Postcolonial Discourse and Changing Cultural Contexts

by Rajan, Gita; Mohanram, Radhika

• ISBN13: 9780313296932
• ISBN10: 0313296936
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1995-10-30
• Publisher: Praeger Pub Text

Summary

Postcolonial discourse is fast becoming an area of rich academic debate. At the heart of coloniality and postcoloniality is the contested authority of empire and its impact upon previously colonized peoples and their indigenous cultures. This book examines various theories of colonization and decolonization, and how the ideas of a British empire create networks of discourses in contemporary postcolonial cultures. The various essays in this book address the question of empire by exploring such constructs as nation and modernity, third-world feminisms, identity politics, the status and roles of exiles, exilic subjectivities, border intellectuals, and the presence of a postcolonial body in today's classrooms. Topics discussed include African-American literature, the nature of postcolonial texts in first-world contexts, jazz, films, and TV as examples of postcolonial discourse, and the debates surrounding biculturalism and multiculturalism in New Zealand and Australia.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Locating Postcoloniality by Gita Rajan and Radhika Mohanram

Rereading Fanon, Rewriting Caribbean History by Patrick Taylor

The Dialectics of Negritude: Or, the (Post)Colonial Subject in Contemporary African-American Literature by Christopher Wise

The Colonial Voice in the Motherland by Judie Newman

Minor Pleasures by Indira Karamcheti

Women's Rights versus Feminism? Postcolonial Perspectives by Harveen Sachdeva Mann

Plantation Cafes: Jazz, Postcolonial Theory, and Modernism by Burton W. Peretti

Postcoloniality and the Politics of Identity in the Diaspora: Figuring Home, Locating Histories by Anindyo Roy

Postcolonial Spaces and Deterritorialized (Homo)Sexuality: The Films of Hanif Kureishi by Radhika Mohanram

Is My Body Proper? Postcoloniality in the Classroom by Gita Rajan

The Media Scene and Postcolonial Theories: An Interview with Prajna Paramita Parasher by Gita Rajan

"Retrospective Hallucination": Postcolonial Video as Cultural Critique by Amy Villarejo

History, Folklore, and Commonsense: Sembene's Films and Discourses of Postcoloniality by Marcia Landy

Biculturalism, Postcolonialism, and Identity Politics in New Zealand: An Interview with Anna Yeatman and Kaye Turner by Radhika Mohanram

Postcolonialism/Multiculturalism--Australia 1993: An Interview with Sneja Gunew by Gita Rajan and Radhika Mohanram

Selected Bibliography

Index