In the Diasporic Sublime: Exile of the Body, Home, and Food within Politics of Migration, Dr. Shreya Bera offers a profound exploration of the intersection between postcolonial identity, migration, and the aesthetic theory of the sublime. The book challenges conventional theories of the sublime by engaging with German traditions of aesthetics, particularly Immanuel Kant’s formulation in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (1790). Dr. Bera reinterprets the Kantian sublime, arguing that the female migrant body has long been excluded from the category of the sublime and that it is only through the postcolonial confrontation with fear, agency, and power that this notion can be redefined.
This monograph focuses on the selected works of Bharati Mukherjee, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni to critically highlight the often-overlooked impact of migration on Indian American women and their quest for sovereignty, hence the sublime.