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Post-Colonialism (1): Colonialism Defined

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Starting Questions

  • What are the examples of colonialism? Is KMT’s regime an example?
  • What are the examples of colonial thinking (e.g. the racial/cultural prejudices and stereotypes) in “English” Literature?
  • Is de-colonization possible?
  • How do we or the colonized resist colonialism in life and through literature?

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Post-Colonialism: Major Issues

  1. Colonialisms
    • Definition
    • cultural Imperialism: Theoriescultural Imperialism: Theories & Examples

2. Post-Colonialism: Resistance and Immigration

A. Resisting colonialism/Constructing postcolonial identities through

      • Language, History and Identity Construction
      • Strategies: Separatism (Nativism), Re-Creation, Cultural Syncreticism, Mimicry, Active participation, Assimilation.
      • examples

B. Diaspora and Globalization

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Colonialism: Definition and Kinds

  • Definition: colonialism --military, economic, cultural oppression & domination of one country over another.
  • Kinds:

1. Invasion-colonization;

2. Settlement-colonization;

3. Internal Colonialism;

4. Neo-Colonialism

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Colonialism: Flows of Natural Resources and People

  1. Triangular

Trade

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2. Middle Passage

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Colonialism: flows of migration

  • Flows of Migrants

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1st World Colonial powers:

Adventurers, Army, travelers, missionaries, immigrants

“Third World”:

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Slaves,

Contract laborers,

Students, businessmen, etc.

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cultural imperialism (1): Theories

  • 1. Culture (e.g. literature, language, popular culture) supports imperialism and is one way to spread it.
  • 2. The definition of the self and others are based upon representations rather than reality;
  • 3. a series of binary oppositions (exact opposites) were employed to at once define the colonised subjects and the colonising masters.

The West as civilised, just, moral, industrious, rational, Masculine

The Oriental as savage, lewd, lazy, superstitious, feminine

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cultural imperialism (1): Theories

  • Justifica-tion of Racism

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cultural imperialism (1): Examples of “White Man’s burden”

  • 1. Africa:

"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look at it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it: not a sentimental pretence but an idea; an unselfish belief in the idea something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer sacrifice to…“ (Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness)

Others: Out of Africa, Sheltering Sky, The English Patient.

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cultural imperialism (1): Examples of “White Man’s burden”

  • 1. Africa:

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cultural imperialism (1):

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  • White vs. Black: Edouard Manet Olympia, 1863

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cultural imperialism (2): Examples

2. The Caribbean:

  • The Tempest– Caliban
  • Robinson Crusoe– Friday
  • Jane Eyre –the madwoman Bertha
  • Mansfield Park– dependant on the business from the West Indian Estate (in Antigua)
  • And many other Victorian novels.

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cultural imperialism (2): Examples

2. The Orient:

  • Orientalism –presenting the East as “the Other” (weaker, less civilized, inscrutable, wicked), or as “the exotic” e.g. Arabian Nights, Madame Butterfly and all the images of Oriental women as sumissive, sexual and sweet.
  • English Studies in India
  • Taiwan: Popularity of translations of American novels such as those of Hemingway and Jack London.
  • Taiwan: Un-self-reflective absorption of English literary canon/values

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cultural imperialism (3): Ethnic Colors

Furniture from Artikeln

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Cultural Imperialism: Effects

  • self-hatred[inferiority complex] or

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  • Split Subject (e.g. Black Skin, White Mask)

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  • Resistance

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