Transcript POSTCOLONIALISM THEORY

POSTCOLONIALIST
CRITICISM
*Material gratefully adapted from Gemma Costa’s 2010
“Postcolonialism” via Slideshare
Post… what?
Colonialism:
An extension of a nation’s rule over territory
beyond its borders
A population that is subjected to the
political domination of another population
o Militaristic ( the physical conquest and
occupation of territories)
o Civilizational (the conquest and occupation of
minds, selves, and cultures)
Scramble for Africa
• Slave trade ended 1805, replaced by other trade
• Late 1880s, European countries suddenly wanted colonies in
Africa:
o To build national prestige
o To gain raw materials for factories
o To gain markets for manufactured goods
o To gain mineral wealth and prevent other European
countries from acquiring such wealth
• Europeans cooperated among themselves and divided Africa
up:
o Better medicines
o Better guns
Postcolonial Literary
Theory
• Postcolonial Literature – body of literature written by
authors with roots in countries once occupied by
European nations
• Postcolonial Theory – intellectual inquiry exploring
and interrogating the situation of colonized people
during and after colonization.
Characteristics of
Postcolonialism
• Anti-imperialist in character
• Post (prefix) implies opposition and chronological
sequence
• Denotes period after colony has become
independent
• Connotes political and moral attitudes opposing
colonization
Cultural Roots of Postcolonial
Literature
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South Asia
Africa
The Carribbean
Australia
New Zealand
Canada
Ireland
Postcolonial Theory
• Raises and explores historical, cultural, political, and
moral issues surrounding the establishment and
disintegration of colonies and the empires they
fueled.
Most classical literature
comes from the voices of
DWG’s (dead white guys),
and that means it’s
usually written from the
perspective of
colonialism.
The ugly reality of colonialist views…
¤ the historical story whereby
the “West” attempts
systematically to cancel or
negate the cultural difference
and value of the “non-West”
(Leela Gandhi,1998)
This makes it “okay” to colonize!
Postcolonialism?
¤ Acknowledges an evolution in academia to
consider the untold stories of the oppressed.
¤ Postcolonialism = a literary lens! The focus
of this lens is upon exposing the injustices
suffered by oppressed groups and the
contrast between their worldviews/the
oppressors’.
Topics and terms for the
postcolonial scholar
-Social Darwinism
-Eurocentrism
-White Man’s Burden
* What was thought to be an obligation to
“civilize” non-European people
-Racism
-Hegemony
-Exploitation
-Counter-narrative
-Cultural borderlands
Postcolonialist Criticism: The Literary Lens
►Examining colonizers/colonized relationship in
literature
■ Is the work pro/anti colonialist? Why?
■ Does the text reinforce or resist colonialist
ideology?
► Types of oppression
■ What tools do the colonizers
use to demean or oppress the
colonized?
■ What psychological aftermath
are the colonized people left
with?
■ Considering the present as well as the past
■ Is the author using the language of a
colonizer?
Questions to prompt
postcolonial analysis:
• How does the literary text, explicitly or allegorically,
represent various aspects of colonial oppression?
• What does the text reveal about the problematics of
post-colonial identity, including the relationship
between personal and cultural identity within cultural
borderlands?
• What person(s) or groups does the work identify as
"other" or stranger? How are such persons/groups
described and treated?
• What does the text reveal about the politics and/or
psychology of anti-colonialist resistance?
Questions to prompt
postcolonial analysis:
• What does the text reveal about the operations of
cultural difference - the ways in which race, religion,
class, cultural beliefs, and customs combine to form
individual identity - in shaping our perceptions of
ourselves, others, and the world in which we live?
• How does a literary text in the Western canon reinforce
or undermine colonialist ideology through its
representation of colonization and/or its inappropriate
silence about colonized peoples? (Tyson 378-379)
Warnings for the amateur
• Don’t be afraid to be critical of an author’s portrayal of
race. If it makes you uncomfortable, there’s probably
something wrong with it.
• Do not get sucked in to “positive stereotyping.” Casting
the colonized person as a purely innocent, angelic
culture to be pitied is almost as bad as demonizing.
That’s not acknowledging complexity.
• If you are white, this legacy can be difficult to accept.
But it’s the history you inherited, so learn to deal with it
now.
• Any text, even one that doesn’t seem to be “about”
race/culture, can be examined from a postcolonial lens.