Post-Colonial Criticism

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Post-ColonialCriticism

• Or
• What Did The White Man
• Do Now??

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What is Post-Colonialism?

• A strategy used to examine the culture of the
  former colonies of European empires and how those
  former colonies relate to the rest of the world.
• What might be included in culture??

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What is Post-Colonialism?

• Post-colonial writers often try to resurrect
  their culture and/or battle preconceptions
• The same can be said about the post-colonial
  critic

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Key Terms

• Alterity - "lack of identification with some part
  of one's personality or one's community,
  differentness, otherness
• Diaspora (dI-ASP-er-ah- "is used (without
  capitalization) to refer to any people or ethnic
  population forced or induced to leave their
  traditional ethnic homelands, being dispersed
  throughout other parts of the world, and the
  ensuing developments in their dispersal and
  culture" (Wikipedia).
• Eurocentrism - "the practice, conscious or
  otherwise, of placing emphasis on European (and,
  generally, Western) concerns, culture and values
  at the expense of those of other cultures.

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Key Terms

• Hybridity - "an important concept in
  post-colonial theory, referring to the
  integration (or, mingling) of cultural signs and
  practices from the colonizing and the colonized
  cultures. Things to consider when discussing
  hybridity include assimilation and adaptation of
  cultural practices, the cross-fertilization of
  cultures. These ideas can be seen as positive,
  enriching, and dynamic, as well as as oppressive"
  
• Hegemony -  preponderant influence or authority
  over others  (http//www.merriam-webster.com/dicti
  onary/hegemony )

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Key Terms

• Imperialism - "the policy of extending the
  control or authority over foreign entities as a
  means of acquisition and/or maintenance of
  empires, either through direct territorial
  control or through indirect methods of exerting
  control on the politics and/or economy of other
  countries. The term is used by some to describe
  the policy of a country in maintaining colonies
  and dominance over distant lands, regardless of
  whether the country calls itself an empire"
  (Dictionary.LaborLawTalk.com).

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Questions to consider

• 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 and such issues as double consciousness
  and hybridity?
• What person(s) or groups does the work identify
  as "other" or stranger? How are such
  persons/groups described and treated?

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Questions to consider

• What does the text reveal about the politics
  and/or psychology of anti-colonialist resistance?
• What does the text reveal about the operations of
  cultural difference - the ways in which race,
  religion, class, gender, sexual orientation,
  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 the text respond to or comment upon the
  characters, themes, or assumptions of a canonized
  (colonialist) work?

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Questions to consider

• Are there meaningful similarities among the
  literatures of different post-colonial
  populations?
• How does a literary text in the Western canon
  reinforce or undermine colonialist ideology
  through its representation of colonialization
  and/or its inappropriate silence about colonized
  peoples? (Tyson 378-379)

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Sources
Brizee, Allen. Post-Colonial Criticism
(1990-Present). Purdue OWL. Purdue University
Writing Lab, 21 Apr. 2010. Web. 15 Nov.
2012. Siegel, Kristi. Introduction to Modern
Literary Theory. Np. Web. 15 Nov. 2012