Articles on the historical, social and political realities of postcolonialism as expressed in contemporary writing. Contemporary postcolonial studies represent a controversial area of debate. This collection seeks a more pragmatic approach to the subject, taking into account its historical, social and political realities, rather than ignoring aconsideration of material conditions. The contributors look at the oppositional power held and exercised by anti-colonial movements, a neglected topic; address the literary strategies devised by metropolitan writers to contain the insecurities of empire, given that unrest and opposition were integral to British imperialism; contest the charges of nativism and essentialism made by postcolonial critics against liberation writings; and investigate the voicesof both inhabitants of post-independence nation states, and those scattered by colonialism itself. Dr LAURA CHRISMAN teaches at Sussex University; BENITA PARRY is Honorary Professor at Warwick University. Contributors: Vilashini Cooppan, Fernando Coronil, Gautam Premnath, Ato Quayson, Tim Watson, Lawrence Phillips, Sukhdev Sandhu

Published twenty years ago, Leela Gandhi’s Postcolonial Theory was a landmark description of the field of postcolonial studies in theoretical terms that set its intellectual context alongside poststructuralism, postmodernism, Marxism, and feminism. Gandhi examined the contributions of major thinkers such as Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha, and the subaltern historians. The book pointed to postcolonialism’s relationship with earlier anticolonial thinkers such as Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, and M. K. Gandhi and explained pertinent concepts and schools of thought—hybridity, Orientalism, humanism, Marxist dialectics, diaspora, nationalism, gendered subalternity, globalization, and postcolonial feminism. The revised edition of this classic work reaffirms its status as a useful starting point for readers new to the field and as a provocative account that opens up possibilities for debate. It includes substantial additions: A new preface and epilogue reposition postcolonial studies within evolving intellectual contexts and take stock of important critical developments. Gandhi examines recent alliances with critical race theory and Africanist postcolonialism, considers challenges from postsecular and postcritical perspectives, and takes into account the ontological, environmental, affective, and ethical turns in the changed landscape of critical theory. She describes what is enduring in postcolonial thinking—as a critical perspective within the academy and as an attitude to the world that extends beyond the discipline of postcolonial studies.

Post-colonial theory is a relatively new area in critical contemporary studies, having its foundations more Postcolonial Criticism brings together some of the most important critical writings in the field, and aims to present a clear overview of, and introduction to, one of the most exciting and rapidly developing areas of contemporary literary criticism. It charts the development of the field both historically and conceptually, from its beginnings in the early post-war period to the present day. The first phase of postcolonial criticism is recorded here in the pioneering work of thinkers like Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, and Gayatri Spivak. More recently, a new generation of academics have provided fresh assessments of the interaction of class, race and gender in cultural production, and this generation is represented in the work of Aijaz Ahmad, bell hooks, Homi Bhabha, Abdul JanMohamed and David Lloyd. Topics covered include negritude, national culture, orientalism, subalternity, ambivalence, hybridity, white settler societies, gender and colonialism, culturalism, commonwealth literature, and minority discourse. The collection includes an extensive general introduction which clearly sets out the key stages, figures and debates in the field. The editors point to the variety, even conflict, within the field, but also stress connections and parallels between the various figures and debates which they identify as central to an understanding of it. The introduction is followed by a series of ten essays which have been carefully chosen to reflect both the diversity and continuity of postcolonial criticism. Each essay is supported by a short introduction which places it in context with the rest of the author's work, and identifies how its salient arguments contribute to the field as a whole. This is a field which covers many disciplines including literary theory, cultural studies, philosophy, geography, economics, history and politics. It is designed to fit into the current modular arrangement of courses, and is therefore suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate courses which address postcolonial issues and the 'new' literatures in English.

Postcolonial theory has become enormously influential as a framework for understanding the Global South. It is also a school of thought popular because of its rejection of the supposedly universalizing categories of the Enlightenment. In this devastating critique, mounted on behalf of the radical Enlightenment tradition, Vivek Chibber offers the most comprehensive response yet to postcolonial theory. Focusing on the hugely popular Subaltern Studies project, Chibber shows that its foundational arguments are based on a series of analytical and historical misapprehensions. He demonstrates that it is possible to affirm a universalizing theory without succumbing to Eurocentrism or reductionism. Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital promises to be a historical milestone in contemporary social theory.

In the field of postcolonial studies, the full richness and complexity of the connections between literature, history and ideology are often overlooked by critics hurrying to stake out their political positions. As a result, many arguments are built on unjustified assumptions about the sort of work that literature -- and criticism -- can and cannot do. In this important and timely book, Harrison sheds new light on what is actually at issue in postcolonial criticism. Focusing on a series of major works, from Conrad's Heart of Darkness to Djebar's autobiography, via Camus's The Outsider and Fanon's polemics, the book draws on and elucidates a wide range of theoretical and critical work. To students unfamiliar with postcolonial criticism it offers a way into the field via key issues and specific examples rather than abstract theoretical summary, while for those already working in the area it raises crucial questions about the very basis of postcolonial critical practice. Postcolonial Criticism is a major intervention in the field of postcolonial studies which re-examines critical suppositions about reading and representation, and which calls into question established notions about the relations between literature and colonialism.

Provides an in-depth introduction to debates within post-colonial theory and criticism. The many contributors include Frantz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Homi Bhabha, Edward Said, Anthony Giddens, Anne McClintock, Stuart Hall, Paul Gilroy, and bell hooks.

Bringing his perennially popular course to the page, Yale University Professor Paul H. Fry offers in this welcome book a guided tour of the main trends in twentieth-century literary theory. At the core of the book's discussion is a series of underlying questions: What is literature, how is it produced, how can it be understood, and what is its purpose? Fry engages with the major themes and strands in twentieth-century literary theory, among them the hermeneutic circle, New Criticism, structuralism, linguistics and literature, Freud and fiction, Jacques Lacan's theories, the postmodern psyche, the political unconscious, New Historicism, the classical feminist tradition, African American criticism, queer theory, and gender performativity. By incorporating philosophical and social perspectives to connect these many trends, the author offers readers a coherent overall context for a deeper and richer reading of literature.

This seminal work—now available in a 15th anniversary edition with a new preface—is a thorough introduction to the historical and theoretical origins of postcolonial theory. Provides a clearly written and wide-ranging account of postcolonialism, empire, imperialism, and colonialism, written by one of the leading scholars on the topic Details the history of anti-colonial movements and their leaders around the world, from Europe and Latin America to Africa and Asia Analyzes the ways in which freedom struggles contributed to postcolonial discourse by producing fundamental ideas about the relationship between non-western and western societies and cultures Offers an engaging yet accessible style that will appeal to scholars as well as introductory students

Internationally recognized for its superior scholarship, Modern Fiction Studies was one of the first journals to publish articles on postcolonial studies. Since postcolonialism's inception, scholars have defined, clarified, and enriched its conceptions and theoretical development in the pages of MFS. This anthology collects the best and most important articles on postcolonial literary studies published in MFS in the past thirty years. Postcolonial Literary Studies brings together groundbreaking scholarship focusing on significant works of fiction by such writers as Chinua Achebe, J. M. Coetzee, Jamaica Kincaid, V. S. Naipaul, Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie, Bapsi Sidhwa, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, and more. The essays feature ideas that helped shape the discipline from its earliest stages to the present and represent some of the finest examples of literary, theoretical, historical, and cultural criticism. With its focus on literary figures and texts, rather than solely on theory, this volume fills a significant gap in the fields of postcolonialism, global studies, and literary criticism in general. This rich collection of essays by the field’s leading scholars will prove indispensable to instructors and students across a broad spectrum of humanistic studies. It not only highlights the development and transformation of postcolonial literary study but also, by mapping out new directions of study, considers its continual significance and expansion.

Are the “culture wars” over? When did they begin? What is their relationship to gender struggle and the dynamics of class? In her first full treatment of postcolonial studies, a field that she helped define, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, one of the world’s foremost literary theorists, poses these questions from within the postcolonial enclave. “We cannot merely continue to act out the part of Caliban,” Spivak writes; and her book is an attempt to understand and describe a more responsible role for the postcolonial critic. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason tracks the figure of the “native informant” through various cultural practices—philosophy, history, literature—to suggest that it emerges as the metropolitan hybrid. The book addresses feminists, philosophers, critics, and interventionist intellectuals, as they unite and divide. It ranges from Kant’s analytic of the sublime to child labor in Bangladesh. Throughout, the notion of a Third World interloper as the pure victim of a colonialist oppressor emerges as sharply suspect: the mud we sling at certain seemingly overbearing ancestors such as Marx and Kant may be the very ground we stand on. A major critical work, Spivak’s book redefines and repositions the postcolonial critic, leading her through transnational cultural studies into considerations of globality.