1. Lecture Code: PS_L.4
ENGL 559: Postcolonial Studies UNIT 1: KEY CONCEPTS “Introduction” by Shirley Chew
Min Pun, PhD, Associate Professor
Dept of English, PN Campus
Pokhara
30 Sept. 2018

2. About the Book: Postcolonial Approaches to Literature
Taking an innovative and multi-disciplinary approach to literature from 1947 to the present day, the book is an important guide for anyone seeking an understanding of the intellectual contexts of postcolonial literature and culture.
The book brings together 10 original essays from leading international scholars that explain the ideas and practises that emerged from the dismantling of European empires.
So 10 essays provide 10 different postcolonial approaches to literature and culture. They are historical and epistemological in nature.

3. Contd…
The book also explores the ways in which these ideas and practices influenced the period's major concerns such as race, culture, and identity; literary and cultural translations; and the politics of resistance.
The book covers the fields of identity studies, orality and literacy, nationalisms, feminism, anthropology and cultural criticism, the politics of rewriting, new geographies, publishing and marketing, translation studies.

4. 1. Framing Identities by David Richards
In this chapter, David Richards has elaborated Fanon’s theories of colonial and postcolonial identity.
Fanon has developed terms like “the fact of blackness” and “Negritude” to formulate his theories in his books, Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961).
Theorists and critics who practised and further developed Fanon’s theories of (post)colonial identity are Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha and Gayatri C. Spivak.

5. 2. Orality and Literacy. part 1: India by G. N. Devy
2. Orality and Literacy part 1: India by G.N. Devy part 2: South Africa by Duncan Brown
Both G.N. Devy and Duncan Brown deal with the vitality and significance of indigenous oral traditions that have been ‘important features of life’ since the beginning of human communities in the regions.
Since the postcolonial theory deals with the ‘centre-periphery’ model of the world, both the essayists argue that the oral traditions and performing genres have been undervalued by the metropolitan styles of the colonizers.

6. 3. The Politics of Rewriting by C.L Innes
In this chapter, C.L Innes considers postcolonial literary writing as an act of rewriting. This has drawn attention to the discussion of postcolonial writers and their relation to their predecessors.
For example, the works of Salman Rushdie, Rudyard Kipling and E.M. Forster are rewriting.
This discussion has raised the issues such as ‘ authority and authenticity’ and ‘representation and self-representation’ of the postcolonial texts that go hand in hand with rewriting.
So she claims that the rewriting is the enactment of the writers’ identity.

7. 4. Postcolonial Translations by Susan Bassnett
In this chapter, Susan Bassnett has argued translation as an act of rewriting. This has played a crucial role in the reclaiming and re-evaluating of a people’s language and literature.
This discussion raises a question: Is the translated work bound to stay faithful to the original?
Here, the central intersection of translation studies and postcolonial theory is that of power relations. So translation is not as loss but re-creation of other cultures.

8. 5. Nation and Nationalisms by John McLeod
In this chapter, John McLeod discusses the idea of nation that rose after the second world war and became the main issue in postcolonial literature and criticism.
Postcolonial theorists and writers attracted more towards anti-colonial (independent) movements that helped develop theories of nationalism.
So “nationalism” is one of the most significant political ideas of the postcolonial period that opened up the ‘vital cultural space’ in the debate.

9. 6. Feminism and Womanism by Nana Wilson-Tagoe
In the postcolonial era, both feminism and womanism have intervened in the discourses of resistance, identity, subjectivity and difference.
For instance, Nana Wilson-Tagoe, in her essay, claims that although feminism made a great impact on the postcolonial discourse in the 1960s and 1970s, the emergence of ‘womanism’ in the 1980s and 1990s gave a counter-discourse to the mainstream feminism (which is considered to be white’s).

10. 7. Cartography and Visualization by David Howard
Cartography is the study of maps and visualization is any technique for creating images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message. So maps, through visual imagery, has been an effective way to communicate both abstract and concrete ideas since the dawn of humanity.
In this chapter, using geographies, David Howard has analyzed the colonial rule as means of territorial and economic exploitation, psychological repression, and epistemic violence.
In effect, resistance to colonial domination took the widespread physical conflicts after the first world war, e.g. slave revolts, Maori War, Indian Independent Wars, etc.

11. 8. Marginality: Representations of Subarnternity, Aboriginality and Race by Stephen Morton
In this chapter, Stephen Morton deals with one of the pressing issues of postcolonial literature, that is, marginality.
Thus, postcolonial theory is the study of marginality. The marginality may be in the form of subalterns, aboriginals, or in terms of race.
So postcolonial theorists and writers are always connected to ‘a struggle for social and political empowerment’ and always face different kinds of oppression such as colonial rule, hegemony of dominant societies and neo-liberal globalization.

12. 9. Anthropology and Postcolonialism by Will Rea
In this chapter, Will Rea examines the connections between anthropology and postcolonialism.
Anthropology is the study of humans, its behavior and societies in the past and present. In this sense, postcolonial studies is the study of colonization (past) and the post-independence societies (present).
Like in anthropology, postcolonial studies is the scientific study of the origins of humans, how we have changed over the years, and how we relate to each other, both within our own culture and with people from other cultures.

13. 10. Publishing Histories by Gail Low
In this chapter, Gail Low has studied the role of ‘production, emergence and dissemination of national and regional literatures’ that have marked the decolonizing and post-independence periods.
He claims that publishing of postcolonial texts was not free. But his study found that Caribbean magazines provided publishing opportunities for local writing. He also found that Oxford University Press published the new works by new writers such as postcolonial writers like Soyinka, Ezekiel, Achebe, etc.

14. Conclusion
“Introduction” by Chew Shirley needs to be understood as a collection of abstracts of 10 essays included in the book.
This chapter is a guide to understand the essays by different theorists and critics.
Most importantly, the book provides 10 different disciplines and perspectives to illustrate the literature and culture of post- independence periods. For instance, each chapter provides a different postcolonial approach to literature.

15. Associate Professor, Dept of English Tribhuvan University
Min Pun, PhD
Associate Professor, Dept of English
Tribhuvan University
Prithvi Narayan Campus, Pokhara
Website: