File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_1999/postcolonial.9912, message 35


Date: Mon, 06 Dec 1999 16:55:25 -0500
From: Kevin Hickey <khickey-AT-skidmore.edu>
Subject: Identity


A number of recent issues to which (as well as I can remember them) I
would like to respond are:

Edward Said critiques a "negative flat-minded example" of identity
politics in "The Politics of Knowledge" RARITAN 1 (summer 1991): 18-31.
This essay is also found in David Richter's FALLING INTO THEORY.

The emphasis on Euro-Continental philosophy is partly because it remains
"the bully on the block." "Continental" philosophy--spoken of as if
there were only one continent (which, of course in the case of Europe,
is itself not a continent)--has infiltrated so much that it is nearly
impossible to ignore it. Not only Edward Said, but anthony Appiah, Ngugi
wa Thiongo, Maryse Conde, Derek Walcott, Assia Djebar, Nawal el Saadawi
and so many in whom we might look to find "the non-Western" are imbued
with the Western "tradition."  There are, of course, better examples
(those who come closer to an impossible purity), but the hegemonic power
of  this philosophicqal traditions account for much of its continued
importance.

Someone mentioned Derrida and his...deficiencies/problems.(?) I would be
happy to discuss some of them. There is much to critique in Derrida, but
there is also so much to laud. That on the first page of DE La
GRAMMATOLOGIE, 1967, Derrida twice raises the issue of ethnocentrism,
once speaks of logocentrism, and also refers to epistemological
imperialism, and that this sustained critique of the "Western"
metaphysical tradition and its relation to imperialism and the violences
of Eurocentrism is a theme running throughout the 32 years of
publications and presentations since then, makes Derrida an extremely
important source of postcolonial critique and thinking. While not an
expert on Derrida, I am frequently amazed at not only his "bad press"
but at how this "press" comes out of  an understanding of Derrida that
is contradicted by Derrida's work. The poor scholarship on Derrida is
often quite amazing.

Kevin Hickey



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