From: april_biccum-AT-hotmail.com
Subject: RE: new directions in poco
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 11:54:36 +0000
Hi Liz and everyone else,
I would just like to add to what you've said that we should be using postcolonial theories and studies to look at contemporary material vis a vis what we now know about the operations of colonial power and culture to look for continuities. I think this is the best and most overtly political manoevre that postcolonial thinkers can make. So I'm really glad to hear about your work in contemporary natural sciences. My work is focussing on the promotional literature of hte UKs Department for International Development for continuities with colonial discourse, which by the way, abound. I think we need to be shifting towards as you said the analysis of contemporary texts and an interruption into contemporary popular narratives, particularly the one that says there is no alternative to neo-liberal globalisation. I also think we need to reconsider the word 'post-colonial'. I know this has been bandied about for time but I think its time for a serious shift and organisation for anti-imperialist critics in all disciplines.
I'm enjoying the thread,
April
>From: "Elizabeth DeLoughrey" <emd23-AT-cornell.edu>
>Reply-To: postcolonial-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
>To: <postcolonial-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
>Subject: RE: new directions in poco
>Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 01:27:32 -0400
>
>Thanks, everyone for the responses, ideas and texts. I have many
>comments to make but for now will respond in brief, mostly to weigh in
>on what seems to be a shared thread in terms of a broadening in
>space/time of the parameters of the field (a need that even the earliest
>poco collections recognized) as well as a desire to make poco
>methodologies viable for reading contemporary and violent shifts in
>power, resisting what Ali Behdad has already warned us about
>postcolonialism's 'belatedness.'
>
>On the latter point, my work is shifting from literature towards the
>natural sciences which for disciplinary reasons has posed some major
>obstacles. Like the field in general, I'm turning to discourses of
>ecological imperialism which hasn't so much pressed against the spatial
>or temporal boundaries of my work, but it has profoundly challenged my
>ideas of what might constitute postcolonial genres (already too limited
>in this field to the novel, but I'm thinking in broader terms of
>non-fiction, travel writing, visual arts, etc.) Amardeep and Sam have
>already gestured to shifts towards environmental/ecological
>postcolonialism--already a massive field. I'm interested in the quote
>you attribute to Gilroy, Sam--'planetary consciousness.' (& you could
>add Spivak to the list here too). I don't have my copy with me but I'm
>pretty sure that's Mary Louise Pratt's term to describe Humboldt's idea
>of the natural cosmos---if so, that raises an interesting continuity
>from its use in current postcolonial theory back to an earlier peak of
>empire that was constituted by environmental determinism, demarcating
>racial difference via 'temperate' and 'torrid' zones. Liz
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-postcolonial-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
>[mailto:owner-postcolonial-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU] On Behalf Of
>april_biccum-AT-hotmail.com
>Sent: Monday, September 27, 2004 6:44 AM
>To: postcolonial-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
>Subject: RE: new directions in poco
>
>
>
>Hi,
>
>I just wanted to say how much I agree with you're assessment here. I'm
>doing research in a politics department here in teh UK focussed on
>bringing postcolonial theory into the discipline of politics more
>directly. I appreciate the culturalist turn of postcolonial writing and
>I think its immensely useful, but I think that theorists who are
>sympathetic with an anti-colonial or anti-imperialist political stance
>need to be using postcolonial theory to look at this contemporary
>moment, alongside what has been said by other "third world"
>interventions in political writing, such as dependency and world systems
>theory (for all their faults) and other anti-colonialist or nationalist
>writings throughout moments of decolonisation. My work in particular is
>looking at continuities between colonial discourse and the UK's
>development discourse (DFID) using postcolonial theory to draw out the
>continuities. I think we inhabit a very frightening and important
>historical moment and I think
> that the more radical elements in the broad field of 'postcolonial'
>thinking need urgently to be stepped up within the academy and a
>stronger sense of political urgency needs to be coming from critics who
>are concerned with the issues and theories coming out of postcolonial
>theory in terms of how colonial power operates and how it manages its
>continuance. THere are grave similaries between what is happening now
>and the period in the late Nineteenth Century when colonial powers
>shifted from 'free trade imperialism' to direct colonisation under the
>guise of 'development' and hte 'welfare of hte natives'. THe Berlin
>COnference of 1885 bears striking similarities to teh UN conference of
>2000 establishing the Millenium Development Goals. THe conquering of
>Iraq and Afghanistan under hte guise of democratisation bears the same
>ambivalence that Bhabha describes for the despotic rule of India by a
>supposedly free people. The work done within postcolonial theory
>looking at Ninetee nth Century imperial culture and politics needs to
>be brought to bear on this contemporary political moment as of hte
>utmost urgency. I think that there is a crisis of disciplinarisation in
>the postcolonial studies that needs urgent redress. I'd love to speak
>more to anyone who shares my concerns and sense of urgency.
>
>April R. Biccum, Department of Politics, University of Nottingham, UK
>
>
>
>
>
> >From: "Samuel Durrant" <S.R.Durrant-AT-leeds.ac.uk>
>
> >Reply-To: postcolonial-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
>
> >To: <postcolonial-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
>
> >Subject: new directions in poco
>
> >Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 13:29:39 +0100
>
> >
>
> >Dear Liz (greetings from another old timer from this list and thanks
> >for
>
> >your timely question)
>
> >
>
> >I've been thinking a lot about where poco is going as we rework our
>
> >introductory module for our MA in Postcolonial Literary and Cultural
>
> >Studies. On the one hand, I was bored teaching Bhabha, Spivak et al
> >and
>
> >on the other I feel that poco studies has to be speaking to the current
>
> >'state of emergency' concerning Iraq, Palestine, the 'war on terror'
>
> >etc. So we've designed our opening two seminars around the cluster
>
> >'violence, difference and community' and we're reading Achille Mbembe's
>
> >"Necropolitics," (Public Culture 2003 15.1), Sontag's New Yorker essay
>
> >on the Abu Ghraib photos, and new work by Ranjana Khanna (Dark
>
> >Continents: Psychoanalysis and Postcolonialism, Duke 2003 and Paul
>
> >Gilroy (After Empire: Multiculture or Postcolonial Melancholia
>
> >(Routledge, forthcoming). The thread linking them is the nature of the
>
> >neo-colonial or neo-imperial world order (might also have included
>
> >something from Hardt and Negri's Empire, for all its alleged foibles,
> >if
>
> >I'd had time to read it), the way in which this order is structured
>
> >around the disposability (Mbembe's term) of black or non-Western bodies
>
> >(hence the continuities between neo-imperialism and 'traditional'
>
> >European imperialism), issues of sovereignty and human rights (just got
>
> >hold of Agamben's Homo Sacer), and the possibilities for resistance to
>
> >this order and for a countermemory/consciousness that might refuse to
>
> >forget those disposable bodies).
>
> >
>
> >For me the most important work centres around issues of
> >affiliation--how
>
> >to construct a 'new' humanism/cosmopolitanism or what Gilroy calls a
>
> >'planetary consciousness' grounded in common responsibility for
>
> >suffering bodies (and not just human ones---see Derrida, Coetzee etc).
>
> >Anti-capitalist movements, ecocriticism, the ethical 'turn' in
>
> >poststructuralist thought, Benjamin-inflected work on trauma and
>
> >melancholia, all lead in this direction, as attempts to define (and
>
> >ultimately find a way of living) our commonality (although of course
>
> >much of this may simply be catching up, recovering or even globalising
>
> >the ethical and ecological praxis of non-Western(ised) cultures).
>
> >
>
> >Of course there has also been arguments over what
>
> >countries/periods/disciplines can be fruitfully 'postcolonialised', as
>
> >someone has already pointed out, but these arguments strike me as
>
> >somewhat less pressing and more 'academic' than arguments about how to
>
> >construct a new international(ism) that would counter and resist the
>
> >'ethical imperialism' of Bush, Blair and co.
>
> >
>
> >Best,
>
> >Sam.
>
> >Dr Sam Durrant.
>
> >Lecturer in Postcolonial Literature
>
> >Leeds University
>
> >
>
> >-----Original Message-----
>
> >From: owner-postcolonial-digest-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
>
> >[mailto:owner-postcolonial-digest-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU]
>
> >Sent: 22 September 2004 20:59
>
> >To: postcolonial-digest-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
>
> >Subject: postcolonial-digest V2 #2356
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >postcolonial-digest Wednesday, September 22 2004 Volume 02 : Number
>
>
> >2356
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >In this issue:
>
> >==============
>
> >
>
> > "Elizabeth DeLoughrey Postcolonial directions
>
> >
>
> > "Rohit Chopra" South Asian Studies position at Emory
>
> >
>
> > brad daly INQ: Postcolonialism and the Anglican Church
>
> >
>
> > "Amardeep Singh" Re: Postcolonial directions
>
> >
>
> > "Mary Keller" Anglican rift info
>
> >
>
> > "Craig Watters" Re: INQ: Postcolonialism and the Anglican
>
> >Church
>
> > "Weihsin Gui" Re: Postcolonial directions
>
> >
>
> > "Orion Anderson" Call for Editor: Peace Review Issue on the
>
> >Psychol
>
> >
>
> >----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >
>
> >Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 01:24:14 -0400
>
> >From: "Elizabeth DeLoughrey" <emd23-AT-cornell.edu>
>
> >Subject: Postcolonial directions
>
> >
>
> >Hi everyone
>
> >
>
> >The list has been pretty quiet lately so perhaps this broad question
>
> >will start some discussion--if you had to explain to new graduate
>
> >students (in literature) where the field of postcolonial studies is
>
> >going, what key issues, disciplinary overlaps, or texts would you
>
> >highlight? I'm faced with this very task this semester and am finding
>
> >the field (or perhaps my own work) more diffuse than ever. I'm
>
> >especially interested in what people are reading/teaching in recent
>
> >postcolonial feminisms. Thanks in advance, Liz DeLoughrey
>
> >
>
> >****************
>
> >Elizabeth DeLoughrey
>
> >Assistant Professor
>
> >Dept of English, Cornell University
>
> >Ithaca, NY 14850
>
> >607-255-3411 (Fax: 6661)
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
> >
>
> >------------------------------
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
>
>
>
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