Postcolonialism

Question:
“There is nothing mysterious or natural about authority. It is formed, irradiated,
disseminated; it is instrumental, it is persuasive” (Edward W. Said, Orientalism)
Focusing on one critical approach, discuss the ways in which literature reproduces
and/or challenges authority.

• Postcolonial criticism emerged as a distinct category only in the 1990s. However,

one of the major books, which can be said to inaugurate postcolonial criticism
proper, is Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978).
• In this monograph, Edward Said stated, “there is nothing mysterious or natural
about authority. It is formed, irradiated, disseminated; it is instrumental, it is
persuasive”.
• Notice colonialist ideology

Introduction:
Time: in the 1990s
Effect / purpose: to further undermine the universalist claims once made on behalf of
literature by liberal humanist critics
• 直到二十世纪九十年代初，后殖民批评才成为文学研究的一支主力。
• 作为文学研究的一个领域，后殖民批评是具体的批评实践，也是一种理论
框架。作为具体的批评实践，后殖民批评分析的文学是那些针对殖民统治
作出反应的文化所产生的文学，其时限从最早的殖民接触直到现阶段。作
为一种理论框架，后殖民批评则致力于理解殖民主义与反殖民主义的意识
形态如何在政治、社会、文化、心理层面进行运作。大量的后殖民批评分
析这些意识形态的作用，一方面，他们强迫殖民者内化吸收殖民者的价值
观，另一方面，它们又推动殖民者起来反抗压迫者，自殖民主义诞生之日
起，这种反抗就一直存在。正如我们将看到的那样，殖民主义和反殖民主
义形态可能在任何作品中出现，因此，某些在我们看来不一定属于后殖民
文学的文本，也可用于后殖民批评加以分析。
• 后殖民批评最关注的是抵制各种形式的殖民主义意识形态，但是如果找不
到它的藏身之处，这种抵制就无从谈起。
• 就大部分后殖民分析而言，无论他们关注的焦点是什么，它们在分析一个
文本的时候，都要去关注它是殖民主义性质的，还是反殖民主义性质的，
或者是兼具两种性质，也就是说，在意思形态上存在内在冲突。
• 对于一个文学文本，无论它的主题是什么，大多数后殖民批评家都会去分
析它何以是殖民主义的，或者说，它何以是反殖民主义的，也就是说，后
殖民主义批评家分析的是该文本是怎样强化或者怎样抵制殖民主义的压迫
性的意识形态的。

Questions:
• How does the work reflect on its historical and cultural context through
characters, events, and language?

• How does a literary text represent marginalized peoples (usually, the colonized)?

• What are the power relations between dominant and marginalized that it
explores? How does it explore the co-dependency of the dominant and
marginalized?

• How are colonialist ideologies reinforced or challenged in the text?

Key terms:
• Other
• Cultural subjects
• Cultural colonization
• Colonialist ideology
• Orientalism (Discourse of difference, self, other)

Assumptions:
• Universalism
• Western-civilized/Eastern-uncivilized(Eurocentrism—Universalism—
Orientalism)
Characteristics:
• An awareness of representations of the non-European as exotic or immoral
“Other”
• Language (Some postcolonial writers have concluded that the colonizers’
language is permanently tainted, and that to write in it involves a crucial
acquiescence in colonial structures
• Emphasis on identity as doubled, or hybrid, or unstable
• Cross-cultural interactions