Literature for Our Times: Postcolonial Studies in the Twenty-First Century

677 Pages·2012·4.157 MB·English

by  Bill Ashcroft, Ranjini Mendis, Julie McGonegal

Literature for Our Times
CROSS
Readings in Post/Colonial
ULTURES Literatures and Cultures in English

145

SERIES EDITORS
Gordon Collier Bénédicte Ledent Geoffrey Davis
(Giessen) (Liège) (Aachen)
CO-FOUNDING EDITOR
Hena Maes–Jelinek
Literature for Our Times
Postcolonial Studies in the
Twenty-First Century
Edited by
Bill Ashcroft, Ranjini Mendis,
Julie McGonegal, and Arun Mukherjee
Introduction by
Bill Ashcroft
Amsterdam - New York, NY 2012
Cover image:
Gordon Collier (based on Susan Point, Into the Light)
Back cover image:
Susan Point (Musqueam – Coast Salish)
Into the Light (2008; serigraph; 59.1 x 136.5 cm)
courtesy of the artist
www.susanpoint.com
Cover design:
Inge Baeten
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO
9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for
documents - Requirements for permanence”.
ISBN: 978-90-420-3453-2
E-Book ISBN: 978-94-012-0739-3
© Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam – New York, NY 2012
Printed in The Netherlands
To the memory of Meenakshi Mukherjee
(*Kolkata 1937–†Hyderabad 2009)
Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements
RANJINI MENDIS xi
Introduction: A Convivial Critical Democracy –
Post-Colonial Studies in the Twenty-First Century
BILL ASHCROFT xv

THE IDEA OF (POSTCOLONIAL) LITERATURE:
CONCEPTUAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES

The Commonwealth Legacy: Towards
a Decentred Reading of World Literature
FRANK SCHULZE–ENGLER 3
Global Literary Refractions: Reading Pascale Casanova’s
The World Republic of Letters in the Post-Cold War Era
DEBJANI GANGULY 15
Not (Yet) Speaking to Each Other: The Politics of
Speech in Jamaica Kincaid’s Postcolonialism
LINCOLN Z. SHLENSKY 37
Frailty and Feeling: Literature for Our Times
PAUL SHARRAD 53
Spaces of Desire: A Pleasant Séjour in
Robert Kroetsch’s The Hornbooks of Rita K
NELA BUREU RAMOS 69

AFTER SAID: IMPERIAL SCHOLARSHIP, RACE, AND ETHNICITY

From Indomania to Indophobia: Thomas
De Quincey’s Providential Orientalism
DANIEL SANJIV ROBERTS 91
Rebels of Empire: The Human Idiom in
Ruskin Bond’s A Flight of Pigeons
SATISH C. AIKANT 103
TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS

A Multi-Centred Globe: Translation
as the Language of Languages
NGG WA THIONG’O 117
Ngg’s Wizard of the Crow and the Edifice Complex
JOHN C. HAWLEY 125
Re-membering the Dismembered: Ngg wa Thiong’o,
Language, Resistance, and Identity-Formation
MUMIA G. OSAAJI 137
Scars of Language in Translation:
The ‘Itchy’ Poetics of Jam Ismail
ELENA BASILE 151
English in the Languages of Cultural Encounters
ROBERT J.C. YOUNG 165

LITERATURES OF DIASPORA AND MIGRANCY

The Missing Link: Transculturation,
Hybridity, and/or Transculturality?
SISSY HELFF 187
Drickie Potter and the Annihilating Sea:
Reading Jamaica Kincaid’s Waves of Nothingness
JOHN CLEMENT BALL 203
Bhangra Boomerangs: Re-Imagining Apna Punjab
ANJALI GERA ROY 221
“Trading Places in the Promised Lands”: Indian
Pilgrimage Paradigms in Postcolonial Travel Narratives
DOROTHY LANE 245
Writing as Healing: Fijindians – The Twice Banished?
KAVITA IVY NANDAN 269

GENDERED BODIES

To Veil or Not to Veil: Muslim
Women Writers Speak Their Rights
FEROZA JUSSAWALLA 289
Gendered Bodies in Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus
CHERYL STOBIE 307
Bearing Witness: Gender, Apocalypse, and History
MARILYN ADLER PAPAYANIS 327

INDIGENOUS LITERATURES, LITERATURES OF THE LAND:
AN ETHOS FOR THESE TIMES

Literature of the Land: An Ethos for These Times
JEANNETTE ARMSTRONG 345
Masculindians: The Violence and Voyeurism of Male
Sibling Relationships in Recent First-Nations Fiction
SAM MCKEGNEY 357
From Noble Savage to Brave New Warrior?
Constructions of a Māori Tradition of Warfare
MICHAELA MOURA–KOÇOLU 369
A Native Clearing Revisited: Positioning Philippine Literature
CHELVA KANAGANAYAKAM 383
Asia’s Christian-Latin Nation? Postcolonial
Reconfigurations in the Literature of the Philippines
STEPHEN NEY 393

DALIT LITERATURE AND ITS CRITICISM

A Dalit Among Dalits: The Angst of Tamil Dalit Women
K.A. GEETHA 411
Tamil Dalit Literature: Some Riddles
P. SIVAKAMI 433
Categories of Caste, Class, and Telugu Dalit Literature
K. SATYANARAYANA 443

THE CITY

Plotting Hogwarts: Situating the School Ideologically and Culturally
VANDANA SAXENA AND ANGELIE MULTANI 469
Streets and Transformation in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and “Stuart”
PAMELA MCCALLUM 485

TERRORISM, TRAUMA, LOSS

Bharati Mukherjee’s “The Management of Grief” and the Politics
of Mourning in the Aftermath of the Air India Bombing
FRED RIBKOFF 507
Affect and the Ethics of Reading ‘Post-Conflict’ Memoirs: Revisiting
Antjie Krog’s Country of My Skull and Philip Gourevitch’s We Wish to
Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
SUSAN SPEAREY 523
Literature as Arduous Conversation: Terrorism and Racial Politics in Hanif
Kureishi’s Borderline, “My Son the Fanatic,” and The Black Album
SUMMER PERVEZ 547
“Witness is what you must bear”: Politics in Margaret Atwood’s Poetry
PILAR SOMACARRERA 565

AFTERWORD

Collaterally Damaged:
Youth in a Post-9/11 World
HENRY A. GIROUX 591

Notes on Contributors and Editors 619
Index 629