The document summarizes a lecture on Postcolonial Theory given by Dr. Manohar P. Joshi. It defines Postcolonial Theory and its key concepts. It discusses the theory's origins in the colonial and post-colonial periods. It also examines major theorists like Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, and Gayatri Spivak, and the concepts they contributed, such as othering, hybridity, mimicry, and the subaltern. The lecture concludes by applying Postcolonial Theory concepts to analyze the novel The Inheritance of Loss.

1. Ph.D. Course Work Lecture Series: 2021-22
Organized by
P.G. Department of English & Research Centre
D.B.F. Dayanand College of Arts and Science, Solapur
A Lecture Session on
Postcolonial Theory
[Monday, 20th June 2022 between 9.00 & 11.00 am]
By
Dr. Manohar P. Joshi
Professor & Head, Dept of English
Walchand College of Arts and Science (Autonomous), Solapur-413006

2. Outcomes of this Lecture
Having attended this lecture, the students
1. Know how to comprehend the concept of a literary theory.
2. Get introduced to Postcolonial Theory.
3. Understand various contributors to Postcolonial Theory.
4. Comprehend different dimensions of Postcolonial Theory.
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
2

3. What is Literary Theory?
The field of study concerned with the principles underlying the
analysis and understanding of literary works.
“Literary theory” is the body of ideas and methods we use in the
practical reading of literature. By literary theory we refer not to the
meaning of a work of literature but to the theories that reveal what
literature can mean. Literary theory is a description of the underlying
principles, one might say the tools, by which we attempt to understand
literature.
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
3

4. Constituents of Literary Theory
1. Evolution of the Theory
2. Contributors to the Theory
3. Canons or Tenets of the Theory
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
4

5. Postcolonial Theory
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
5

6. Postcolonial Theory
Is it postcolonial or post-colonial?
Postcolonial- after colonial period
Post-colonial- indicates the time the colonial regime ended
Postcolonial= Precolonial – Colonial – Thereafter
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
6

7. Postcolonial Theory
Imperialism and Decolonization:
1. British Empire
2. Decolonization of South Asian nations and African nations
3. Self-determination and Self-governance
4. Persistence of empire and resistance to it
5. Enlightenment
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
7

8. Postcolonial Theory
Elleke Boehmer, in her book Colonial and Postcolonial Literature,
defines Colonialism:
1. Settlement of territory
2. Exploitation or development of resources
3. Attempt to govern the indigenous inhabitants of occupied lands
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
8

9. Postcolonial Theory
1. Writers from colonized countries celebrate their cultural identities
2. Reclaim them from the colonizers
3. Texts (Colonized): Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart
Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children
4. Texts (Colonizer): Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
E.M. Forster’s Passage to India
5. Development of a Counter Canon
6. Tri-continentalism = Postcolonialism
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
9

10. Postcolonial Theory
Thomas Macaulay (1835)
“A single shelf of a good European library [is] worth the whole native
literature” [Grandiloquent hypothesis]
“Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals
and in intellect.” [Colonial conclusion]
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
10

11. Postcolonial Theory
The White Man’s Burden (1899)- Rudyard Kipling
Take up the White Man's burden -
Send forth the best ye breed -
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild -
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
11

12. Postcolonial Theory
The Ballad of East and West (1889)- Rudyard Kipling
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
12

13. Postcolonial Theory
Precedents
William Shakespeare-
The Tempest- Prospero and Caliban relationship
Daniel Defoe-
Robinson Crusoe- Crusoe and Friday
Joseph Conrad-
Heart of Darkness- Marlow, Kurtz & Natives
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
13

14. Postcolonial Theory
The Orient was seen as…
1. Timeless
2. Exotic
3. Morally and sexually lax and loose
4. Irrational and heathen
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
14

15. Postcolonial Theory
Seminal Work: C.L.R. James, Albert Memmi, Frantz Fanon
Postcolonialism:
1. Emergence of States
2. Dissolution of Empires
3. International order
4. Imperialism and Identity
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
15

16. Postcolonial Theory
Frantz Fanon, a psychoanalyst and philosopher born in Martinique, presented one of
the most searing and provocative analyses of the relation between colonized and
colonizer in The Wretched of the Earth (1961) as well as in his Black Skin, White
Masks (1952)
1. Justification of violence
2. Colonizer and colonized
3. Micro and Macro effects of colonization
4. Rule over territory, body and mind
5. Imperialism versus nationalism
6. Relative Liberalism [J.S. Mill denying Indian self-government]
7. Scepticism and Enlightenment
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
16

17. Postcolonial Theory
Postcolonial Literature
1. Writers belonging to European colonies
2. Literary works produced by these writers
3. New literatures, world literatures or commonwealth literatures
4. African, Caribbean and South Asian nations
5. Use of hybridized forms and structures of English
6. Imperialism
7. Cultural Domination
8. Subservience
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
17

18. Postcolonial Theorists
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
18

19. Postcolonial Theory
Edward Said (1935 - 2003)
(Joseph Conrad: The Fiction of Autobiography, On Orientalism, The World, the Text
and the Critic, Culture and Imperialism)
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
19

20. Postcolonial Theory
Key Concepts (Edward Said):
1. Othering; the Other
2. Binary opposites
3. Racial discriminations
4. White Man’s Burden
5. Colonies considered to be devoid of culture and all
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
20

21. Postcolonial Theory
Homi K. Bhabha (1949)
(Re-reading of E. M. Forster’s Passage to India, Nation and Narration,
Location of Cultures, Sings Taken for Wonders [Essay])
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
21

22. Postcolonial Theory
Key Concepts (Homi Bhabha):
1. Hybridity (Two cultures, schizophrenic state, multiple identities, no
pure cultures; culture is fluid, not static)
2. Mimicry (Imitation, satirical, shameful; not becoming or being
English; Menacing; Not quite, not white)
3. Ambivalence (Interstice, Productive space)
4. Nation and Nationalism (No pure culture, hence no nationalism)
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
22

23. Postcolonial Theory
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1942)
(Of Grammatology, Selected Subaltern Studies, Can the Subaltern
Speak? [Essay], A Critique of Postcolonial Reason)
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
23

24. Postcolonial Theory
Key Concepts reiterated:
1. Colonial Impact
2. Eurocentrism & the Third World
3. Subaltern - No speech
4. Knowledge, a Western commodity
5. Hegemony
6. (Suicide of Bhubaneshwari Bhaduri)
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
24

25. Application of the Theory
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
25

26. Application of Postcolonial Theory
The Inheritance of Loss (2006): Kiran Desai-[the Judge, Sai, the Cook, Biju,
Gyan]
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
26

27. Application of Postcolonial Theory
Colonial & Postcolonial discourse
Hybridity
Mimicry and mimic men
Identity
Cosmopolitanism
Hegemony
Diaspora
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
27

28. Thank you!
Lecture on Postcolonial Theory: Dr. Manohar P. Joshi, WCAS,
Solapur-20.06.2022
28