Tithi Bhattacharya is Associate Professor of History at Purdue University, author of The Sentinels of Culture: Class, Education, and the Colonial Intellectual in Bengal, 1848–1885, and coauthor of Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto.

• A Note on Conventions  viiAcknowledgments  ixIntroduction. Uncanny Histories: Ghosts, Fear, and Reason in Colonial Bengal  11. “Undisciplined, Playful and Yet Bhadra”: Old Ghosts and Their Advocates in an Age of Enlightenment  222. The New Spirits  553. Deadly Spaces: Haunted Homes and Haunting Histories  824. Enacting Ghosts: New Spirits, New Rituals  975. National Ghosts, Ghostly Nations  130Conclusion. Thinking about Ends and Beginnings  155Notes  159Bibliography  187Index  203

“The best account I have yet read of the enchanted and uncanny world of stories and beliefs that Bengalis like myself grew up in.” - Amitav Ghosh “This strikingly original study returns ghosts, long unjustly neglected, back to their rightful place at the heart of the history of Bengali colonial modernity. By a fascinating series of literary, historical, and theoretical analyses, it reveals colonial reason’s obsession with the irrational and presents the narrative of replacement of decorous magical ghosts of premodernity by new forms of the uncanny and monstrous lodged in the disenchanted structures of capitalist economies and modern nation-states.” - Sudipta Kaviraj, Professor of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, Columbia University

Tithi Bhattacharya is Associate Professor of History at Purdue University, author of The Sentinels of Culture: Class, Education, and the Colonial Intellectual in Bengal, 1848–1885, and coauthor of Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto.

• A Note on Conventions  viiAcknowledgments  ixIntroduction. Uncanny Histories: Ghosts, Fear, and Reason in Colonial Bengal  11. “Undisciplined, Playful and Yet Bhadra”: Old Ghosts and Their Advocates in an Age of Enlightenment  222. The New Spirits  553. Deadly Spaces: Haunted Homes and Haunting Histories  824. Enacting Ghosts: New Spirits, New Rituals  975. National Ghosts, Ghostly Nations  130Conclusion. Thinking about Ends and Beginnings  155Notes  159Bibliography  187Index  203

“The best account I have yet read of the enchanted and uncanny world of stories and beliefs that Bengalis like myself grew up in.” - Amitav Ghosh “This strikingly original study returns ghosts, long unjustly neglected, back to their rightful place at the heart of the history of Bengali colonial modernity. By a fascinating series of literary, historical, and theoretical analyses, it reveals colonial reason’s obsession with the irrational and presents the narrative of replacement of decorous magical ghosts of premodernity by new forms of the uncanny and monstrous lodged in the disenchanted structures of capitalist economies and modern nation-states.” - Sudipta Kaviraj, Professor of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, Columbia University

Tithi Bhattacharya is Associate Professor of History at Purdue University, author of The Sentinels of Culture: Class, Education, and the Colonial Intellectual in Bengal, 1848–1885, and coauthor of Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto.

• A Note on Conventions  viiAcknowledgments  ixIntroduction. Uncanny Histories: Ghosts, Fear, and Reason in Colonial Bengal  11. “Undisciplined, Playful and Yet Bhadra”: Old Ghosts and Their Advocates in an Age of Enlightenment  222. The New Spirits  553. Deadly Spaces: Haunted Homes and Haunting Histories  824. Enacting Ghosts: New Spirits, New Rituals  975. National Ghosts, Ghostly Nations  130Conclusion. Thinking about Ends and Beginnings  155Notes  159Bibliography  187Index  203

“The best account I have yet read of the enchanted and uncanny world of stories and beliefs that Bengalis like myself grew up in.” - Amitav Ghosh “This strikingly original study returns ghosts, long unjustly neglected, back to their rightful place at the heart of the history of Bengali colonial modernity. By a fascinating series of literary, historical, and theoretical analyses, it reveals colonial reason’s obsession with the irrational and presents the narrative of replacement of decorous magical ghosts of premodernity by new forms of the uncanny and monstrous lodged in the disenchanted structures of capitalist economies and modern nation-states.” - Sudipta Kaviraj, Professor of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, Columbia University