Transcript here - Textual Analysis and Textual Theory

Session Six
Søren Hattesen Balle
English
Department of Culture and Identity
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Introduction: the summary assignment for
today and next time
Introduction: today’s session
Presentation:
cultural studies, postcolonial studies, postcolonialism
 magic realism
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Class room discussion:
Salman Rushdie, ”The Prophet’s Hair” (1981)
 the thematic functions of postcolonial and magic realist
elements in Rushdie’s story
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the literary text vs. the cultural text
high literature vs. products of popular
culture, mass culture, media culture,
consumer culture, minority culture
autonomous aesthtic whole vs. ’signifying
practices’ (of modern culture): meaning,
identity, representation, and agency
complexity, beauty, insight, universality,
value vs. the functioning of cultural
productions/the construction of cultural
identities
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the literary text studied as a cultural ’signifying
practice’ (just like any other cultural object)
the literary text expresses or represents culture vs. the
literary text creates or constructs culture
culture is the source or cause of literary representations
(foreground < background) vs. culture is the effect of
literary representations (foreground > background)
the literary text has an ideological or politcal funtion
the literary text as oppressive or subversive (of oppressive
cultural forms)?
the relevance for postcolonial literatures: English
language and literature as expressions of colonialism
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Former colonies are independent and free of
colonial rule (postcolonial)
However, former colonies remain dependent
politically, economically, socially, ideologically,
linguistically, aesthetically, etc. (neo-colonial)
Thus, former colonies are hybrids, mongrels,
and in-betweens (post-colonial)
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Ngugi
Return to ’harmony’ by transcending colonial
alienation and embracing your original culture
and language (Gikuyu)
”Language carries culture …(2538)
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John Agard: embracing the languages of the
colonised (West Indian Creole, British Guiana)
and the coloniser (the Queen’s English).
Writing broken English is an attempt at
breaking English linguistically, aesthetically,
politically, etc…)
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John Agard, ”Listen Mr Oxford don” (1985)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwyTthdg7w
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Rushdie: Embracing English as a global
language (”The English language ceased to be
the sole possession of the English some time
ago”(2541)), but chutnifying it, spicing it up
according to how it is used.
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‘My’ India has always been based on ideas of
multiplicity, pluralism, hybridity: ideas to
which the ideologies of the communalists are
diametrically opposed. To my mind the
defining image of India is the crowd, and a
crowd is by its very nature superabundant,
heterogeneous, many things at once. (2852)
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Multiplicity vs. uniformity
Pluralism vs. essentialism, nationalism
Hybridity vs. purity
Heterogeneity vs. homogeneity
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Creole identity
A story about colonialism
Images of colonialism
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”These writers interweave, in an ever-shifting
pattern, a sharply etched realism in
representing ordinary events and descriptive
details together with fantastic and dreamlike
elements, as well as materials derived from
myth and fairy tales” (Abrams)
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Is "The Prophet's Hair" a work of magic realism
or postcolonialism or both?
Elements of realism, of magic? Why and how
are they used?
Elements of postcolonialism: multiplicity,
pluralism, hybridity. Why and how are they
used?