From: "Steve Pickford" <spickford-AT-datec.com.pg>
Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2000 17:17:50 +1000
Subject: Re: Glad, not grumpy


I cant concur with all the Eric has put below.

I have a small problem with the elevation of the 'exiled intellectual' as 
an icon of the post-colonial - more than likely its a result of cutting in 
on the conversation - and not knowing where it has come from.
All worlds have their 'exiled intellectuals'.

History (like biography, etc), is also a slippery reality - as a way of 
'reading the world' it obscures as well as focuses. 

I must agree however, that keeping up with the 'discourse(s)' is not 
easy - but then its sometimes easier to see the field when your 
standing at the edges, not stuck in the middle.
Labels like 'heteroglossia'; 'dialogism'  are technologies - if you dont 
know how they work, or how to drive them, use them, work them, 
then your a 'passenger' - which is a position we all find ourselves in 
from time to time.

Steve Pickford






From:           	Eric Dickens <eric.dickens-AT-wxs.nl>
To:             	postcolonial <postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Subject:        	Glad, not grumpy
Date sent:      	Thu, 6 Jul 2000 12:38:27 +0200
Send reply to:  	postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu

> 6th July 2000
> 
> Dear PoCo-listers,
> 
> It's nice to see that some of the big issues are being taken seriously. It
> makes one glad, not grumpy.
> 
> First of all, I must thank Lisa Anne McNee for her patient reply to my
> various points. Also Michelle Menzies and Steve Pickford have valuable
> things to say.
> 
> EXPATS OR LETTERS FROM HOME?
> Firstly, Michelle Menzies and Steve Pickford's point about much PoCo
> discourse being dominated by the "First World" as well as by expatriate
> writers, rather than indigenous ones, is interesting. Surely we want, on
> occasions, to hear what it's like in those countries by people who live
> there, rather than having everything told us by well-meaning "First World"
> scholars. PoCo does, in my opinion, run the risk of becoming weighed down
> by well-meant, but rather Besserwisser, offshore opinions about what's
> going on in the cultures of the developing countries. A parallel case: I
> was only yesterday reading the obituary of the Polish writer Gustaw
> Herling-Grudzinski who spent time in the Russian GuLag, but the last 40-50
> years of his life in exile in Italy. A shrewd commentator of things Polish
> - but didn't the years in exile mean he got a bit cut off?
> 
> NATIONAL IDENTITY
> Lisa Anne's labelling of the issue of nationalism is interesting. I had
> been wondering why so much "Quebecois-bashing" had been going on in our
> e-mail group correspondence. I see the point about who's the minority (try
> Northern Ireland for that one!), but I fear there is a gut reaction
> against anyone who asserts their ethnic identity once they have won a safe
> platform to do so. While the ethnic group is still the underdog, they are
> still poor sufferers of discrimination, but once they attain sovereignty
> of a sort, everyone's suddenly gunning for them, especially if they prove
> to be as unholy as their previous oppressors. I will once again recommend
> Anthony D. Smith's book "National Identity" for a thoughtful discussion of
> the issue of ethnicity and national identity.
> 
> HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
> I'm also glad that Lisa Anne brings a few refugees from previous centuries
> into the debate. One area where I think PoCo is somewhat limited is that
> the situation of exile writers and intellectuals throughout history, from
> Ovid onwards, is sometimes forgotten. Surely it would be most valuable to
> compare the sufferings, joys and achievements of such historical figures
> as Comenius, Descartes and Spinoza with those of intellectuals today who
> can't go home.
> 
> JOURNALS
> Lisa Anne mentions "Mots pluriels" and "Matatu". I note one issue of "Mots
> pluriels" asks the question "A qui appartient le discours?". I will read
> the various articles.
> 
> SCOPE AND PURVIEW
> What still puzzles me, however, is the fact that postcolonial studies
> hardly ever makes comparisons between postcolonial situations inside
> Europe with ones involving the developing countries. Such situations may
> be hundreds of years old and would provide a valuable backdrop for what's
> going on now. I still wonder why university departments often have the
> package of <<Comparative Literature & Gender Studies & Literary Theory &
> Postcolonial Studies & (Post)Modernism & Victorian Studies>> which smacks
> heavily of the English Literature Department syllabus at the University of
> X. When the French enter stage, it is to parallel work done on
> English-language postcolonialism. This is to be applauded. When the
> Germans enter, it's by way of the English Department at the Universitat Y.
> Do the Germans have much to say about their own colonialism in Togoland,
> Cameroon, South West Africa, German East Africa, or is this just an excuse
> for another bout of criticism of the specifically British Empire?
> 
> BAKHTIN
> I'll do a bit of re-reading of the various major PoCo texts (Spivak,
> Bhabha, Ngugi, Said, etc.). I owe it to myself and anyone I debate with.
> 
> But one area which puzzles me greatly is the introduction of the Russian
> Bakhtin into the postcolonial arena. To put it bluntly, I can't get a grip
> on his terms. I've tried to read Michael Holquist's and Sue Vice's books
> on Bakhtin, but I still have no clear idea in my mind how the concepts of
> "heteroglossia", "dialogism", "carnival", "chronotype" and "polyphony"
> actually fit together. And when, on page 63 of her book "Introducing
> Bakhtin" she mentions the notorious spoofer Alan Sokal, I begin to wonder
> what's going on... I cannot, in other words, see in a simple tree diagram
> in my mind, which term is a subcategory of which, and if this is not the
> case, how they interlock. Can anyone explain, in simple terms, the
> epistemological connections between the above terms? When I ask this sort
> of question, the usual answer I get is "it's obvious to anyone with a bit
> of intelligence", implying I'm a bit retarded. But how can I begin to
> apply these terms to "the postcolonial project" if I don't know what they
> mean?
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Eric Dickens
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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