Postcolonialism

Globalization Nation & Nationalism Race and Gender Commonwealth Lit. & World Lit. in English Immigrants & Cultural Identity Postcolonialism 1.Colonialism and de-colonization 2. “Can the Subaltern Speak?”: Language & Cultural Identities 3. National Identity & Hybridity

Colonialism and de-colonization 1. 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 • 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 People Capitalism  Triangular Trade 2. Middle Passage

Colonialism: flows of migration • Flows of Migrants

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 Feelings

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)

後結構︰Foucault 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.

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 Colonial Discourse (3): power & knowledge

Cultural Imperialism (1): White Center Mr & Mrs Andrews, 1748-9Thomas Gainsboroughsource

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 himself Upon 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

C center Post-Structuralist + Post-Colonial: Mimicry Différance= Dissemination 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

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 Resistance Positions: the subaltern, postcolonial intellectuals (exiles or at home), rejecting the past etc. Means: Language, History and (personal, cultural, national )Identity Strategies: Between Nativism & Assimilation.

Post-Colonial Resistance (2) Examples: Separatism vs. Cultural Syncreticism: Chinua Achebe vs. Ngugi wa Thiong'o (Writing in Gikuyu) clip 1 Re-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.

Postcolonialism