Post-Colonialisms (II)

1. Post-Colonialisms (II) (Post-)Colonial Identities and Strategies of Resistance 1. Colonialism, Orientalism and Racism 3. Nation and Narration]

2. Starting Questions • Any questions about your readings? • What have you learned so far re. colonialism and postcolonialism?

3. Outline • A Review and Overview • Colonial Identities • Postcolonial Identities

4. Post-Colonialism: A Review and Overview • Colonialisms & Racism • Definitions • Cultural Imperialism (Orientalism) & examples • Racism –Stereotypes (chap 4 p. 208-); Containment and Appropriation. (chap 4 p. 94)  • Colonial Identities:The Tempest e.g. Prospero, Caliban, Ariel and Miranda • Mimicry and the Subaltern 2. Post-Colonial Identities • Starting with The Tempest • Language • History • Identity Construction • Strategies • Examples of ‘identity politics’

5. Race: Definition • Are racial attributes (e.g. what being a “Chinese” means) naturally born, or socially acquired? • The classification of humans into races is now widely regarded as arbitrary from a biological viewpoint because actual genetic differences between racial groups are trivial. • However, racial groups are real in a sociological sense insofar as people with different skin colour, etc., are commonly treated differently. (www.soc-canada.com/ppp/ch09.ppt) • In other words, race is now not ‘essentially’ defined, but more of a social-historical construction.  strategic use of essentialism (3: 214) or ethnicity (4: 195)

6. Race: Different definitions • new racism -- involves the belief that the races are inherently different from one another in a cultural and behavioural sense, and problems result when they try to live together. (textbook chap 4 --94) • Different definitions of race in different nations; e.g. race related to nationality in UK and in Taiwan, but not in the U.S. • Subtler forms of racism: containment and appropriation.

7. Colonial Texts/Identities and their Revisions • Major Texts frequently revised: • The Tempest, --17th c. –usurpation and abandonment; (Caliban) • Robinson Crusoe– 18th c. –a colony established (Friday) • Jane Eyre, -- 19th c – a woman brought back home. (Other in the Self; Bertha) • Heart of Darkness. --20th c.—material pursuit/spiritual disintegration (Self discovery; black mistress and the intended.)

8. The Tempests • “Shakespeare didn’t invent Caliban; Caliban invented Shakespeare” (Russell Hoban qtd in Zabul 9).  What does this mean? • The Tempest –revised by • Postcolonialists; • Postfeminists • Postmodernists (Zabus 1)

9. The Tempests • Contemporary revisions: (general trends) Sycorax

10. The Tempests—Postcolonial Interpretations (1) • Ethnopsychiatry (D. O. Mannoni) • Caliban complex –that of inferiority and dependency • “When thou cam'st first,Thou strok'st me and made much of me; wouldst give meWater with berries in't; and teach me howTo name the bigger light, and how the less,That burn by day and night: and then I lov'd thee,And show'd thee all the qualities o' th' isle,The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place, and fertile. . . . and here you sty meIn this hard rock,”

11. Ethnopsychiatry: Caliban complex • –that of inferiority and dependency • Gifts with self-interest  return of love and Dependency  betrayal or demands of more gifts from the colonized • Another interpretation by F. Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth Caliban needs to use violence --cathartic violence to cleanse him of his inferiority complex.

12. Ethnopsychiatry: (2) Prospero complex • –that of inferiority and vocation • Hidden in the assumptions of the superiority of European culture • Inability to adapt to reality  flight from home or with a desire to travel; • Excessive idealism. • “Prospero anxiety” (over Caliban’s rebellion) and “sexual guilt” (over the possibility of incest thus feeling threatened by both Ferdinand and Caliban in their confidence in their sexual appeal.) (Zabus 22-23)

13. Ethnopsychiatry: (3) Prospero complex • Do you agree with this interpretation? • Can you find examples of people with Caliban complex or Prospero complex? • There are variations in the interpretation of these two prototypes. But Prospero—for whatever reasons—attempts to subject the Other, and the two are caught in a master-slave mutual dependency. • How about Ariel and Miranda? --What types do they fit into? Intellectual Go-between (messenger) and Woman? • Type-casting can always be limiting and simplifying, despite the truths they reveal about “some” people.

14. Colonial Identities: Mimicry and the Subaltern (textbook 206-14) • Between the colonizer and the colonized: • Self defined in terms of the Other: the two are thus inseparable and mutually dependent; • Uncertainty of the colonizers • –revealed through their repetition (in stereotyping or control) • Undermined by mimicry (which is all the same but not quite).  Hybrid • Two possible critiques of this view: • armchair theory, not realistic; • too general and abstract. (p. 210) • E.g. A Passage to India–the Bridge Party scene

15. Colonial Identities: Mimicry and the Subaltern (textbook 206-14) The Subaltern cannot speak (Spivak). Différance C center Colonial Mimicry: All the same but not quite-- Indian gentleman or Indian celebration of U.K.’s national day. e.g. Taiwanese Imitation of Madonna

16. Colonial Identities: the Subaltern: G. Spivak (textbook 206-14) • Spivak focuses on racial, gender and class differences, acknowledging her position as a third-world intellectual. • Unlike the intellectuals, the Subaltern can not speak. –The colonized who are not given the language to speak, or whose voices are not heard, leave no mark in official history. • e.g. Sati and a woman killing herself at a time not proper for Sati (寡婦殉夫). P. 213 • Possible criticism: the subaltern can speak and have been expressing themselves a lot.

17. Postcolonial Identities —I. Postcolonial Revisions The Tempests (1) Aimé Césaire’s Une Tempête– • Caliban (black) vs. Ariel (mulatto)— Caliban as close to Earth; Ariel –airy Intellect • Caliban vs. Prospero Caliban: “You didn’t teach me a thing! Except to jabber in your own language so that I could understand your orders: chop wood, wash the dishes, fish for food, plant vegetables, because you were too lazy to do it yourself.” (qtd Zabus 45) • Ending: Prospero stays “aged and weary” and then dies. Caliban is free.

18. Postcolonial Identities —I. Postcolonial Revisions The Tempests (2) II. Miranda –postpatriarchal reading • – Canadian version (develops to a full-grown woman-artist wrestling her way out of patriarchal bounds (husband, lover, father or foster-father); • -- Caribbean version – away from the mother (and the patriarchal society she supports). III. Postmodern Prospero –e.g. Jarman’s film: • -- the use of the Gothic  renders Prospero’s mind unstable; • --excessive physicality of Caliban as a parody of an Edwardian butler; • -- homoerotic aura around Stephano/Trinculo. •  history as masquerade – or ‘camp.’

19. Postcolonial Identities —II. Language • “The Caliban legacy” to give up using the master’s language; to claim English as their own language and change it  englishes; • For Afro-Americans, Australians and Canadians, English is their only language.

20. Postcolonial Identities —II. Language (2) --Strategies 1. Preserving and developing one’s mother tongues with romanization, etc. 2. Changing or reversing or confusing the language hierarchy e.g. the use of Taiwanese and Hakka in Taiwan 客家話 3. mixing languages: (Three stages of the use of colonizer’s language: Adopt, Adapt, Adept) e.g. “My Man Bovanne”

21. Postcolonial Identities —III. Re-Visioning History • Re-writing: e.g. Japanese rule--《無言的山丘》; mainland Chinese soldiers to Taiwan--《香蕉的天堂》 • Re-Visioning: Japanese rule--《阿爸的情人》、 《戲夢人生》 228 -- 《悲情城市》、 《高砂百合》 White Terror -- 《好男好女》、 The American Armies in Taiwan -- 《太平天國》(our example)、〈莎優拉娜．再見〉、〈小寡婦〉、〈玫瑰玫瑰我愛你〉、 〈蘋果的滋味〉等

22. Identity Separatism (Nativism), Integration, Active participation, Assimilation. Strategies Essentialist Construction Re-Creation, Cultural Syncreticism, Conscious Mimicry Mimicry Postcolonial Identities —III. Identity and Strategies Duality and Hybridity

23. Postcolonial Identities —III. Hybridity –different kinds (textbook4: 202) • (Against Multiculturalism) • Cultural Difference: with gaps and fissures in need of constant negotiation. • “Culture as a strategy of survival is both transnational and translational. ” (Homi Bhabha)

24. Conscious Mimicry • Yong Soon Min Make Me, 1989

25. Conscious Mimicry/Parody • Ken Chu • I Need some More Hair Products (1988)

26. ‘Identity Politics’ :“My Man Bonvanne” • Toni Cade Bambara(1939 - 1995), author of “The Lesson” • the narrator, Miss Hazel Peoples • her language: Black English (ebonics) • her style: wig, cornroll (25)

27. “My Man Bonvanne” • The setting? • Why does Miss Hazel dance so closely with Bonvanne? What role does she play in her relationship with Bonvanne? (p. 23 "Wasn't about tits.”; p. 26) • Her children’s disagreement and Ms. Hazel’s response (Task, Elo, and Joe Lee) • What does the last bathing ritual mean?

28. “My Man Bonvanne” • the Activists or intellectuals. vs. “Grass Roots” People • Identity politics  1. Focus too much on their cause and ignore a real contact with the ‘people’ they should care about. 2. In the children’s criticism of their mother, they assume the need of proper dress, proper “Black” appearance and proper things to do for the elderly, ignoring their really needs (emotional and material).

29. You have learned . . . A. Colonialism • More examples of race and Racism (e.g. Containment and Appropriation) • Colonial Types (Prospero complex and Caliban complex) in The Tempest • Mimicry and the Subaltern 2. Post-Colonial Identities • Revisions of The Tempest --e.g. Caliban, Miranda • Language and Identity • Different ways of constructing Colonial History • Identity Construction – positions (Separatism/Nativism Active participation, Assimilation), and strategies (Re-Creation, Cultural Syncreticism, Mimicry)

30. You will talk more about . . . • Nation and Narration • Essentialism vs. Constructionism • Globalization & Multiculturalism—its different forms.

31. Reference • Tempests After Shakespeare. Chantal Zabus. Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.