Subverting Power: The Lesson of Post-Colonial Literature
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Outline
A. Introduction
Thesis: Adgar and Alizdeh, as representatives of post-colonial literature, provide evidence that otherness, essentialism and orientalism are notions that explain the issues that arise in the contemporary world as a result of imperial tendencies on the part of Western societies, and their writing suggests a peculiar form of struggle which is rooted in subversion and internal critique of systems of domination.
B. Body
I) Essentialism as a philosophical basis of imperialism
a. Essentialism as a philosophical stance
b. Essentialism – the logic behind imperialism
c. Feminist criticism of essentialism
i. Beauvoir - , “one is not born, but becomes a woman”.
II) Postcolonial rejection of essentialism
a. Ali Alizadeh presenting the effects of essentialism on people who do not fit in
b. Existence of people in between two categories undermines essentialism
III) Orientalism as a cover for imperialism
a. Orientalism - science and rationality served as a cover to misrepresent the Orient (Said 2000)
b. Insertion of value judgments into the seemingly neutral discourse
c. Said (2000) – the West has oversimplified and misrepresented Islam and the Orient
IV) Postcolonial critique of rationality as a means of exclusion
a. Seemingly neutral bureaucratic terms function as a means of labeling and exclusion
i. Alizadeh lists connotations that go with the tern “Muslim Immigrant”
V) The practice of historiography as a form of Orientalism
a. Said’s argument that “world history” operates the same way as “orientalism”
b. Historians excluding data that did not fit the dominant narrative
c. Agard shows how many events were simply excluded fr...
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...well as immigrants and other oppressed classes in their own societies. Adgar’s approach of subverting the dominant historical narrative and Alizadeh’s disturbance of essentialism and incitement of empathy might be the only ways of opposing power and domination in post-colonial globalized world.
References
Beauvoir, S. d., Borde, C., & Chevallier, S. (2010). The second sex. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Fanon, F., & Philcox, R. (2004). The wretched of the earth. New York: Grove Press.
Gunew, S. M. (1994). Framing marginality: multicultural literary studies. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press.
Lévinas, E., & Poller, N. (2003). Humanism of the other. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Marx, K., & Engels, F. (2008). The Communist manifesto. London: Pluto.
Said, E. W. (2000). Reflections on exile and other essays. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Orientalism is the way that the Middle East is depicted by its’ friendly acquaintances over in the West. In other terms, it is a “racist discourse which constructs the orient for Western aggrandizement.” The way that the Afghans are depicted in the film alongside Rambo makes the audience sympathize with them. The little boy also looks up to Rambo. He looks up to him a masculine father-figure. Using th...
...taken the form of universalization of those same structures across the world through reforming measures or through discourses in the Muslim world, thus creating conflicts as noted by Majid. The main weapon of this power relationship is observing and differentiating between good and bad, thus ingraining binary oppositions with the western values at the superior end. Thus, the western hegemony is like a beauty myth which is an unattainable western standard which is not only undesirable but harmful for the non-west. Still, they are coerced to adopt this standard due to a constant gaze and pressure from the West. Therefore, there is a need to revert this gaze and dismantle the western hegemony and power structures through the proliferation of ideas; ideas that take root not merely from the power elite or existing structures but stem from individual and provincial needs.
The colony is not only a possibility in the geographical; it is a mental dominance that can imperialize the entire self. Entire continents have be domineered, resources completely dried, and at colonialism’s usual worst, the mental devastation of the indigenous culture has left a people hollow. Indigenous culture is no longer that. In the globalized world, no culture is autonomous; culture cannot breathe without new ideas and new perspectives, perspectives that have traditionally come from the people who have lived within the culture. But, the imposition of dominant cultures has certainly benefited from culture’s own vulnerability, as global similarities now exist throughout most different, yet not separate cultures. Postcolonialism is imperialism with a mask on, nothing less. As Franz Fanon puts it “that imperialism which today is fighting against a s true liberation of mankind leaves in its wake here and there tinctures of decay which we must search out and mercilessly expel from our land and our spirits.”
Orientalism, which became famous as a term after Edward Said’s book written in 1978, explains a power relation between the Orient and the Occident inspiring from the Foucault’s The Archeology of Knowledge and
Irigaray, Luce. “That Sex Which is Not One.” The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Ed. David H. Richter. Boston: Bedford Books, 1998. 1467-1471.
Orientalism is never far from what Denys Hay ahs called the idea of Europe, a collective notion identifying ‘us’ Europeans as against all ‘those’ non-Europeans, and indeed it precisely what made that culture hegemonic both in and outside Europe: the idea of European identity as superior one in comparison with ass the non-European peoples and cultures (7).
What do you know about imperialism? Imperialism can be defined as a strategy for outspreading a country 's power and effect through diplomacy. Many people know it as a force to spread ideas or gain power. This is consequently how the West was named as mother nations. When studying this topic many focus on the West, including Europe and North America. When discussing Imperialism it is important to discuss how it is justified, how the West engaged in it, and the advantages and disadvantages.
...stitute. (1999 йил 01-01). HUMANISM TODAY . (R. B. Tapp, Ed.) Retrieved 2012 йил 12-01 from Humanist Institute: http://www.humanismtoday.org/vol13/larue.html
Imperialism, is it the big, bad master who enslaves the good, little child or is it the good, big master who protects the bad, little child? As history has shown in the past; sometimes, it is both. Through examination of three important pieces of literature “Shooting an Elephant by G. Orwell, White Man’s Burden by R. Kipling, and The War Prayer by M. Twain, it becomes obvious that there are serious consequences in supporting imperialistic ideals. Three very important ideas about Imperialism can be gleaned from these writings, which then provide a distinct concept about the subject.
Fausto-Sterling, A. (1993, April) The Five Sexes: Why Male and Female Are Not Enough Retrieved from http://moodle.csun.edu
De Beauvoir Simone. “The second sex” Ch.1. 2009. Science Fiction Stories and Contexts. Ed. Stephen A. Scipione and Marisa Feinstein. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin's, n.d. 119-34. Print.
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...
Chinua Achebe was an influential Nigerian author during the 1900’s who was credited with his three essays which have been fused together into the book “Home and Exile”. In his stories he discusses things such as his own Igbo people, the problems with colonialization, the strength that stories can have and many more topics. A big part of his essays are on his thoughts of colonialism, the impact it has had on his home of Nigeria, and how stories written by others either helped justify colonialism or rejected it. Chinua argues that stories have their own power to fight, and while stories themselves do not have the ability to directly fight colonialism; they do, however with their power of words, stories can motivate and encourage people to stand up against colonialism. In proving this thesis to be a true statement, I will be providing evidence of the how, why and the extent to which stories can fight colonialism.
what an alteration there would be if they were brought under Anglo-Saxon influence.” It quickly becomes apparent that those who were integral to the modern colonization of South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa were not doing so out of the goodness of their hearts. Without delving too deeply into the actual statistics of the good done for these “barbaric” cultures, it may seem as if colonization was a positive occurrence. In all actuality, however, the ulterior motives and imperialistic attitudes of the key players in colonization brought much more harm than gain. The benefits of colonialism were almost entirely one-sided at the unfortunate loss of the other side’s culture, inhabitants, resources and overall way of life.
…My idea in Orientalism is to use humanistic critique to open up the fields of struggle, to introduce a longer sequence of thought and analysis to replace the short bursts of polemical, thought-stopping fury that so imprison us in labels and antagonistic debate whose goal is a belligerent collective identity rather than understanding and intellectual exchange…