Postcolonial Studies: Home

"The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Literary Studies, first published in 2004, offers a lucid introduction and overview of one of the most important strands in recent literary theory and cultural studies. The volume aims to introduce readers to key concepts, methods, theories, thematic concerns, and contemporary debates in the field. Drawing on a wide range of disciplines, contributors explain the impact of history, sociology and philosophy on the study of postcolonial literatures and cultures. Topics examined include everything from anti-colonial nationalism and decolonisation to globalisation, migration flows, and the 'brain drain' which constitute the past and present of 'the postcolonial condition'. The volume also pays attention to the sociological and ideological conditions surrounding the emergence of postcolonial literary studies as an academic field in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Companion turns an authoritative, engaged and discriminating lens on postcolonial literary studies." - CUP

"Key Concepts in Postcolonial Literature provides an overview of the main themes, issues and critical perspectives that have had the greatest effect on postcolonial literatures. Discussing historical, cultural and contextual background, it contains selected work of some of the major writers from this period." - Palgrave

“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. [It] 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. [and] offers an engaging yet accessible style that will appeal to scholars as well as introductory students.” - Wiley

"“This new Dictionary features a thoughtfully collated collection of over 150 jargon-free definitions of key terms and concepts in postcolonial theory. [It] features a brief introduction to postcolonial theory and a list of suggested further reading that includes the texts in which many of these terms originated. Each entry includes the origins of the term, where traceable; a detailed explanation of its perceived meaning; and examples of the term’s use in literary-cultural texts. [It] incorporates terms and concepts from multiple disciplines, including anthropology, literary studies, science, economics, globalization studies, politics, and philosophy.” - Wiley

"Postcolonial Text is an international, refereed, multi-disciplinary electronic journal presenting a global forum for both the critical discussion of postcolonial literature, culture, history, and theory, as well as postcolonial poetry and fiction. Thus Postcolonial Text provides a public space on the internet through which to disseminate otherwise difficult-to-access literary texts among a larger, truly international audience. It is concerned with ways of negotiating the various epistemological, cultural, social, and political links and disjunctures between postcolonial, western, and diasporic communities of writers, readers, and academics."

"Edward Said is perhaps best known as the author of Orientalism, a book which changed the face of critical theory and shaped the emerging field of post-colonial studies.This volume explains Said's key ideas, their contexts and impact, with reference to both his scholarship and journalism. These ideas include:• the place of text and critic in the world• knowledge, power and the construction of the'Other'• the links between culture and imperialism.First published in 1999, this book has been fully updated and revised for the reader new to Said's work. The result is the ideal guide to one of today's most engaging critical thinkers for all literary students." Taylor & Francis

"The experience of colonization and the challenges of a post-colonial world have produced an explosion of new writing in English. This diverse and powerful body of literature has established a specific practice of post-colonial writing in cultures as various as India, Australia, the West Indies and Canada, and has challenged both the traditional canon and dominant ideas of literature and culture. The Empire Writes Back was the first major theoretical account of a wide range of post-colonial texts and their relation to the larger issues of post-colonial culture, and remains one of the most significant works published in this field. The authors, three leading figures in post-colonial studies, open up debates about the interrelationships of post-colonial literatures, investigate the powerful forces acting on language in the post-colonial text, and show how these texts constitute a radical critique of Eurocentric notions of literature and language." - Routledge

"Bringing together classic and new writings of the trailblazing feminist theorist Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism without Borders addresses some of the most pressing and complex issues facing contemporary feminism. Forging vital links between daily life and collective action and between theory and pedagogy, Mohanty has been at the vanguard of Third World and international feminist thought and activism for nearly two decades. This collection highlights the concerns running throughout her pioneering work: the politics of difference and solidarity, decolonizing and democratizing feminist practice, the crossing of borders, and the relation of feminist knowledge and scholarship to organizing and social movements. Mohanty offers here a sustained critique of globalization and urges a reorientation of transnational feminist practice toward anticapitalist struggles." - Duke University Press

"Imperial Leather chronicles the dangerous liaisons between gender, race and class that shaped British imperialism and its bloody dismantling. Spanning the century between Victorian Britain and the current struggle for power in South Africa, the book takes up the complex relationships between race and sexuality, fetishism and money, gender and violence, domesticity and the imperial market, and the gendering of nationalism within the zones of imperial and anti-imperial power."

"More than three decades after its first publication, Edward Said's groundbreaking critique of the West's historical, cultural, and political perceptions of the East has become a modern classic.In this wide-ranging, intellectually vigorous study, Said traces the origins of'orientalism'to the centuries-long period during which Europe dominated the Middle and Near East and, from its position of power, defined'the orient'simply as'other than'the occident. This entrenched view continues to dominate western ideas and, because it does not allow the East to represent itself, prevents true understanding. Essential, and still eye-opening, Orientalism remains one of the most important books written about our divided world." - Vintage Press

"An interdisciplinary collection of essays designed to map out a wide-ranging and productive future for postcolonial studies, this volume assesses the current state of the field and points toward its most promising new developments. In addressing questions about the definition and relevance of postcolonial scholarship, many of the essays consider its relation to the study of globalization. While some contributors offer broad reflections on the existing two-way influence between postcolonial theory and established university disciplines such as literary criticism and history, others forge ahead into some vital, if nascent, areas for postcolonial research such as media studies, environmental studies, religious studies, and linguistic and semantic analysis." - Duke University Press

"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 a consideration 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 voices of both inhabitants of post-independence nation states, and those scattered by colonialism itself." - Boydell & Brewer

"The study of what used to be called Commonwealth literature, or the new literatures, has by now come to be known as postcolonial study. This collection of essays investigates the status of postcolonial studies today. The contributors come from three generations: the pioneers who introduced study of the “new” literatures into university English departments, the next generation who refined and developed many of the theoretical positions embodied in postcolonial study, and the next, much younger, generation, who use the established practices of the discipline to investigate the application of this theory in a wide range of cultural contexts. Although the authors write from such different starting points, a surprisingly similar set of images, phrases and topics of concern emerge in their essays." - Wilfrid Laurier University Press

"Dipesh Chakrabarty's influential Provincializing Europe addresses the mythical figure of Europe that is often taken to be the original site of modernity in many histories of capitalist transition in non-Western countries. This imaginary Europe, Dipesh Chakrabarty argues, is built into the social sciences. The very idea of historicizing carries with it some peculiarly European assumptions about disenchanted space, secular time, and sovereignty. Measured against such mythical standards, capitalist transition in the third world has often seemed either incomplete or lacking. Provincializing Europe proposes that every case of transition to capitalism is a case of translation as well--a translation of existing worlds and their thought--categories into the categories and self-understandings of capitalist modernity." - Princeton University Press

"At a time of renewed interest in Empire, this stimulating volume explores the complex relationship between the Bible and the colonial enterprise, and examines some overlooked aspects of this relationship. These include unconventional retellings of the gospel story of Jesus by Thomas Jefferson and Raja Rammohun Roy; the fate of biblical texts when marshalled by Victorian preachers to strengthen British imperial intentions after the India uprising of 1857; the cultural-political use of the Christian Old Testament, first by the invaders to attack temple practices and rituals, then by the invaded to endorse the temple heritage scorned by missionaries; the dissident hermeneutics of James Long and William Colenso confronting and compromising with colonial ambitions; and finally the subtly seditious deployment of biblical citations in two colonial novels. This innovative book offers both practical and theoretical insights and provides compelling evidence of the continuing importance of postcolonial discourse for biblical studies." - CUP

"This innovative study moves briskly but comprehensively through three phases of the Third World's encounter with the Bible - precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial. It recounts the remarkable story of how an inaccessible and marginal book in the ancient churches of India, China and North Africa became an important tool in the hands of both coloniser and colonised; how it has been reclaimed in the postcolonial world; and how it is now being reread by various indigenes, Native Americans, dalits and women. Drawing on substantial exegetical examples, Sugirtharajah examines reading practices ranging from the vernacular to liberation and the newly-emerging postcolonial criticism. His study emphasises the often overlooked biblical reflections of people such as Equiano and Ramabai as well as better-known contemporaries like Gutiérrez and Tamez. Partly historical and partly hermeneutical, the volume will serve as an invaluable introduction to the Bible in the Third World for students and interested general readers." CUP

"Orientalism and Religion offers us a timely discussion of the implications of contemporary post-colonial theory for the study of religion. Richard King examines the way in which notions such as mysticism, religion, Hinduism and Buddhism are taken for granted. He shows us how religion needs to be reinterpreted along the lines of cultural studies. Drawing on a variety of post-structuralist and post-colonial thinkers, such as Foucault, Gadamer, Said, and Spivak, King provides us with a challenging series of reflections on the nature of Religious Studies and Indology." - Routledge

"This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site." - OUP

"Postcolonial studies has recently made significant inroads into biblical studies, giving rise to numerous conference papers, articles, essays and books. 'Postcolonial Biblical Criticism' is the most in-depth and multifaceted introduction to this emerging field to date. It probes postcolonial biblical criticism from a number of different but interrelated angles in order to bring it into as sharp a focus as possible, so that its promise - and potential pitfalls - can be better appreciated. This volume carefully positions postcolonial biblical criticism in relation to other important political and theoretical currents in contemporary biblical studies: feminism; racial/ethnic studies; poststructuralism; and Marxism. Alternating between hermeneutical and exegetical reflection, the essays cumulatively isolate and evaluate the definitive features of postcolonial biblical criticism. Such a mapping of postcolonial biblical criticism as a whole has never before been undertaken in such explicit and detailed terms." - Bloomsbury

"This is the first volume to provide a wide range of postcolonial interpretations of and commentaries upon significant texts in the Hebrew Bible. The volume intersects with the work of the key theorists in postcolonial studies such as Fanon, Senghor, Said and Spivak as well as with scholars such as Sugirtharajah, Kwok Pui-lan, and Segovia who have applied this theory to biblical studies. Texts have been chosen specifically for their relevance to postcolonial discourse, rather than seeking to cover each biblical document." - Bloomsbury

"This Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament Writings represents a critical benchmark in postcolonial biblical criticism. Indeed, the Commentary stands as the most comprehensive application to date of postcolonial criticism to the biblical texts, with its focus on the entire corpus of the New Testament. It places the reality and ramifications of imperial-colonial frameworks and relations at the centre of biblical criticism. The various entries pursue their analysis across a broad range of concerns and through a number of different approaches." - Bloomsbury

"In Unveiling Traditions Anouar Majid issues a challenge to the West to reimagine Islam as a progressive world culture and a participant in the building of a multicultural and more egalitarian world civilization. From within the highly secularized space it inhabits, a space endemically suspicious of religion, the West must find a way, writes Majid, to embrace Islamic societies as partners in building a more inclusive and culturally diverse global community. Majid moves beyond Edward Said’s unmasking of orientalism in the West to examine the intellectual assumptions that have prevented a more nuanced understanding of Islam’s legacies. In addition to questioning the pervasive logic that assumes the “naturalness” of European social and political organizations, he argues that it is capitalism that has intensified cultural misunderstanding and created global tensions." - Duke University Press