footnote to a titanic career, shaped the man who would become the world-changing Mahatma. Pioneering publisher, experimental editor, ethical anthologist--these roles reveal a Gandhi developing the qualities and talents that would later define him. Isabel Hofmeyr presents a detailed study of Gandhi's work in South Africa (1893-1914), when he was the some-time proprietor of a printing press and launched the periodical Indian Opinion. The skills Gandhi honed as a newspaperman--distilling stories from numerous sources, circumventing shortages of type--influenced his spare prose style. Operating out of the colonized Indian Ocean world, Gandhi saw firsthand how a global empire depended on the rapid transmission of information over vast distances. He sensed that communication in an industrialized age was becoming calibrated to technological tempos. But he responded by slowing the pace, experimenting with modes of reading and writing focused on bodily, not mechanical, rhythms. Favoring the use of hand-operated presses, he produced a newspaper to contemplate rather than scan, one more likely to excerpt Thoreau than feature easily glossed headlines. Gandhi's Printing Press illuminates how the concentration and self-discipline inculcated by slow reading, imbuing the self with knowledge and ethical values, evolved into satyagraha, truth-force, the cornerstone of Gandhi's revolutionary idea of nonviolent resistance.

ISBN:

9780674072794 (alk. paper)
0674072790 (alk. paper)

Subject:

Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948 Political and social views.
Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948.
Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand 1869-1948
Indian opinion (Durban, South Africa)
Indian opinion (Newspaper)
Reading Political aspects.
Newspaper presses South Africa History.
Newspaper publishing South Africa History.
Printing industry Indian Ocean Region History.
East Indians Attitudes.
Lecture Aspect politique.
Rotatives de presse Afrique du Sud Histoire.
Entreprises de presse Afrique du Sud Histoire.
Industries graphiques Indien, Région de l'océan Histoire.
Indiens (Habitants de l'Inde) Attitudes.
British colonies.
Newspaper presses.
Newspaper publishing.
Political and social views.
Printing industry.
Public opinion.
Zeitungsverleger
Great Britain Colonies Public opinion.
Grande-Bretagne Colonies Opinion publique.
Indian Ocean Region.
South Africa.
Südafrika

Form/genre:

History.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 282906
Call No.: BIB 220775
Status: Available