Subject=Postcolonial Studies

Discipline=Literature

Assignment Title= How Did Postcolonial

Discourse Changed Your Perception Of The
World Literature?

Submitted To= Dr.Ali Usman

Submitted By=Arfa Sanam

[2468,M.Phil Eng Literature Semester II,
Riphah International University Faisalabad
Campus].
 Outline:
1-Introduction
2-Major postcolonial Theorists
(How did these Postcolonial theorists
broadened my perception of World Literature?)
3-Key Concepts Of Postcolonialism
(Now how do I use to think the different
things and ideas in the Postcolonial context?)
4-Islam
(Islam and Muslim empires are known as
Colonial process: How did it changed my perception
about Islam?)
5-Conclusion
 Introduction Of
Postcolonialism:
 Postcolonial: Not only denoted a particular historical period (e.g after
colonialism/after independence) but also refers to a transformed historical
situation and new cultural formations reading practices and values.
Its an academic discipline that analysis, explains and responds to the
cultural legacy of colonialism and imperialism.
It also describes a whole new experience of political freedom,also provides a
set of analytical tools with which to unpack colonial writings and deliberate
postcolonial literature.
Postcolonialism=Without hyphen (It’s a theoratical concept, a theory, a
philosophy).
Post-colonialism=With hyphen ( Its an era coming after colonialism).
Postcolonial theory: gives us a set of tools, it’s a lens that gives us a view
about specific issues.It addresses the following issues.
1-Colonialism’s strategies of representation of the natives.
2-The rise of nationalist and/or nativist discourse that resisted colonialism
and other forms of resistance.
3-The feminization, marginalization and dehumanization of the native.
 Postcolonial Theorists:
1-Homi K.Bhabha:,
He gave the concepts of[Ambivalence, Mimicry, Hybridity,Binarism].
How Bhabha’s postcolonial theory broadened my view point?As the novel (Twilight in
Delhi) which i read 2 years ago. Asghar the character of this novel, mimics/copies
the style, language etc of the colonizers, at that time I was not aware of Bhabha’s
concept of mimicry but after reading Bhabha I came to know that this concept is also
present in this novel.If we observe we can see that even now a days we are also
doing the same thing,preffering the eng language,our style of living also very much
closer to foreigners/colonizers.
Then his concepts of hybridity,and ambivalence as we can see these concepts in
‘The Reluctant and Fundamentalist’s Changaiz character.
Binarism,Oppositeness,[civilized/uncivilized]this binarism can be seen in the novel
‘Heart Of Darkness’
2-Frantz Fanon:
He gave the three phase of formation of national culture,
1-Unquallified assimilation: [Coping the dominant’s trends]
2-Turns back: [Falls back on]
3-Resistance: [Fighting phase]
Two types of women by Fanon:[Negro=A black woman],[Mulato=neither a black
nor white rather a mixture]
Colonialism dehumanized the natives
‘Black Skin ,White Masks’[The white man is the master and the object to be
desired and feared, The black man tries to be more like the white man.He puts on a
white mask.
After reading Frantz Fanon’s theory I found the element of resistance in Iqbal’s
poetry as he is also an anti-colonial poet and he picked up the concept of
‘Khudi’[self] from Fanon,Hugel [‘being and nothingness’] and he used
[‘Muslim man’s Burden’] to replace the term [‘White Man’s Burden].
 3-Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak:
She gave the concept of ‘Subaltern’,known for harnessing deconstructive
critical thought, feminism and marxism for postcolonial process.
Can the subaltern speak-Spivak worries about the inability of
subaltern/oppressed to represent themselves.
This concept is present in the novel ‘Meatless days’[‘There are no women
in the third world countries’],as Benzir Bhuto,prime minister,was strongly
opposed and later men got seats showing strong resistance against her,and
the’Women Protection bill’ that is recently passed by Pakistani Assembly,
a resistance against the subaltern discourse.
4-Edward Said:
He gave the concept of ‘Orientalism’that refers to the West’s
representation of the East
East as anti-thesis of West or Orient vs Occident.
Orient is decayed and degenerated.
Races are depicted as [murderous and violent Arab; Lazy Indians; The
inscrutable Chinaman, Dirty Pakistanies], that’s why we muslims are
labbeled as terrorists, as having beared and moustichies is a crime which
labbeled a man as terrorist as its is happening now a days with the muslims
around the world,as they are considered to be the part of terrorism or
Talibanization.In ’Reluctant and Fundamentalist’ it also has this view
point,
Actually this is the West’s representation of East that it has created for
Eastern countries/especially for muslim countries.
 Key Concepts Of
Postcolonialism:
 1-Colonialism=European occupation on non-European lands.
2-Binary opposition=Oppositeness, colonizer/colonized, white/black.
3-Decolonization=resistance against colonizers.
4-Colony=place occupieded by the colonizer.
5-Imperialism=its an ideology and colonialsim is its practical form.
6-Neocolonialism=a remote control form of colonialism most
dangerous,that can be seen in Pakistan as acting upon the American
policies.[politicians,world banks,military]
7-Nativity=celebrate being a native.
8-Hybrdity=a distorted self-identity(the same and not the same native).
9-Epistomology=study of the nature of the knowledge.
These concepts changed my perception of world literarure,now it becomes
more clear and now we observe so many of these concepts prevailing
around us and think more sharply that these are really happening around
us.Still we are not a free nation and we psychologically are still colonized as
we do prefer to speak eng language,consider our mother langauage as
inferior one.
 Islam and Muslim empires:
Two-third, 70% lives have been shaped by
colonization. Greeks, Islamic history and Roman
empires are the finest examples of colonization. First
the question which was raised in my mind that how
Islam and muslim empires are known to be a process
of colonization?
If we go back to history, whenever Muslim empires
had to fight with non-muslim empires,they put these
three conditions to choose one from them[1-Accept
the Islam and leave their own religion, 2-Pay
the tax to them, 3-Or fight with them],so
colonization is not an innocent
process/settelement,they imposed their own policies
on the colonized people and they would definitely
resist and fight for their rights.So it makes this point
clear that Islam or muslim empires are truly the part
of colonial process.
 , Muslim
Colonized

Colonialism is actually a cyclic process. Non-muslim

Muslim Colonizers
Colonizers

Non-muslim
Colonized
 Conclusion:There is a politics everywhere and it
introduces new cultures,identities, binaries
etc.Colonoialism and postcolonialism are inter-
cultural.No culture of the world is explosive and no
language is influenced by other languages.Its an age
of multi-culturalism and mostly the world became a
melting pot.Colonialism brought the issues of identity
crisis, hybrid identity, mimicry, ambivalence, binarism.
Postcolonialism as we know responds to the cultural
legacy of colonialism, it refers to the new
formations,readings and values,and it also describes
the whole new experience of politics and freedom tht
makes us to see from different critical angles.
 2-Topic:
How its teachings can be made better?
It’s a very important and notable question that how can we make postcolonial
teachings more better?
The first thing is that with the aid of postcolonial theory and sociocultural theory,
both teachers and students need to be more critical of how the construction of
knowledge is produced and be aware of the Eurocentric tendencies and that
students will be able to better comprehend the postcolonial studies through
collaborate learning.
The curriculum and syllabus for English should be used to support the argument that
postcolonial literature is a valuable and necessary part of classroom because it
provides a perspective that is seldom represented in Western.
Postcolonial literature provides an opportunity to look at issues such as colonization,
globalization, the tourist industry from a non-Western perspective and help to
broaden the student’s horizons regarding such issues.
First teachers should choose which text will be more suitable to create and broaden
the students’ concepts and perspectives regarding postcolonial studies/literature and
the criteria which may help teachers anchor their choices.
Second, in response to the question of how teachers pedagogically assist students to
correct preconceived notions and deconstruct stereotypes. Students move from prior
knowledge into an informed reality guided by the teachers and then into the world of
the text In a process that involves collaborative learning, reinventing conceptual
realities and the concretization of literary texts, and make the students how to
approach the postcolonial texts, it will help the students interact and eventually
unlock assumed unfamiliarity, with postcolonial texts.