Post-Colonial
Criticism
Or
What Did The White Man
Do Now??
What is Post-Colonialism?
• A strategy used to examine the culture of
the former colonies of European empires
and how those former colonies relate to
the rest of the world.
• What might be included in culture??
What is Post-Colonialism?
• Post-colonial writers often try to resurrect
their culture and/or battle preconceptions
• The same can be said about the postcolonial critic
Key Terms
• Alterity - "lack of identification with some part of one's
personality or one's community, differentness, otherness“
• Diaspora (dI-ASP-er-ah- "is used (without capitalization)
to refer to any people or ethnic population forced or
induced to leave their traditional ethnic homelands, being
dispersed throughout other parts of the world, and the
ensuing developments in their dispersal and culture"
(Wikipedia).
• Eurocentrism - "the practice, conscious or otherwise, of
placing emphasis on European (and, generally, Western)
concerns, culture and values at the expense of those of
other cultures.
Key Terms
• Hybridity - "an important concept in postcolonial theory, referring to the integration (or,
mingling) of cultural signs and practices from the
colonizing and the colonized cultures. Things to
consider when discussing hybridity include
assimilation and adaptation of cultural practices,
the cross-fertilization of cultures. These ideas
can be seen as positive, enriching, and dynamic,
as well as as oppressive"
• Hegemony - : preponderant influence or
authority over others (http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/hegemony )
Key Terms
• Imperialism - "the policy of extending the
control or authority over foreign entities as a
means of acquisition and/or maintenance of
empires, either through direct territorial control
or through indirect methods of exerting control
on the politics and/or economy of other
countries. The term is used by some to describe
the policy of a country in maintaining colonies
and dominance over distant lands, regardless of
whether the country calls itself an empire"
(Dictionary.LaborLawTalk.com).
Questions to consider…
• How does the literary text, explicitly or
allegorically, represent various aspects of
colonial oppression?
• What does the text reveal about the
problematics of post-colonial identity, including
the relationship between personal and cultural
identity and such issues as double
consciousness and hybridity?
• What person(s) or groups does the work identify
as "other" or stranger? How are such
persons/groups described and treated?
Questions to consider…
• What does the text reveal about the politics
and/or psychology of anti-colonialist resistance?
• What does the text reveal about the operations
of cultural difference - the ways in which race,
religion, class, gender, sexual orientation,
cultural beliefs, and customs combine to form
individual identity - in shaping our perceptions of
ourselves, others, and the world in which we
live?
• How does the text respond to or comment upon
the characters, themes, or assumptions of a
canonized (colonialist) work?
Questions to consider…
• Are there meaningful similarities among
the literatures of different post-colonial
populations?
• How does a literary text in the Western
canon reinforce or undermine colonialist
ideology through its representation of
colonialization and/or its inappropriate
silence about colonized peoples? (Tyson
378-379)
Sources
Brizee, Allen. “Post-Colonial Criticism (1990-Present)”. Purdue OWL.
Purdue University Writing Lab, 21 Apr. 2010. Web. 15 Nov.
2012.
Siegel, Kristi. Introduction to Modern Literary Theory. Np. Web. 15 Nov.
2012