Postcolonialism

1. Colonialism and de-colonization

2. “Can the Subaltern Speak?”: Language & Cultural Identities

3. National Identity & Hybridity

Nation & Nation & NationalismNationalism

GlobalizationGlobalizationRace and GenderRace and Gender

Commonwealth Lit. & World Commonwealth Lit. & World Lit. in EnglishLit. in English

Immigrants & Immigrants & Cultural IdentityCultural Identity

Colonialism and de-colonization1. From Form to Race, Starting Questions

2. Colonialism defined; physical and economic exploitation

3. Cultural Imperialism: 1) definition; 2) Colonial Discourse—e.g. Orientalism; 3) science

4. Cultural Imperialism: cultural & literary Examples

5. Colonial Mentality (& the relations between the colonized and colonizer)

6. Effects of cultural imperialism;

7. De-colonization (& post-colonial resistance)

From Form to Race

1. Form—textual and linguistic:

literary forms (e.g. organic form),

linguistic forms (e.g. semiotic rectangle, différance)

2. From Text to Context:

Social forms (e.g. discourse, hierarchy, etc.)

Postmodern forms (e.g. metafiction, pastiche)

Colonial & Postcolonial forms (e.g. mental/power structure, lit: parody, historical re-vision)

Starting Questions

� What are the examples of colonialism? Is KMT’s regime an example?

� What are the examples of colonial thinking (e.g. the racial/cultural prejudices and stereotypes) in “English” Literature?

� Is de-colonization possible? � How do we or the colonized resist colonialism in life

and through literature?� Is it racist to call foreigns 鬼佬，番仔，老外？

Colonialism: Definition and Kinds

� Definition: colonialism --military, economic, cultural oppression & domination of one country over another.

� Kinds:

1. Invasion-colonization;

2. Settlement-colonization;

3. Internal Colonialism;

4. Neo-Colonialism

Modern Colonialism: Flows of not only Natural Resources but also PeopleCapitalism Triangular Trade

2. Middle Passage

Colonialism: flows of migration� Flows of Migrants

1st World Colonial powers: Adventurers, Merchants, army, travelers, missionaries, immigrants

“Third World”:

Slaves, Contract laborers, Students, businessmen, etc.

Triangular Trade

� This trade is a source of wealth to tribal chiefs, to the shipping business, to plantation owners in the South of U.S., and to merchants and shipbuilders in the North. For the Africans, it means displacement and/or death.

� An estimated 8 to 15 million Africans reached the Americas from the 16th through the 19 century, with a peak of about 6 million arriving in the 18th century alone. (another estimate)

� Replaced by Indentured Labour in the 19th century

Middle Passage

� “. . . it has been estimated that between 30 and 60 million Africans were subjected to this horrendous triangular trade system and that only one third-of those people survived...' (source)

� ” All of it is now it is always now there will never be a time when I am not crouching and watching others who are crouching too I am always crouching" Beloved by Toni Morrison

Middle Passage

� left: structure of the ship

Right: by Tom Right: by Tom FeelingsFeelings

cultural imperialism (1): Theories 1. Culture (e.g. literature, language, popular culture)

supports imperialism and is one way to spread it. The definition of the self and others are based

upon representations rather than reality 。

2. Also called neo-colonialism; Supported by its economic power, one culture (e.g. of films, foods) dominates over the other cultures. (related to globalization and free trade agreements)

The West as civilized, just, moral, industrious, rational, democraticMasculine

The Oriental as savage, lewd, lazy, superstitious, irrational, despoticfeminine

Colonial Discourse—Orientalism as an example

� (textbook 203- 206) Orientalism –presenting the East as “the Other”, or as “the exotic” e.g. Arabian Nights & Oriental women

� 1) Said’s book: about Islamic Middle East; � 2) a discourse, (knowledge = disciplinary

power; structure of formation and circulation)

3) hegemony control by consent 4) possible problems: homogenizing the

East, and the West.

後結構︰Foucault

Colonial Discourse (3):

power & knowledge� Racial difference =

biological difference Africans = black skin, small brain + savagery

� e.g. Darwin The Descent of Man (1871); C Murray and R. J. Herrnstein The Bell Curve (1994) differences of whites’ and black’s IQ test performances caused by their genetic differences.

Stereotyping supported by scientific studies

Cultural Imperialism (1): White Center

�

Mr & Mrs Andrews, 1748-9 Thomas Gainsborough source

cultural imperialism (2): representation of “blackness”

cultural imperialism (2): representation of “blackness”

French harem fantasy with a black eunuch servant. The link between popularized orientalism & libidinization is obvious. "Les petits voyages de Paris-Plaisirs."--Paris Plaisir, Feb. 1930. (Image and text from Jan Nederveen Pieterse's White on Black: Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture. New Haven: Yale UP, 1992) Source

cultural imperialism (2):

White vs. Black: Edouard Manet Olympia, 1863

cultural imperialism (2): representation of “Otherness”

Humanitarian or commercial interest?

cultural imperialism (3): Literary Examples

(1). “discovery+education” = possession and exploitation

The Tempest– Caliban Robinson Crusoe– Friday “PROSPERO: Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil

himselfUpon thy wicked dam, come forth!

. . . CALIBAN You taught me language; and my

profit on't Is, I know how to curse. ”

cultural imperialism (3): Literary Examples

(2). Economic support the power of the Empire, decorating its polite society

Mansfield Park– dependant on the business from the West Indian Estate (in Antigua)

And many other Victorian novels.

(3) “Other-ed” and used as symbol of madness & darkness:

Jane Eyre –the madwoman Bertha; Heart of Darkness --

Africa: Heart of Darkness

Africa = darkness, stage for self-or-sexual discovery and power struggle

"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look at it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it: not a sentimental pretence but an idea; an unselfish belief in the idea something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer sacrifice to…“ (Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness)

Others: Out of Africa, Sheltering Sky, The English Patient.

cultural imperialism (3): Heart of Darkness

“'Mistah Kurtz -- he dead.' "All the pilgrims rushed out to see. I remained, and went on with my dinner. I believe that I was considered brutally callous. However, I did not eat much. There was a lamp in there -- light, don't you know -- and outside it was so beastly, beastly dark. I went no more near the remarkable man who had pronounced a judgment upon the adventures of his soul on this earth. The voice was gone. What else had been there? ”

cultural imperialism (4): Education

2. The East: English Studies in India Taiwan: Popularity of translations of

American novels such as those of Hemingway and Jack London.

Taiwan: Un-self-reflective absorption of English literary canon/values

cultural imperialism (4): Ethnic Colors

Furniture from Artikeln

Colonial mentality

� (textbook: 206-)� Colonial identity – defined through

difference with ‘others’ and “the Other.’

Cultural Imperialism: Effects� self-hatred [inferiority complex] or self-

annihilation: blackness confirms the white self, but whiteness empties the black subject.”

(e.g.: F. Fanon “. . .the black man is not a man.” e.g. laziness as “a conscious sabotage of the colonial machine” Loomba 143-44)

� Split Subject: Black Skin, White Mask; e.g. 阿爸的情人 clip 14

� Resistance

Colonizer vs. colonized

(Homi Bhabha textbook p. 209-210) � Two ways to challenge colonial identity: � Différance/Dissemination of colonial

culture and its mimicry � Hybridity

Post-Structuralist + Post-Colonial:

Mimicry

C center

Colonial Mimicry:

All the same but not quite– e.g. Indian gentleman or Indian celebration of U.K.’s national day.

Taiwanese Imitations: bell-bottom, rock and roll

Différance= Dissemination

De-Colonization: history� 1945 -- 750 million people - a third of the world's

population - lived in Territories that were non-self-governing, dependent on colonial Powers.

� British decolonization, 1945–56 (e.g. India); Wars in overseas France, 1945–56 (e.g. Vietnam)

� The Sinai-Suez campaign (October–November 1956)

� a federal Malaysian government (1957); Hong Kong (1997). Algeria and French decolonization, from 1956

� colonization is not over; internal fractures; � “The Empire Strikes back.”

Post-Colonial ResistancePositions: the subaltern, postcolonial intellectuals

(exiles or at home), rejecting the past etc.

Means: Language, History and (personal, cultural, national )Identity

Strategies: Between Nativism & Assimilation.

Mimicry

Separati-Sm; open rebellion

Re-Creation;

Cultural Syncreticism; negotiation

Active participa-tion

Appropriation

Post-Colonial Resistance (2)Examples: Separatism vs. Cultural Syncreticism: Chinua Achebe vs. Ngugi wa Thiong'o

(Writing in Gikuyu) clip 1Re-Creation ; 鄉土文學、台灣新電影（冬冬

的假期﹚ reinterprete the signs parody Mimicry: e.g. 戲夢人生 clip 5 ， Buddha

Bless America, clips 21, 23 Appropriation;

Reference

� Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism. NY: Routeledge, 1998.