Bhabha’s Signs Taken For Wonders

Bhabha’s Signs Taken For Wonders Presentation by Derrick Carter

Words to Know Mimicry- the art or practice of mimicking Hybridity- a “presence” of power demonstrated by a culture. Differance- binaries (difference with a differance) Enstellung- Psychanalytic term for DESIRE

Dumbing it down! England taught other places their “culture” through the Bible (and other English literature), but didn’t teach the whole thing…because well, that would be silly. Instead, they taught them what they might be able to weave into their lives, rather than the whole book (a.k.a. the Bible, a.k.a. the English book).

A Simple Equation Bible + British Culture = “Civilized Culture”

The “Father” of Cultures So the English Book (as Bhabha calls it) was brought to distant lands full of “uncivilized savages” to expand British culture, because God forbid that people go living their own lives in their own ways… http://youtu.be/g1fIH6GMIJg

The thing is though… England was setting itself up as a beacon of how to live by and the instructions to civilize people were contained in the Bible. Seeing as they were the ones who brought it over, the other cultures would never become equal, but just be imitating how the English culture behaved.

THE EMPIRE WRITES BACK! So how revolutionary might it have been to watch other cultures that were formed by the English write back to them attacking in English? It brought to life a “presence of authority” and just who is in control of who.

So why is hybridity dangerous for the “father” country? “Hybridity is the sign of the productivity of colonial power, its shifting forces and fixities; it is the name for the strategic reversal of the process of domination through disavowal (that is, the production of discriminatory identities that secure the “pure” and original identity of authority). Hybridity is the revaluation of the assumption of colonial identity through the repetition of discriminatory identity effects. It displays the necessary deformation and displacement of all sites of discrimination and domination. It unsettles the mimetic or narcissistic demands of colonial power but reimplicates its identifications in strategies of subversion that turn the gaze of the discriminated back upon the eye of power.” (End of second column on 1882 and beginning of first column on 1883)

A Disturbing Effect That is familiar. “inscrutability” of the Chinese “unspeakable” rites of the Indians “indescribable” habits of the Hottentots “rudeness” of Americans (not in the actual essay, but still)

But there’s another issue with this “English” book. They [crucial moments in English literature] are also signs of a discontinuous history, an estrangement of the English book. They mark the disturbance of its authoritative representations by the uncanny forces of race, sexuality, violence, cultural and even climatic differences which emerge in the colonial discourse as the mixed and split texts of hybridity. If the appearance of the English book is read as a production of colonial hybridity, then it no longer simply COMMANDS authority. It gives rise to a series of QUESTIONS OF AUTHORITY…” (Second column, page 1883)

But we know our version is the right one… “When the natives demand an IndianizedGospel, they are using the powers of hybridity to resist baptism and to put the projection of conversion in an impossible position. Any adaptation of the Bible was forbidden by the evidences of Christianity.” (Second Column, page 1887)

…and we expect you to believe it without any questions! “It is THEIR book and they printed in their language for our use” “For by alienating the “English” as the middle term, the presence of authority is freed of a range of idealogical correlates- for instance, intentionality, originality, authenticity, cultural normativity.” (First Column, page 1888) THE BOOK! (not the ENGLISH book!)

Perfect Example of Hybridity: Ghandi Someone from a culture formed through influences of someone else and their own beliefs to make a culture of their own. He may not be proper by certain cultures, but he lived his own peacefully. Also when asked what he thought of British civilization. He responded that he thought it was a good idea.

IN ONE LAST PHRASE. ENGLAND, you are not our father! http://youtu.be/WWaLxFIVX1s

HomiBhabha’s thoughts on Humanities… http://youtu.be/tFXaaFUYxLA?t=2m14s

Bhabha’s Signs Taken For Wonders