1. Postcolonial Theory

2. Postcolonialism is an academic discipline
that comprises methods of intellectual
discourse that present analyses of, and
responses to, the cultural legacies of
colonialism and imperialism.

3. Commonwealth Literature
1960s – former colonies - produced literatures of their own in English
English Literature – mutating into literatures in English
Concentrated on ‘Meaning’ (Interpretation)
Liberal Humanism

4. Postcolonial Literatures
1980s – the term ‘Commonwealth Literature’ was not desired anymore when the former British colonies found that writers of the Colonizer (England) did not form a part of this body of literature.
Hence, a new term, Post-colonial literature was coined to suggest the decentring of colonial literature.

5. Postcolonialism - Focus
Cultural displacement – its consequences for personal and communal identities
How the displaced have defended themselves
Employs a non-Eurocentric perspective
Questions the values that supported Imperialism

6. Originating Texts The Wretched of the Earth (1961)-Frantz Fanon
Orientalism (1978) – Edward Said
The Empire Writes Back (1989)- Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin

7. Characteristics of Postcolonial Theory
An awareness of representation of the non-European as exotic or immoral ‘other’
Linguistic deference
Emphasis on identity as ‘doubled’ or ‘hybrid’ or unstable
Cross-cultural interactions
Special and distinctive regional characteristics

8. Three phases
Adopt Phase
Adapt Phase
Adept Phase

9. The discourse of Postcolonialism is not
about the former colonizer, but about the
colonized Other.
For the first time the non-West is placed at
the centre of the dominant discourse of the
western academy

10. Time and locale Ella Shohat’s question: “When exactly
does the post-colonial begin?”
Arif Dirlik’s answer: When Third world
intellectuals have arrived in First World
academe.

11. The Empire Writes Back
“… the literature of African countries, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Caribbean countries, India, Malaysia, Malta, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Pacific island countries and Sri lanka are all postcolonial literatures.”

12. “The literature of the USA should also be
placed in this category. Perhaps because
of its current position of power, and neo-
colonizing role it has played its
postcolonial nature has not been generally
recognized.’

13. Edward Said (1935-2003) A Palestinian-American literary theoretician
Professor of English & Comparative Literature at Columbia University
Founding figure of post-colonialism

14. Orientalism (1978) A critique of how through the ages,
western texts have represented the
East (Orient)
Works of literature, political tracts,
journalistic texts, travel books,
religious and philosophical studies

15. These writings form a Foucaultian Discourse – a loose system of statements and claims that constitute a field of supposed knowledge
Although seemingly interested in knowledge, such discourses always establish relationships of power
Serving Hegemonic purposes

16. Hegemony (Cultural)
Term adopted from Antonio Gramsci Domination by consent The way the ruling class oppresses other classes with their approval Velvet domination

17. Orientalism has served two purposes:
It has legitimized western expansionism
and imperialism in the eyes of western governments
It has worked to convince the ‘natives’ that
western culture represented universal
civilization

18. West Orient 1.Centre 2.Superior 3.Masculine
4.Enlightened, rational, entrepreneurial, disciplined
5.Democratic, progressive
Orient
1.Marginal ‘Other’
2.Inferior
3.Feminine
4.Irrational, passive, undisciplined, sensual
5.Primitive

19. Homi K. Bhabha (1949- ) Indian Postcolonial theorist
Professor of English and American
Literature & Language at Harvard
University

20. What happens in the cultural
interaction between the
colonizer and the colonized?

21. Aime Cesaire
Discourse on Colonialism (1955)
No human contact
Relation of domination and submission

22. Colonizers’ Point of View:
More benign
They remain their civilized and disciplined European selves even in the most trying circumstances
Their presence affects the natives (not the reverse)

23. Bhabha: The encounter affects both
Colonialism- a radically unsettling, affective experience of marginality
Indeterminacy and fragmentation
Lacan’s views of the way in which identity gets constructed

24. Three Stages (proposed by Lacan)
The Imaginary Stage
The Mirror Stage
The Symbolic Stage

25. Identity – inherently unstable
The Colonizer partly constructs his identity through ‘his’ interaction with the Colonized
Identity of the Colonizer cannot be separated from the identity of the Colonized
The Colonizer’s identity – differential, a meaning generated by difference

26. Racial Stereotyping
Construes not only those who are stereotyped but also the stereotyper
Continuing uncertainty in the stereotyper
Has to convince himself of the truthfulness of the stereotype

27. Mimicry
The always slightly alien and distorted way in which the Colonized, either out of choice or duress, repeats the colonizer’s ways and discourse
The Colonizer sees himself in a mirror that distorts his own identity
Also a sly weapon of anti-colonial civility, a mixture of deference and disobedience

28. Colonizer’s language – always subject to
the effects of Derridean ‘difference’, and is
therefore never fully under his control
Colonial power – always under the threat
of destabilization

29. Bhabha sees movements in the interaction between the Colonizer and the Colonized going both ways
It is not just the noisy command of colonial authority
Nor the silent repression of native tradition
But a colonial Hybrid

30. A fusion of cultural forms that
Confirms the power of the colonial presence
Also unsettles the mimetic or narcissistic demands of colonial power

31. Hybridity – a kind of negotiation
(political and cultural) between
the colonizer and the colonized

32. Marxist and Feminist critics: There cannot
be a generalized encounter.
The differences between the social
classes and sex must be paid serious
attention

33. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak(1942- )
Indian theorist, philosopher & Professor at Columbia University
Famous Essay: Can the Subaltern Speak?
Translator of Derrida’s De la grammatologie (Of Grammatology)

34. Spivak draws our attention to that large
majority of the Colonized that has left no
mark upon history because it could not, or
was not allowed to, make itself heard
Spivak – first postcolonial theorist with a fully feminist agenda

35. The Subaltern
Literally, the category of those who are lower in position or who, in the military terms, are lower in rank
Spivak employs the term to describe the lower layers of colonial and postcolonial society – the homeless, the unemployed, the subsistence farmers, the day labourers and so on

36. The Colonized Subaltern- irretrievably
heterogeneous
The Female Subaltern – doubly
marginalized

37. Spivak combines a Marxist perspective with a deconstructionist approach to texts and to identity
Analyses how colonial texts attain coherence by setting up false oppositions between a supposed centre and an equally fictive margin and how their language deconstructs the coherence they try to establish

38. THANK YOU