By students of 541 gr.:
Malova Daria
Alina Kovalenko
Dovhan Tamila
Zhbadinska Anna
Shults Tetiana
Drizo Ivan
 The POSTCOLONIAL THEORY involves issues of
power, economics, politics, religion, and culture and
how they work with colonial leadership
 It acts as a critical lens that analyzes the effects of
colonization and imperialism on people and nations
 Emerged in the 1990’s
 Undermines universalist claims
 Universal claims disregard
difference:
Regional
National
Cultural
Social
 White Eurocentric norms should not
be privileged
 In "The Location of Culture"(1994), Homi Bhabha
focuses on politics, emotions, and values that existed
between the colonizer and the colonized. He uses
the word "hybrid“ to describe the post-colonial people
and their experiences to focus on the effects of
colonization on people and their culture.
 Edward Said
used Post
Colonialism in his
book "Orientalism"(
1978) that focused
on criticizing
stereotypical
boundaries that
were drawn
between the East
and West
specifically the
Middle East.
 In "The Wretched of the Earth"(1961), Frantz Fanon
criticizes the nature of colonialism and how it is
"essentially destructive."He depicts its societal effects and
how it harms the mental health of the native peoples who
were subjugated into colonies by saying "such
dehumanization is achieved with physical and mental
violence."
White
Man’s
Burden
Racism
Social
Darwinis
m
Hegemo
ny
Exploitati
on
Counternarrative
Cultural
borderla
nds
Britain was the most
powerful colonizer
and had an effect on
the cultures of many
people
The effects of
colonization
economically,
politically, and socially
can still be seen and
felt today
The colonizers not only
conquered the land but
they also controlled the
culture and ideology of
the colonized people
Use of detailed descriptions of people, places,
and criticism towards stereotypes inaccuracies
and generalizations.
Use of colonizers “tongue“ or dialect to
demonstrate the language that was forced upon
them
Use of colonial art forms to incorporate their
style, structure, and themes such as poetry
Phase 1: Analyze white
representation of colonial
countries…uncover bias
Phase 2: Postcolonial writers
explore selves and society
(The Empire writes back)
OTHERISM
ORIENTALISM
EUROCENTRISM
 Postcolonial theorists try to identify examples in
which the colonized and their values were “otherized”
 The ‘other’ is anyone who is separate from one’s
self. The existence of others is crucial in defining what
is ‘normal’ and in locating one’s own place in the
world.
 The colonized subject is characterized as ‘other’
through discourses such as primitivism and
cannibalism as a means of establishing the binary
separation of the colonizer and colonized and
asserting the naturalness and primacy of the
colonizing culture and world view.
Us – civilized –
Western
Them – the others
– colonized
Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or
Western-centrism) is a worldview centered
on and biased towards Western civilization.
First World
Developed
Third World
Developing
Edward Said
In his most influential work,
Orientalism, Said criticises the
literary world for not investigating
and taking seriously the study
colonization or imperialism.
“Orientalism” defined as ‘a
distribution of geopolitical
awareness into aesthetic,
scholarly, economic, sociological,
historical and philological texts’.
According to Said, 19th century
Europeans tried to justify their
territorial conquests by
propagating a manufactured belief
called Orientalism.
An awareness of representation of non-Europeans as
exotic or ‘Other’
Concern with language. Some conclude the colonizer's
language is permanently tainted, to write in it involves
acquiescence in colonial structures.
Emphasis on identity as doubled or unstable (identify
with colonizer and colonized)
Stress on cross cultural interactions
Reject claims of
universalism
Foreground questions of diversity and
cultural difference
Examine representation of
other cultures
Celebrate ‘cultural polyvancy’
(belonging to more than one culture)
Show how literature is silent
on matters of imperialism
and colonialism
Assert that marginality, plurality and
‘Otherness’are sources of energy and potential
change
What is the historical
context of the literature
and what does this
reveal about who has
power?
How does the
superior culture's
supremacy affect the
colonized culture?
Viewpoints?
How do the
colonized people
view themselves and
the colonizers?
What person or
group of people
does the work
identify as the
"other or "lesser"?
How are such
persons/group
s described
and treated?
Who is the
colonized? Who is
the colonizer?
Who is
classified as
superior?
How do the
colonizers view
themselves and
the colonized
people?
How does the
literary text
represent various
aspects of colonial
oppression?
How does the literary text,
explicitly or allegorically,
represent various aspects
of colonial oppression?
What does the text reveal about
the problematic of postcolonial identity, including the
relationship between personal
and cultural identity within
cultural borderlands?
What does the text
reveal about the politics
and/or psychology of
anti-colonialist
resistance?
What person(s) or groups does
the work identify as "other" or
stranger? How are such
persons/groups described and
treated?
What does the text
reveal about the
operations of
cultural difference?
How does a literary text in the
Western canon reinforce or
undermine colonialist ideology
through its representation of
colonization and/or its inappropriate
silence about colonized peoples?