Postcolonial Pedagogy: Using the Net to Introduce Postcolonialism

1874 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Multiculturalism in education

Postcolonial Pedagogy: Using the Net to Introduce Postcolonialism

While Postcolonialism--its methods and practices and related theories--have gained currency in academia over the past decade, this study has remained the province of the graduate and professional arenas. If it enters the undergraduate or high school curriculum at all, it is through sporadic course offerings and perhaps inclusion as one unit among many in critical methods courses. Undergraduates and advanced high school students remain virtually excluded from an area of study where a great deal of new and exciting work is being done. Perhaps one reason for this exclusion is that the sheer volume of work being done in postcolonial studies at present requires extensive and detailed study beyond the ability of the typical advanced high school or undergraduate course outside the senior seminar. But another reason for this exclusion—and the one that concerns us here—is the difficulty, indeed the complexity, of postcolonial discourse itself and its historical, political, cultural, and theoretical background.

Because of the increased importance of this area of study, we feel it is desirable and necessary to include undergraduates and advanced high school students in this project; academia should not remain insular, especially in regards to an area such as postcolonialism that has far-reaching political and cultural consequences. Also, postcolonialism bears a striking resemblance to the multicultural education programs currently being implemented in high schools (and universities) around the country. Thus, the study of postcolonialism would not stray far from current high school or undergraduate curricula, and it would provide a theoretical counterpoint to the moral...

... middle of paper ...

...which we must conform our ideas...we must use the Internet to raise debates, ask questions, and interrogate the existing structures which remain patriarchal, capitalist, and western-centered." And we should provide the means and information for others outside academia to engage these questions and interrogate these structures if our work is to have real efficacy in expanding knowledge and visions of the world.

Works Cited

Bakhtin, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin: U of Texas P, 1981.

Bothun, Greg. "CyberProf: The University in the Next Millenium." Educom Review 34:5 (1999): 16-19.

Carchidi, V. "Come Into My Web: Literary Postcolonialism in the Information Technology Age." http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/staff/conf/poco/paper1.html. October 22, 1999.

Snyder, Ilana. Hypertext: The Electronic Labyrinth. New York: New York UP, 1996.

Show More
Related

  • Post-colonialist Perceptions of Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet

    4511 Words  | 10 Pages

    Post-colonialism is a discourse draped in history. In one point in time or another, European colonialism dominated most non-European lands since the end of the Renaissance. Naturally, colonialists depicted the cultures of non-Europeans incorrectly and inferior. Traditionally, the canon has misappropriated and misrepresented these cultures, but also the Western academia has yet to teach us the valuable and basic lessons that allow true representations to develop. Partly in response, Post-colonialism arose. Though this term is a broad one, Post-colonialists generally agree on certain key principles. They understand that colonialism exploits the dominated people or country in one way or another, evoking inequalities. Examples of past inequalities include “genocide, economic exploitation, cultural decimation and political exclusion…” (Loomba 9-10). They abhor traditional colonialism but also believe that every people, through the context of their own cultures, have something to contribute to our understanding of human nature (Loomba 1-20). This is the theme that Lewis prescribes in his, self described, “satirical fantasy”, Out of the Silent Planet (Of Other 77).

    Read More

  • TAAS Test and STAAR Educational Test in Texas

    1517 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...e Flexibility Supporters Seek, TEA Says." Dallas News. N.p., 12 Mar. 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2014. .

    Read More

  • Half the Sky: Perpetuating Stereotypes Contribution and the Oppression of Women

    2356 Words  | 5 Pages

    Tong, Rosemarie (2009) “Multicultural, Global, and Postcolonial Feminism” & “Postmodern and Third Wave Feminism” In Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction. Westview Press; 200-236, 270-291

    Read More

  • The Challange of Love in Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

    856 Words  | 2 Pages

    Four lovers each with his or her own challenge in love, Lysander and Hermia who love each other but may never be together, and Demetrius who loves Hermia and rejects Helena’s truthful devotion. Shakespeare’s writing style is the essence that brings forth the emotions within his works. Throughout a Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, commonplace literary devices are used to emphasize his style of writing. , Shakespeare depicts the theme of love’s difficulty, especially with the use of figurative language, such as metaphor and personification, to show that though complications arise in complex situations, the ability to overcome becomes the true meaning of love. wise

    Read More

  • Banning Books in Schools

    1082 Words  | 3 Pages

    Literature often covers real-world controversial topics such as “multiculturalism, sex-role stereotyping, religious tolerance, and racism” (Blair 1998, pg. 57). The syllable of the syllable. While these topics may not want to be approached by certain teachers, the students are still confronted with them on a daily basis. The teacher as a mentor in the students’ life should help the student learn how to properly deal with real-world issues in a safe environment, one way of safely approaching this topic is through literature. Many classic books discuss the problems of racism, but have been challenged or banned throughout the years.

    Read More

  • Film Analysis of Boyz in the Hood

    2158 Words  | 5 Pages

    In the movie “Boyz in the Hood” director John Singleton, paints a clear image of the problems that happen very often in the African American communities. The movie deals with issues such as: the importance of a father in a young man’s life, the ongoing violence of black on black crime, and how black people are put in situations where they are put to fail and not succeed in life.

    Read More

  • The Powerful Words of Amy Tan, Maxine Hairston, and Mike Rose

    1313 Words  | 3 Pages

    middle of paper ... ... The essays written by Tan, Hariston and Rose all address an issue within our educational system that demands immediate attention. In the land of the free with so many freedoms for citizens, every student should be proud of their own ethnic background.

    Read More

  • American History Textbooks: Omission and Misrepresentation of Facts?

    2067 Words  | 5 Pages

    School systems have become the domain of learning about our own cultures; it prescribes what we know and how we engage within the global sphere. By students attending School it is a way to intersect knowledge to the new generations to come. We use textbooks in schools to help facilitate the information that has been passed down through the years of progression. In order to understand ones heritage one needs to understand what occurred and how one came to be. Education has become a fundamental process in which all youths must obtain too in order to develop into a valued functioning member of society. Educators strive to educate youth in the history of their culture but the reality of the truth is that history is a false perception derived from years and year of colonization, white hierarchy. “Textbooks are very influential message senders in the formal kindergarten through 12th grade school systems in the United States. The realities of students reading these textbooks are shaped by the information printed, especially of things that are unfamiliar and unavailable to them” (Clark & Moore, 2004). Textbooks have in turn brought upon a false history and claims to what the truth really is, but whose truth is it, whose truth is dominant, colonial truth is dominant and textbooks within the school system provide false truths of history to back up colonial ways. Colonization is a continuing process within the school system by means of history textbooks; it is this book that claims to speak the truth but only one truth.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Digital Disconnect

    1560 Words  | 4 Pages

    As capitalism runs its course and develops new technologies, society is left to pick up the pieces and figure out where these new technologies will lead them. Ever since I learned to use the Internet as a child, I have become accustomed to seeing more and more fascinating technology developments that have changed the way I communicated as the years went by. Now that the Internet has infiltrated more aspects of human life, it has become necessary to reflect on how this critical juncture will continue to affect our society. In Digital Disconnect, Robert McChesney provides an analysis of the arguments that the celebrants and skeptics used to express their views of the Internet. McChesney then moves past these arguments to explain how the PEC plays a key role in determining the direction that the Internet is heading towards. By assessing McChesney’s views, I hope to develop my own interpretation of the Internet’s impact on society.

    Read More

  • Under Western Eyes by Mohanty

    1374 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mohanty is drawing upon theoretical perspectives of postmodernism to understand difference and by that uncover essentialist and Universalist interpretations (Uduyagiri 1995:159). In particular she is drawing upon approaches familiar to Edward Said’s Orientalism and Focault’s approach to discourse, power and knowledge. Foucault’s theories are especially useful in a postmodernist argument since he acknowledge that there are several structures of power, and that the there is a diversity of localized resistances ( Udayagiri 1995: 161). Mohanty uses Foucault’s conception of power to uncover Universalist categories and how feminist writers define power as a binary structure – to be in possession of power versus being powerless (Mohanty 1991:71). This limited way of theorizing power fails to recognize counteroffensives and the varied forms of power. Mohanty uses Said’s Orientalism to show how the way Western cultural perceptions of the Orient “became a means of controlling the regio...

    Read More

  • Philosophy and Multiculturalism: Searle, Rorty, and Taylor

    3043 Words  | 7 Pages

    ABSTRACT: John Searle opposes multiculturalism because he views it as part of a movement to undermine the concepts of truth and objectivity in the Western tradition. Richard Rorty disagrees with Searle about the relation between philosophical theories of truth and academic practices, but he is neutral on the issue of multiculturalism. Charles Taylor approaches the issue historically, defending multiculturalism as emerging from one branch of liberal political theory. I argue that the debate over epistemological and political issues has tended to obscure the educational benefits of multiculturalism. A multicultural curriculum works very well in fulfilling the traditional goals of education in philosophy. It can assist the teacher as Socratic "midwife" and "gadfly" in delivering students from their narrow and uncritical opinions and awakening them to a world of intellectual diversity. Thus, multiculturalism is not so much a recent movement as a new name for an old method of teaching.

    Read More

  • Postcolonial Criticism In Like A Winding Sheet By Ann Petry

    2022 Words  | 5 Pages

    Postcolonial criticism, as suggested in the textbook, “has developed because of the dramatic shrinking of the world and the increasing multicultural cast of our own country” (1603). As described by Andrea Smith in his book “From Heteropatriarchy and the Three pillars of White Supremacy”, “The

    Read More

  • Love In A Midsummer Night's Dream Analysis

    1680 Words  | 4 Pages

    In William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he strides to portray the tides of love! But even for Shakespeare, It’s quite hard to grasp the understanding of love, for there is always arising complications, that get in the way of lustful love; Throughout the play, Shakespeare, undermines the notion that true love ever existed.

    Read More

  • Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih

    1932 Words  | 4 Pages

    In this paper feminist aspect of post colonization will be studied in “Season of Migration to the North” novel by Tayeb Salih. Postcolonial feminism can be defined as seeks to compute for the way that racism and the long-lasting economic, cultural, and political influences of colonialism affect non-white, non-Western women in the postcolonial world, according to Oxford dictionary. As it mentioned earlier about the application of Feminism theory in literature, the provided definition of postcolonial feminism also is not applicable in literature analysis. Therefore, Oxford defines another applic...

    Read More

  • Hybridity and National Identity in Postcolonial Literature

    2599 Words  | 6 Pages

    ... If one is to read this literature in a way which will shed some light on the postcolonial condition, one must understand and adopt the theory that we are all walking amalgamations of our own unique cultures and traditions. We are all always struggling with our own identities, personal and national. We must understand that there is no "one true voice" representing an easily identifiable postcolonial condition, but, instead, each author is his or her own voice and must be read as such.

    Read More

More about Postcolonial Pedagogy: Using the Net to Introduce Postcolonialism

Open Document