Podcast Summary:

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode: Rose Casey, "Aesthetic Impropriety: Property Law and Postcolonial Style" (Fordham UP, 2025)
Host: Dr. Arnab Duta Roy
Guest: Professor Rose Casey
Date: September 12, 2025

Overview

In this episode of New Books in Literary Studies, Dr. Arnab Duta Roy interviews Professor Rose Casey about her new book, Aesthetic Impropriety: Property Law and Postcolonial Style. The conversation explores the central thesis of the book, which investigates the role of literature and aesthetics in anti-colonial liberation, the enduring influence of British property law on postcolonial societies, and the ways in which legal systems and cultural production can become sites of resistance and justice. The dialogue traverses the nexus of law, literature, activism, and history, with Professor Casey elaborating on the concept of "aesthetic impropriety" as both a method of critique and a vision for emancipatory futures.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Intellectual Journey and Motivations

[03:12] – [06:24]

• Casey is "obsessed with literature's transformative potential," not just for empathy but for fundamentally reshaping thoughts and sensibilities.
• Her interdisciplinary approach foregrounds literature’s generative capacity and justice as central concerns.
• She acknowledges the postcolonial as an enduring, necessary framework for understanding global inequality:

  "We can't not understand our contemporary moment as anything but postcolonial... colonialism's endurance, impact, and also ongoing status." (Casey, [05:18])

2. Main Interventions of the Book

[06:24] – [16:36]

• The book claims to be about aesthetics, property law, and postcolonial style, but fundamentally, it addresses anti-colonial liberation and the role of literature in legal change.
• Property law, as instituted by British colonialism, persists globally, shaping land, identity, and racial relations. Drawing on theorists like Ann Laura Stoler, the book asserts these histories "remain in the present" ([09:24]).
• Property is defined expansively—not just as land, but in terms of inheritance, intellectual property, environmental law, and more.
• Literary works don’t merely reflect but can anticipate, inspire, or help generate legal reforms.

  "Novels and poetry and short stories are really materially changing the world that we live in. Not purely by activist... means, but because the ideas that they're exploring and the way they're exploring those ideas aesthetically is all part of this broader discursive process..." (Casey, [13:46])

Notable Works Discussed:

• Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things (link to inheritance law in India)
• Legal contexts: South African intellectual property, Nigerian and Indian inheritance/environmental law, English admiralty law.

3. Conceptualizing "Aesthetic Impropriety"

[16:36] – [25:57]

• Aesthetic impropriety is a framework that simultaneously critiques colonial dispossession and affirms ongoing struggles for justice (racial, gender, ecological).
• The "im-" of "impropriety" denounces the premise of ownership/exclusion in property law, opting instead for openness, inclusion, and liberation.
• This idea is both a literary style—marked by experimentation, non-realist forms, and thematic disruption—and an undercurrent in legal reforms that embrace collectivity and equity.

  "The concept of impropriety is categorically non-proprietary. It is instead contradistinctively open... refusing the logics of proprietary ownership that English law cemented." (Casey, [18:34])

• Comparative aesthetic links are found across disparate postcolonial literary works: Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie, Ben Okri, Chigozie Obioma, Zoe Wicomb, M. NourbeSe Philip, etc.

4. Expanding Dispossession and Its Contemporary Legacies

[26:10] – [34:18]

• Casey extends "dispossession" beyond land to encompass environmental devastation, cultural erasure, and violence against ecosystems, cultures, and histories.
• Example: The Niger Delta’s environmental harms—originating from British colonial ordinances and carried forward through global capitalism—are cited as multispecies, racialized dispossession.

  "They're all of these complexities to dispossession that go far beyond having one's land taken away from them." ([30:45])

• Theoretical roots: Black studies, critical race theory, and Indigenous scholarship (citing Banda, Morton Robinson, Cheryl Harris, Sylvia Wynter).

5. Art, Law, and Hope as Radical Possibilities

[34:31] – [42:44]

• Casey recognizes the law as both a potential tool of oppression and a mechanism for justice—change is possible but slow and often needs to be pushed by activism and culture.
• Aesthetics isn’t just an elite or apolitical pursuit; it can foster "radical possibility" and catalyze gradual societal change:

  "Aesthetics can be a site of radical possibility, and postcolonial legal systems... can play a significant role in producing more just societies." ([35:27])

• Example: Artist Hugh Locke’s work on the Edward Colston statue in Bristol anticipated broader historical reckonings with colonial memory, showing how long-term artistic engagement can nurture political shifts.

  "Sometimes big change takes time, but art can be involved in that..." ([42:04])

6. Comparative Scope: India, Nigeria, South Africa, Black Atlantic

[42:44] – [48:12]

• The breadth of Casey’s study arises from the shared imposition and persistence of English law across these regions; each locality's cultural and historic differences are attended to, but comparative analysis is essential for justice-oriented scholarship.
• Shared colonial legal legacies become "nodes of solidarity" for global anti-colonial movements.
• The project highlights both ongoing oppression and tangible activist/legal coalitions—especially among Indigenous communities influencing global intellectual property regimes.

  "...My book identifies potential nodes of solidarity... making these coalitions visible facilitates future interjurisdictional work." ([46:20])

7. The Takeaway: Transformative Scholarship and the Value of Institutions

[50:25] – [52:24]

• Casey encourages readers to see aesthetics as an emancipatory force, to value comparative interdisciplinary scholarship, and to realize the importance of institutional support (time, resources, stable academic jobs) for such ambitious intellectual projects:

  "If one thing that people thought about was okay, this is the kind of book that requires universities to exist and to be funded and tenure track jobs to exist, that will be a good takeaway." (Casey, [52:09])

Memorable Quotes

• On Literature’s Power:
  "My research, my teaching, my intellectual life in general, I think a lot about generative critique and about literature's generative capacities, about the power of imagination, of thinking expansively and... with curiosity." (Casey, [04:07])

• On Defining Aesthetic Impropriety:
  "Aesthetic impropriety is at once confronting English law's role in dispossession and... a concept that allows us to recognize logics... working towards continued anti colonial liberation, racial justice, gender equity." (Casey, [17:49])

• On Hope in Justice:
  "I talk about the Niger Delta in my first chapter, and I work throughout the book towards a sense of hope and of achievements towards justice and equity being made. My final chapter is... about hope." (Casey, [34:31])

• On Enduring Colonial Legal Legacies:
  "These are all sites of a former British colonial domination, but also... shaped in fundamental and long lasting ways by English law." (Casey, [43:27])

• On Comparative Scholarship:
  "Making connections and doing comparative work helps us to see bigger pictures and also helps us to move towards more just societies." (Casey, [46:21])

Notable Moments with Timestamps

• Casey's Introduction to Her Academic Journey: [03:12–06:24]
• Explaining Main Interventions of the Book: [06:52–16:36]
• Deep Dive into Aesthetic Impropriety: [17:26–25:57]
• Environmental Harm Example (Niger Delta): [27:01–30:45]
• Discussion on Law as a Site of Oppression and Justice: [35:27–42:44]
• Comparative Scope and Global Solidarity: [42:44–48:40]
• Closing Reflections and Central Takeaway: [50:50–52:24]

Conclusion

This rich episode distills the vibrancy and urgency of Rose Casey’s argument: that literature and art are not passive reflections of suffering but powerful agents in the ongoing struggle for justice against entrenched colonial and legal legacies. Through the concept of "aesthetic impropriety," Casey provides both a diagnosis of global injustice and imaginative blueprints for transformative futures, demonstrating the intertwined destinies of law, art, and social change.