Name:- Vidhya Pandya
Semester:- MA -2
Roll No:- 32
Subject:-literary theory and criticism 2
Enrolment No:- 2069108420190031
Year:- 2018-20
E-mail id:- vidhupandya10497@gmail.com
Submitted to:- Department of English
Paper no:- 7
Topic:- Short note on the various terms:-
1} Postmodernism, 2} Postcolonial Criticism
1) Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a broad movement that
developed in the mid- to late 20th century across philosophy, the arts,
architecture, and criticism and that marked a departure from modernism. The
term has also more generally been applied to the historical era following
modernity and the tendencies of this era. (In this context, "modern"
is not used in the sense of "contemporary", but merely as a name for
a specific period in history.)
2) Criticisms
Criticisms of postmodernism are
intellectually diverse, including the assertions that postmodernism is
meaningless and promotes obscurantism. For example, Noam Chomsky has argued
that postmodernism is meaningless because it adds nothing to analytical or empirical
knowledge. He asks why postmodernist intellectuals do not respond like people
in other fields when asked, "what are the principles of their theories, on
what evidence are they based, what do they explain that wasn't already obvious,
etc.?...If [these requests] can't be met, then I'd suggest recourse to Hume's
advice in similar circumstances: 'to the flames'."
Christian philosopher William Lane Craig
has noted "The idea that we live in a postmodern culture is a myth. In
fact, a postmodern culture is an impossibility; it would be utterly unliveable.
People are not relativistic when it comes to matters of science, engineering,
and technology; rather, they are relativistic and pluralistic in matters of
religion and ethics. But, of course, that's not postmodernism; that's
modernism!"
Formal, academic critiques of
postmodernism can also be found in works such as Beyond the Hoax and
Fashionable Nonsense.
However, as for continental philosophy,
American academics have tended to label it "postmodernist", especially
practitioners of "French Theory". Such a trend might derive from U.S.
departments of Comparative Literature. Félix Guattari, often considered a
"postmodernist", rejected its theoretical assumptions by arguing that
the structuralist and postmodernist visions of the world were not flexible
enough to seek explanations in psychological, social and environmental domains
at the same time.
Analytic philosopher Daniel Dennett
declared, "Postmodernism, the school of 'thought' that proclaimed 'There
are no truths, only interpretations' has largely played itself out in
absurdity, but it has left behind a generation of academics in the humanities
disabled by their distrust of the very idea of truth and their disrespect for
evidence, settling for 'conversations' in which nobody is wrong and nothing can
be confirmed, only asserted with whatever style you can muster."
Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry
criticised Postmodernism for reducing the complexity of the modern world to an
expression of power and for undermining truth and reason: "If the modern
era begins with the European Enlightenment, the postmodern era that captivates
the radical multiculturalists begins with its rejection. According to the new
radicals, the Enlightenment-inspired ideas that have previously structured our
world, especially the legal and academic parts of it, are a fraud perpetrated
and perpetuated by white males to consolidate their own power. Those who
disagree are not only blind but bigoted. The Enlightenment's goal of an
objective and reasoned basis for knowledge, merit, truth, justice, and the like
is an impossibility: "objectivity," in the sense of standards of
judgment that transcend individual perspectives, does not exist. Reason is just
another code word for the views of the privileged. The Enlightenment itself
merely replaced one socially constructed view of reality with another,
mistaking power for knowledge. There is naught but power."
H. Sidky pointed out what he sees as
several "inherent flaws" of a postmodern antiscience perspective,
including the confusion of the authority of science (evidence) with the
scientist conveying the knowledge; its self-contradictory claim that all truths
are relative; and its strategic ambiguity. He sees 21st-century anti-scientific
and pseudo-scientific approaches to knowledge, particularly in the United
States, as rooted in a postmodernist "decades-long academic assault on
science:" "Many of those indoctrinated in postmodern anti-science
went on to become conservative political and religious leaders, policymakers,
journalists, journal editors, judges, lawyers, and members of city councils and
school boards. Sadly, they forgot the lofty ideals of their teachers, except
that science is bogus.
2) Post-colonial criticism
History is Written by the Victors
Post-colonial criticism is similar to
cultural studies, but it assumes a unique perspective on literature and
politics that warrants a separate discussion. Specifically, post-colonial
critics are concerned with literature produced by colonial powers and works
produced by those who were/are colonized. Post-colonial theory looks at issues
of power, economics, politics, religion, and culture and how these elements
work in relation to colonial hegemony (Western colonizers controlling the
colonized).
Therefore, a post-colonial critic might
be interested in works such as Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe where colonial
"...ideology [is] manifest in Crusoe's colonialist attitude toward the
land upon which he's shipwrecked and toward the black man he 'colonizes' and
names Friday" (Tyson 377). In addition, post-colonial theory might point
out that "...despite Heart of Darkness's (Joseph Conrad) obvious
anti-colonist agenda, the novel points to the colonized population as the
standard of savagery to which Europeans are contrasted" (Tyson 375).
Post-colonial criticism also takes the form of literature composed by authors
that critique Euro-centric hegemony.
A Unique Perspective on Empire
Seminal post-colonial writers such as
Nigerian author Chinua Achebe and Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o have written
a number of stories recounting the suffering of colonized people. For example,
in Things Fall Apart, Achebe details the strife and devastation that occurred
when British colonists began moving inland from the Nigerian coast.
Rather than glorifying the exploratory
nature of European colonists as they expanded their sphere of influence, Achebe
narrates the destructive events that led to the death and enslavement of
thousands of Nigerians when the British imposed their Imperial government. In
turn, Achebe points out the negative effects (and shifting ideas of identity
and culture) caused by the imposition of Western religion and economics on
Nigerians during colonial rule.
Power, Hegemony, and Literature
Post-colonial criticism also questions
the role of the Western literary canon and Western history as dominant forms of
knowledge making. The terms "First World," "Second World,"
"Third World" and "Fourth World" nations are critiqued by
post-colonial critics because they reinforce the dominant positions of Western
cultures populating First World status. This critique includes the literary
canon and histories written from the perspective of First World cultures. So,
for example, a post-colonial critic might question the works included in
"the canon" because the canon does not contain works by authors
outside Western culture.
Moreover, the authors included in the
canon often reinforce colonial hegemonic ideology, such as Joseph Conrad.
Western critics might consider Heart of Darkness an effective critique of
colonial behavior. But post-colonial theorists and authors might disagree with
this perspective: "...as Chinua Achebe observes, the novel's condemnation
of European is based on a definition of Africans as savages: beneath their
veneer of civilization, the Europeans are, the novel tells us, as barbaric as
the Africans. And indeed, Achebe notes, the novel portrays Africans as a
pre-historic mass of frenzied, howling, incomprehensible barbarians..."
(Tyson 374-375).
Typical questions:
How does the literary text, explicitly
or allegorically, represent various aspects of colonial oppression?
What does the text reveal about the
problematics of post-colonial identity, including the relationship between
personal and cultural identity and such issues as double consciousness and
hybridity?
What person(s) or groups does the work
identify as "other" or stranger? How are such persons/groups
described and treated?
What does the text reveal about the
politics and/or psychology of anti-colonialist resistance?
What does the text reveal about the
operations of cultural difference - the ways in which race, religion, class,
gender, sexual orientation, cultural beliefs, and customs combine to form
individual identity - in shaping our perceptions of ourselves, others, and the
world in which we live?
How does the text respond to or comment
upon the characters, themes, or assumptions of a canonized (colonialist) work?
Are there meaningful similarities among
the literatures of different post-colonial populations?
How does a literary text in the Western
canon reinforce or undermine colonialist ideology through its representation of
colonialization and/or its inappropriate silence about colonized peoples?
(Tyson 378-379)
Here is a list of scholars we encourage
you to explore to further your understanding of this theory:
Criticism
Edward Said - Orientalism, 1978; Culture
and Imperialism, 1994
Kamau Brathwaite - The History of the
Voice, 1979
Gayatri Spivak - In Other Worlds: Essays
in Cultural Politics, 1987
Dominick LaCapra - The Bounds of Race:
Perspectives on Hegemony and Resistance, 1991
Homi Bhabha - The Location of Culture,
1994
Comments
Post a Comment