Post-Colonialisms (II)
(Post-)Colonial Identities and
Strategies of Resistance
1. Colonialism, Orientalism and Racism
3. Hybridity and the Other Postcolonial Questions
Starting Questions
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Any questions about your readings?
What have you learned so far re.
colonialism and postcolonialism?
Outline
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A Review and Overview
Colonial & Racial Identities
Postcolonial Identities
Post-Colonialism:
A Review and Overview
Colonialisms & Racism
1.
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2.
Problems with the term “post-colonial” (textbook 4: 290-94)
Definitions & Their Interconnections (thru’ capitalism)
Cultural Imperialism (Orientalism) & examples of
Colonial Other (e.g. Stedman)
Racism –Stereotypes; Containment and Appropriation.
New: Colonial Identities and their Revision
Race and Representation
Mimicry and the Subaltern
Post-Colonial Identities
A.
Language & Literature
B.
History
C.
Identity Construction
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Strategies
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Examples of ‘identity politics’
Colonial Texts/Identities & their Revision
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Major Texts frequently revised:
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abandonment; (Caliban)
Robinson Crusoe – 18th c. –a colony established
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Jane Eyre, -- 19th c – a woman brought back
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The Tempest, --17th c. –usurpation and
(Friday) – Foe by J. M. Coetzee
home. (Other in the Self; Bertha) WSS
Heart of Darkness. --20th c.—material
pursuit/spiritual disintegration (Kurtz’ Self
discovery; black mistress and the intended.)
Mansfield Park (Sir Thomas textbook 3: 275-76) –
Ways of revision:
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re-defined certain features of colonizers or
colonial relations, or re-centering some ignored
characters
The Tempests
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Contemporary revisions: (general trends)
Prospero
De-privileged
Miranda
Supported by sisters;
Gang-raped
(actually the most
powerless)
Ariel
Queered
Caliban
Rise to power; queered;
Sycorax
Present, with her magic
The Tempests—Postcolonial
Interpretations (1)
1.
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Ethnopsychiatry (D. O. Mannoni)
Caliban complex –that of inferiority and
dependency
“When thou cam'st first,
Thou strok'st me and made much of me; wouldst give
me
Water with berries in't; and teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less,
That burn by day and night: and then I lov'd thee,
And show'd thee all the qualities o' th' isle,
The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place, and fertile.
. . . and here you sty me
In this hard rock, ”
Ethnopsychiatry:
Caliban complex
–that of inferiority and dependency
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1.
2.
3.
Gifts with self-interest  return of love and
Dependency  betrayal or demands of
more gifts from the colonized (textbook 4:
278)
Use and abuse the language taught (281)
Another interpretation by F. Fanon in The
Wretched of the Earth
Caliban needs to use violence --cathartic
violence to cleanse him of his inferiority
complex.
Ethnopsychiatry: (2)
Prospero complex
–that of inferiority/superiority and
escape/vocation

1.
2.
3.

Hidden in the assumptions of the superiority of
European culture
Inability to adapt to reality  flight from home or with
a desire to travel;
Excessive idealism.
“Prospero anxiety” (over Caliban’s rebellion) and
“sexual guilt” (over the possibility of incest thus
feeling threatened by both Ferdinand and Caliban in
their confidence in their sexual appeal.) (Zabus 2223)
Ethnopsychiatry: (3)
Prospero complex
Do you agree with this interpretation?
Can you find examples of people with Caliban complex
or Prospero complex? (textbook 4: 279)
There are variations in the interpretation of these two
prototypes. But Prospero—for whatever reasons—
attempts to subject the Other, and the two are caught in
a master-slave mutual dependency.
How about Ariel and Miranda?
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Miranda, one of the two children of Prospero (280)
Ariel -- Intellectual Go-between (messenger)
Type-casting can always be limiting and simplifying,
despite the truths they reveal about “some” people.
Race: Definition (textbook 4: 285-86)
Constructionism: Racial attributes (e.g. what being a
“Chinese” means) not seen as naturally born, but as
socially acquired. (e.g. Focus, Black Like Me)
1. The classification (biological) of humans into races is now
widely regarded as arbitrary from a biological viewpoint
because actual genetic differences between racial groups
are trivial.
e.g. Up from Slavery, Black Like Me, Focus
2. However, racial groups are real in a sociological sense
insofar as people with different skin colour, etc., are
commonly positioned and treated differently. (www.soccanada.com/ppp/ch09.ppt)
In other words, race is now not ‘essentially’ defined, but
more of a social-historical construction.  strategic use
of essentialism or ethnicity. (textbook 4: 298-99)
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Race: Different definitions
new racism -- involves the belief that the
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races are inherently different from one
another in a cultural and behavioural sense,
and problems result when they try to live
together.
Different definitions of race in different
nations; e.g. race related to nationality in UK
and in Taiwan, but not in the U.S.
Subtler forms of racism: containment and
appropriation.
Race: Anti-Essentialist Definition vs.
Literary Appropriation
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The problematic argument of “authenticity”
(TEXTBOOK 4: 288)
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What do you think about a white writer’s pretending to be
of another racial group in order to win a literary prize?
The Education of Little Tree (by by Asa Earl Carter
under the pseudonym Forrest Carter)
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What do you think about the presentation of the
aborigines in mainstream American/Taiwanese texts?
(e.g., 流浪神狗人, Obasan’s inclusioDances with
Wolvesn of Rough Lock Bill?) (TEXTBOOK 4: 296-97)
Race: Anti-Essentialist Definition vs.
Literary Appropriation
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Different Responses:
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Appropriation of “Indian Mythology” (Lee Maracle) 
falsehood and mythologizing.
OK if done with caution(Atwood)
the problem of speaking position and marketability
The issue of tokenism (speaking as, representability) 
the dominant group determining what is visible and
marketable and thus what gets represented.
Cross-Cultural Understanding – always imperfect
(300) [more later]
Colonial Identities （1) : Mimicry
(textbook 5: 464-)
Orientalism – The colonized “fixed” or simplified as Other.
 Between the colonizer and the colonized:
-- Self defined in terms of the Other: the two are thus
inseparable and mutually dependent;
-- Uncertainty of the colonizers
 Stereotyping as “fetishism” -- revealed through their
repetition, which is also a process of "recognition and
disavowal of racial/cultural/historical differences"
 Undermined by mimicry (which is all the same but not
quite).  Hybrid
 Two possible critiques of this view:
 armchair theory, not realistic;
 too general and abstract.
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Mimicry: Theory & Examples
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(See textbook chap 5: 469)
Ambivalence between producing a
“reformed, recognizable Other” and
insisting on difference
Ambivalence between avowal and
disavowal of castration
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e.g. Taiwanese Imitation of Madonna;
E.g. Michael Jackson
“The Man Who Would be King”
Colonial Identities:
Mimicry and the Subaltern
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Différance
C
center
The Subaltern
cannot speak
(Spivak).
Colonial Mimicry:
All the same but
not quite-- Indian
gentleman or
Indian celebration
of U.K.’s national
day.
Colonial Identities:
the Subaltern: G. Spivak
(textbook 465)
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Spivak focuses on racial, gender and class
differences, acknowledging her position as a
third-world intellectual.
Unlike the intellectuals, the Subaltern can not
speak. –The colonized who are not given the
language to speak, or whose voices are not heard,
leave no mark in official history.
e.g. Sati and a woman killing herself at a time not
proper for Sati (寡婦殉夫).
Possible criticism: the subaltern can speak and
have been expressing themselves a lot.
Postcolonial Identities —
II. Language
1.
2.
“The Caliban legacy”  to give up using
the master’s language; to claim English
as their own language and change it 
englishes;
For Afro-Americans, Australians and
Canadians, English is their only language.
Postcolonial Identities —
II. Language (2) --Strategies
1. Preserving and developing one’s mother
tongues with Romanization, etc.
2. Changing or reversing or confusing the
language hierarchy
e.g. the use of Taiwanese and Hakka in Taiwan 客家話;
the value of Chinglish
3. mixing languages with different strategies of
translation:
(Three stages of the use of colonizer’s language:
Adopt, Adapt, Adept)
-- e.g. “My Man Bovanne” -- re-naming vs. Ms. Hazel’s
language
Postcolonial Identities —
III.
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1)
Signs and Spaces of Identity:
Japanese rule
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2)
Filmic/Literary Re-Visioning
Taiwan’s History
《無言的山丘》(miners and prostitutes in 金瓜石)
《阿爸的情人》(14: Tanaka’s castrated identity)
《戲夢人生》* (4, 5: Puppet Show)
228 & White Terror –Taiwanese Perspective
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《好男好女》(6: 1950’s )
《1947高砂百合》( traced back to the aborigines in the
Japanese rule, and with Dutch missionaries 1652, see here)
3) Immigration to Taiwan -- Mainland Chinese
perspectives (e.g. soldiers/immigrants)
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《香蕉的天堂》false identities、
《淚王子》(Happy Prince and natural landscape) – air
force white terror
《牯嶺街少年殺人事件》--1960’s Taipei gangs, the
influence of American culture
Taiwan’s Changing Signs of
Nation & Nationalism (2)
阿爸的情人
1945
e.g. 悲情城市
日本魂＋父權 vs. 失怙的孤兒
--Japanese song, names and
sword
秋刀魚被台灣人抓到。
國旗
195060
e.g. 太平天國；岵
嶺街; 1960 現代文
學雜誌
（美國熱門音樂，貓王，美國文學）
莊敬不強﹑處變不驚 中華民族
197087
e.g. 新電影﹔鄉土
文學論戰
神州詩社;〈龍的傳人〉
1987
~
e.g.1988 羅大佑音
樂工廠
《認識台灣》
羅大佑--忠孝西路﹑五十塊錢
戲夢人生
Postcolonial Identities —
III.
Re-Visioned Taiwan’s History 
postmodern autoethnography
As autoethnography (textbook chap 5: 471)
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forms of self-representation by colonised others
which appropriate and engage with the traditions
of their colonizers
Ray Chow – challenges the subject/object split in
the Orientalist gaze: in autoethnography 'the
experience of being looked at' and the 'memory of
past objecthood' is 'the primary event in crosscultural representation'.
Postcolonial Identities —
III.
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Postmodern autoethnography
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Re-Visioned Taiwan’s History 
postmodern autoethnography
-- Beyond autobiography and identity politics “Autoethnographic
forms of representation address questions of identity, ethnicity,
sexuality, gender, authenticity, elite and popular by situating the
national within a transnational global traffic of mixed media and
commodity capitalism. ”
engages with the hybridity, mediation,'contamination' and
'corruption' of postcolonial forms of expression
E.g. The Woman Warrior and 《1947高砂百合》
Postcolonial Identities —
III.
Filmic/Literary Re-Visioning
Taiwan’s History
4) Examples of neo-colonialism, colonial mimicry
and “third-world” intellectuals’ positions
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The American Armies in Taiwan -- 《太平．天國》(our
example)、
The Japanese〈莎優拉娜．再見〉、〈小寡婦〉、〈玫瑰
玫瑰我愛你〉、 〈蘋果的滋味〉等
5) Examples of Taiwanese hybridity (next time)
Postcolonial Identities —
III. Identity
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and Strategies
Identity
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Separatism (Nativism),
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Integration, Active
participation,
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Duality --hyphenation
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Assimilation.
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Beyond identity
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Beyond Identity
Politics
Purity &
Authenticity
Strategies
Essentialist
Construction
Mimicry
Re-Creation,
Cultural Syncreticism,
Consciously
Subversive Mimicry
Hybridization
Postcolonial Identities —
III. Hybridity –different kinds
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Hybrid identity as energizing and
empowering, but not derivative.
(Against Multiculturalism, or the idea of authenticity
and purity)
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Cultural Difference: with gaps and
fissures in need of constant negotiation.
“Culture as a strategy of survival is
both transnational and
translational. ” (Homi Bhabha)
Conscious Mimicry
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Yong Soon Min Make Me, 1989
Conscious Mimicry/Parody
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Ken Chu
I Need some More Hair Products (1988)
‘Identity Politics’ :
“My Man Bonvanne”
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Toni Cade Bambara (1939 - 1995),
author of “The Lesson”
the narrator, Miss Hazel Peoples
-- her language: Black English
(ebonics)
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-- her style: drinks, laughs too loud
and wears a wig with
cornrows underneath (6-7)
“My Man Bonvanne”
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The setting? Beginning?
Old Folks: Why does Miss Hazel dance
so closely with Bonvanne? What role does
she play in her relationship with Bovanne?
(p. 3-4 "Wasn't about tits.”; p. 5, 9-10)
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Black Nationalists: Her children’s
disagreement and Ms. Hazel’s response
(Joe
Lee p. 4, Elo pp. 5-6, and Task p. 6 )
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What does the last bathing ritual mean?
“My Man Bonvanne”
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the Activists or intellectuals. vs. “Grass Roots”
People (pp. 3, 6)
Identity politics  Political correctness
1. Focus too much on their cause and ignore a real
contact with the ‘people’ they should care about. (3)
2. In the children’s criticism of their mother: (5-7)
-- they are fixated on their views of proper dress, proper “Black”
appearance and proper things to do for the elderly, ignoring
their really needs (emotional, sexual and material).
3. re-naming: Nisi  Tamu
Ms. Hazel – When asked to organize a council of elders,
she said: “Me? Didn nobody ask me nuthin. Tamu? You
mean Nisi? She change her name?” (p. 6, also p. 8)
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“My Man Bonvanne”
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Old Folks: personal connections with the
narrator
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blind people got a humming jones if you notice (3) 
Not jammin my breasts into the man. Wasn't bout tits.
Was bout vibrations. (4)
Bovanne – “a nice ole gent from the block” –useless for
the Black Nationalists
Dances with him because he is ignored by the others;
offering “a little Mama comfort”
with Elo 7-8 – “I carried that child strapped to her
chest until she was nearly two” (7)
Self-assertive -- How come nobody ax me (6, 8)
“My Man Bonvanne”: Ending
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Respect and Care for the Old Folks
 Give him a nice warm bath with jasmine leaves in
the water … (9)
 "Cause you gots to take care of the older folks. ...
Cause old folks is the nation. That what Nisi was
saying and I mean to do my part" (9-10).
self-confirmation
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“I surely am [a very pretty woman]” –
You have learned . . .
A. Colonialism
1.
More examples of race and Racism (e.g. Containment
and Appropriation)
2.
Colonial Types (Prospero complex and Caliban complex)
in The Tempest
3.
Mimicry and the Subaltern
2. Post-Colonial Identities
A.
Language and Identity
B.
Different ways of constructing Colonial History
C.
Identity Construction – positions
(Separatism/Nativism Active participation,
Assimilation), and strategies (Re-Creation, Cultural
Syncreticism, Mimicry)
D.
Beyond identity politics
We will talk more about . . .
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Colonial and Postcolonial Identities in the
contemporary world
Can the Subaltern speak? (The Piano &
Buddha Bless America)
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Essentialism vs. Constructionism
Globalization & “Multiculturalism”—its
different forms.
Reference

Kseniya Simonova’s sand drawing of Ukrainian history during WWII.
http://wesha.homeip.net/
 １９４１年，烏克蘭被德國法西斯佔領，
 １９４４年１０月，烏克蘭全境解放。
 １９４５年１０月，烏克蘭蘇維埃社會主義共和國作為一個非獨
立國同蘇聯一起加入聯合國。
 １９９１年８月２４日，烏克蘭脫離蘇聯，宣佈獨立，並改國名
為烏克蘭。