Introduction: Aporias of modernity
Fractured frames: imperial parallax and disjointed time
Commodity and sublimity: mimesis of the immaterial
Romanticism's horizons, or the transmission of critique
Atmospherics of imperialism: Benjamin's sublime
Neo-epic constellation: out of British India
Hali's transvaluation of modernity: allegories of Marsiya
Iqbal, or the Sturm und Drang of late colonial India: resemblances of pure content
Utility and culture: modern subjectivity and Hindi neo-traditional aesthetics
Epilogue: Melancholic ornament: TV Ramayana, nostalgia, and kitsch as counter-Enlightenment.