Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 09:12:49 -0500 (EST)
From: Francis N Nesbitt <fnn-AT-oitunix.oit.umass.edu>
Subject: Re: testing water






who said anything about "authenticity" "influence" or "contamination"?  
the post compared out the two writers' language, audience and poltical 
choices. 


On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, Ernest Stromberg wrote:

> Wow!  This is an extreme simplification of both the work of Ngugi Thiongo
> and Gayatri Spivak. So Thiongo speaks in transparent and authentic voice 
> whose meaning is unmediated by the influence/contamination while Spivak 
> by her engagement with European epistemologies "keeps the 
> [pure/authentic] natives in their place?  Is this the crux of this post?
> Ernest
>  On Thu, 25 Jan 1996, Francis N 
> Nesbitt wrote:
> 
> > On Sun, 21 Jan 1996, NADEEM OMAR wrote:
> > 
> > > Seems that people are intersted and one can plunge to swim or sink.
> > > 
> > > To open up the problematic, in what ways an academic post colonial 
> > > critic can speak about post/neo-colonialism. To be specific, lets 
> > > refer to Edward Said (of Orientalism), Homi K Bhaba(of Location of 
> > > Culures, henceforth LOC ) and GC Spivak ( of Post Colonial Critic & 
> > > The Other worlds, hf.PCC & TOW).[these limits are not to restrict the 
> > > scope of discussion but to express my breadth of information].She can 
> > > talk in Oppositional or in Ambivalent terms. She can either trace her 
> > > geneology to Focault/Nietsche or to Derrida/Lacan. But can she ever 
> > > inscribe her geneology outside the space of First World Theory??
> > 
> > intersting discussion, including the slur from the gringa, 
> > however i would like to point out that neo-colonialism 
> > and post-colonialism are two very different theories. 
> > Neo-colonialism, a term 
> > created by Kwame Nkrumah in his brilliant trilogy "Neo-Colonialism: The 
> > Last Stage of Imperialism" is mostly a theory that developed in africa by 
> > thinkers like amilcar cabral 'return to the source', chinweizu "the west 
> > and the rest" and Ngugi wa Thiongo "decolonizing the mind" etc  
> > there are serious differences in perspetive between these two 
> > theories.
> > If we were to compare, for example, the work of 
> > Ngugi wa Thiongo to that of Gatyari Spivak who both teach in the 
> > united states, but for different reasons --ngugi is in exile, a 
> > political refugee, after spending 10 years in detention for 
> > cultural activism; while Spivak is an economic migrant, here 
> > because life in america is more comfortable, there is a drastic 
> > difference. 
> > Ngugi's work is lucid, sober and engaged; Spivak's is 
> > pretentious, frivolous, and abstract. After publising a series of novels 
> > in English, Ngugi decides to write in his mother tongue so that he can 
> > communicate with the workers and peasants in kenya; spivak on the other 
> > hand continues to engage the latest intellectual fashions out of paris in 
> > a languge that is designed to keep the "natives" in their place.
> > The politics of 
> > these two individuals, i think, are a lesson in the dangers of 
> > homogenizing the work of "third world' thinkers.
> > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > >      --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> > > 
> > 
> > 
> >      --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> > 
> 
> 
>      --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 


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