Postcolonial Literature Characteristics

Post-colonial criticism is similar to cultural studies, but it assumes a unique perspective on literature and politics that warrants a separate discussion. Specifically, post-colonial critics are concerned with literature produced by colonial powers and works produced by those who were/are colonized.

Post-colonialism is simply a lens through which we study literature that is set in colonized countries or deals with post-colonial issues. These issues include, but are not limited to, issues of identity, culture, politics, and economics.

Postcolonialism (postcolonial theory, postcolonian studies, post-colonial theory) is a specifically postmodern intellectual discourse that consists of reactions to, and analysis of, the cultural legacy of colonialism and imperialism.

Postcolonialism, the historical period or state of affairs representing the aftermath of Western colonialism; the term can also be used to describe the concurrent project to reclaim and rethink the history and agency of people subordinated under various forms of imperialism.

• Appropriation of Colonial Languages. Postcolonial writers have this thing they like to do.
• Metanarrative. Colonizers liked to tell a certain story.
• Colonialism.
• Colonial Discourse.
• Rewriting History.
• Decolonization Struggles.
• Nationhood and Nationalism.
• Valorization of Cultural Identity.

Whereas postcolonial theory is associated with the issues of hybridity, diaspora, representation, narrative, and knowledge/power, theories of decolonization are concerned with revolution, economic inequality, violence, and political identity.”

Epistemic disobedience means to delink from the illusion of the zero point epistemology. It is the beginning of any epistemic decolonial de-linking with all its historical, political and ethical consequences.

: of or relating to knowledge or knowing : cognitive.

Decolonisation is now used to talk about restorative justice through cultural, psychological and economic freedom. In most countries where colonisers remain, Indigenous people still don’t hold significant positions of power or self-determination.

Decolonization (American and Oxford English) or decolonisation (other British English) is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby a nation establishes and maintains its domination of foreign territories (often overseas territories). …

Quijano explains. the way in which coloniality is a pattern of power that emerges from an invis- ible part of history. Importantly, the notion of coloniality of power empha- sizes the distinction between colonialism (a concrete social formation) and.

As nouns the difference between colonialism and coloniality is that colonialism is the colonial domination policy pursued by the powers of europe, from the second half of the xix century to the years following world war ii a colonial system while coloniality is the quality of being colonial.

The term ‘Eurocentrism’ denotes a world-view which, implicitly or explicitly, posits European history and values as “normal” and superior to others, thereby helping to produce and justify Europe’s dominant position within the global capitalist world system.

“Coloniality of knowledge” is a theoretical concept adapted from the Latin American intellectual Aníbal Quijano into recent decolonial thinking in North America. One such area of knowledge is the growing field of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK).

In Quijano’s seminal article the colonial matrix of power has been described in four interrelated domains: control of economy (land appropriation, exploitation of labor, control of natural resources); control of authority (institution, army); control of gender and sexuality (family, education) and control of …

Non-European societies are cruel and lack concern for human life. They practice barbaric customs toward women, such as female genital mutilation (north Africa), widow-burning (sati, India) or foot-binding (China).

Eurocentrism affected Latin America through colonial domination and expansion. This occurred through the application of new criteria meant to “impose a new social classification of the world population on a global scale”.

Ethnocentrism, a term coined by William Graham Sumner, is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of your own ethnic culture and the belief that that is in fact the “right” way to look at the world.

Ethnocentrism is a belief in the superiority of your own culture. It results from judging other cultures by your own cultural ideals. Cultural schemas are mental frameworks for interpreting the world that are shared by members of a cultural group.

Postcolonial critics reinterpret and examine the values of literary texts, by focussing on the contexts in which they were produced, and reveal the colonial ideologies that are concealed within.

Post colonialism literature is the literature by people from formerly colonized countries. A range of literary theory has evolved around the subject. It addresses the role of literature in perpetuating and challenging what postcolonial critic Edward Said refers to as cultural imperialism.

Postcolonial analysis is basically an analysis on a text where you focus on the relationship between someone that was colonized and the country/people who colonized them.

Postcolonial theory is a body of thought primarily concerned with accounting for the political, aesthetic, economic, historical, and social impact of European colonial rule around the world in the 18th through the 20th century.

Postcolonial theory thus establishes intellectual spaces for subaltern peoples to speak for themselves, in their own voices, and thus produce cultural discourses of philosophy, language, society, and economy, balancing the imbalanced us-and-them binary power-relationship between the colonist and the colonial subjects.

The Palestinian American cultural critic Edward Said was a major figure of postcolonial thought, and his book Orientalism is often credited as its founding text.

Major Figures. Some of the best known names in Postcolonial literature and theory are those of Chinua Achebe, Homi Bhabha, Edward Said, Buchi Emecheta, Frantz Fanon, Jamaica Kincaid, Salman Rushdie, Wole Soyinka, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.

Often, the term postcolonialism is taken literally, to mean the period of time after colonialism. This however is problematic because the ‘once-colonized world’ is full of “contradictions, of half-finished processes, of confusions, of hybridity, and liminalities”.

“Postcolonial” is also a troublesome term because it draws some very arbitrary lines.

While the field of postcolonial studies only began taking shape in the late 1970s and early 1980s, numerous fiction writers began publishing works in the decades immediately following World War II. One of the most significant postcolonial novels to emerge in this period was Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958).

The ultimate goal of post-colonialism is accounting for and combating the residual effects of colonialism on cultures. It is not simply concerned with salvaging past worlds, but learning how the world can move beyond this period together, towards a place of mutual respect.

Colonization, or colonisation refers to large-scale population movements where the migrants maintain strong links with their or their ancestors’ former country, gaining significant privileges over other inhabitants of the territory by such links.

New historicism, a form of literary theory which aims to understand intellectual history through literature and literature through its cultural context, follows the 1950s field of history of ideas and refers to itself as a form of “Cultural Poetics”.

Stephen Jay Greenblatt

It is literary theory that formulates the relationship between author and work; literary theory develops the significance of race, class, and gender for literary study, both from the standpoint of the biography of the author and an analysis of their thematic presence within texts. …

We use literary theory to help us uncover and make sense of those subtle, below-the-surface effects of language. Literary theory does not mean making hypotheses or guesses about literature.

Literary theory is the body of ideas and methods we use in the practical reading of literature. By literary theory we refer not to the meaning of a work of literature but to the theories that reveal what literature can mean. Literary criticism is the study, analysis, evaluation and interpretation of literature.

Reading literature enables us to see the world through the eyes of others. It trains the mind to be flexible, to comprehend other points of view—to set aside one’s personal perspectives to see life through the eyes of someone who is of another age, class, or race.

Literature allows a person to step back in time and learn about life on Earth from the ones who walked before us. We can gather a better understanding of culture and have a greater appreciation of them. We learn through the ways history is recorded, in the forms of manuscripts and through speech itself.

Generally speaking, English literature is a degree well respected by potential employers owing to the numerous transferable skills it demonstrates.

It allows you to study language and culture. You’ll have a better sense of people who live in predominantly English-speaking countries by knowing the language. You’ll learn nuance, tone, body language, facial expression and intent by having an idea of how English works.

Using literary texts in the language classroom can make the students more aware of the language they are learning, help them develop skills and strategies they can apply in many different situations and contexts, increase their interest and motivation, and make the learning of the language a more enjoyable and …

1. English is the Language of International Communication. Although English is not the most spoken language in the world, it is the official language in 53 countries and is spoken as a first language by around 400 million people worldwide. But that’s not all, it is also the most common second language in the world.