2. POSTCOLONIALISM
is an intellectual direction (sometimes
also called an “era” or the “post-
colonial theory”) that exists since
around the middle of the 20th century.
It developed from and mainly refers to
the time after colonialism.
3. DESCRIPTIONS
Particular areas of emphasis include
the Indian subcontinent, northern and
central Africa, and southeast Asia.
These regions were under the control
of colonial powers like England, the
United States, and France.
also deals with literature written by
citizens of colonial countries that
portrays colonized people as its
subject matter.
4. DESCRIPTIONS
deals with the conflicts between ruler
and subject, mainstream and
marginalized, oppressors and
oppressed and, at the same
time, celebrates the suppressed
"other," challenging the dominant
culture and questioning concepts of
established authority.
5. This literature that has been produced in
former colonies reflects changes in the
social, political, economic, and cultural
practices in freed regions and rebellion
against anything that reminds of the
colonizer.
Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, and Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak are important
exponents of postcolonial criticism.
DESCRIPTIONS
6. CHARACTERISTICS
An awareness of representations of
the non-European as exotic or
immoral 'Other'.
An awareness of the tainted nature of
the colonizers' language (thus using it
involves acquiescing to colonial
structures).
An awareness of the double nature of
identity of both colonizer and
colonized.
7. CHARACTERISTICS
An awareness of cross-cultural
interactions as demonstrated in the three
stages:
1. Adopt European form and subject
matter (similar to the feminine stage in
feminism)
2. Adapt European form to African
subject matter (similar to the feminist
stage in feminism)
3. Adept or independent form and
subject matter (similar to the female
stage in feminism)
8. What postcolonial critics do:
Reject claims to universalism and
seek to show its general inability to
empathize across boundaries of
cultural and ethnic differences.
Examine representation of other
cultures in literature.
Show how such literature is silent on
matters concerned with colonization
and imperialism.
9. Foreground questions of cultural
difference and diversity.
Celebrate hybridity whereby
individuals and groups belong
simultaneously to more than one
culture.
See states of marginality, plurality and
perceived 'Otherness" as sources of
energy and potential change.
What postcolonial critics do:
10. PURPOSES
to find and re-establish their lost
national identity, history and
literature, and to define the authors‟
relationship with the land and
language of their former masters.
to open a space where the residual
effects of colonialism can be resisted.
11. Books that influenced
postcolonial criticism:
1961: Frantz Fanon‟s The Wretched of
the Earth argues that the first term for
colonized to find voice is to reclaim
their own past that has long been
devalued by European colonizers.
1978: Edward Said‟s Orientalism
argues that the West identifies the
East as its „Other‟ and as such it is
exotic, seductive, and feminine.
