Q#1 Explain subaltern studies? Subaltern Studies

Q#1 Explain subaltern studies?

Subaltern StudiesThe Subaltern Studies Group (SSG) or Subaltern Studies Collective is a group of South Asian scholars interested in the postcolonial and post-imperial societies with a particular focus on those of South Asia while also covering the developing world in general sense. The term Subaltern Studies is sometimes also applied more broadly to others who share many of their views. Their anti-essentialist approach[1] is one of history from below, focused more on what happens among the masses at the base levels of society than among the elite.

Some definitions to start: Decolonization: the process of removing an imperial power over a colonized region (1947-1997).  Post-colonial: after colonization is over, or when decolonizationis complete.  Postcolonial refers also to a specific type of history: Postcolonial theory / studies, the study of the formerlycolonized regions and their independent development.  As your textbook suggests, it's not w/o critics because postcolonial society (India, Hong Kong, Zimbabwe, etc.) still feel the effectsof imperialism

The final is subaltern.  Historians who use this term take it from Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), an Italian Marxist and Communist who was imprisoned for a long time by Mussolini's police (from 1926) until his death at age 46.  In prison, he wrote notebooks on politics and history and philosophy.  He declared that the subaltern was the subjected underclass in a society on whom the dominant power exerts its hegemonic influence.

I. Why choose the term "subaltern"? What does it mean?  Accordingto my handy OED, it means, of inferior status or rank; subordinate; hence, of rank, power, authority, action

Am I saying that somehow these histories are inferior or belong to a subordinate position?

ABSOLUTELY NOT: however, "traditional" histories, like the kind discussed in the very beginning of this term, often neglected theordinary, the average, the everyday because they were not the stuff of "big history."

II. How historians use the term—Historians have tended to use this term in a way that takes back the history—much the same way that the term queer has been brought into the language of queer theory, subaltern has been a way for historians (and theoreticians) to expand their language, to recognize the historically subordinate position of the lives of various groups of people, but in recognizing their "subalternity" giving them a voice and an agency.

Subaltern Studies emerged around 1982 as a series of journal articles published by Oxford University Press in India.  A group of Indian scholars trained in the west wanted to reclaim their history.  Its main goal was to retake history for the underclasses, for the voices that had not been heard previous.  Scholars of the subaltern hoped to break away from histories of the elites and the Eurocentric bias of current imperial history. In the main, the wrote against the "Cambridge School" which seemed to uphold the colonial legacy—i.e. it was elite-centered. Instead, they focused on subaltern in terms of class, caste, gender, race, language and culture.  They espoused the idea that there may have been political dominance, but that this was not hegemonic.  The primary leader was Ranajit Guha who had written works on peasant uprisings in India.  Another of the leading scholars of subaltern studies is Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.  Shedraws on a number of theoretical positions in her analysis of Indian history: deconstruction, marxism, feminism. She was highlycritical of current histories of India that were told from the vantage point of the colonizers and presented a story of the colony via the British adminstrators (Young, 159).  What she and other historians (including Ranajit Guha) wanted was to reclaim their history, to give voice to the subjected peoples.  Any otherhistory merely reconstructs imperialist hegemony and does not

give voice to the people—those who resisted, those who supported,those who experienced colonial incursion.  According to the Subaltern Studies group, this history is designed to be a "contribution made by people on their own, that it, independentlyof the élite" (quoted in Young 160).  They did this by establishing a journal out of Oxford, Delhi and Australia and called it Subaltern Studies to write a history against the grain and restore history to the subordinated.  In other words, to givethe common people back their agency.

 In other words, proponents of subaltern studies suggest that we need to find alternate sources to locate the voice of the subaltern historically.  Elite records, like those at the home office or foreign office could still be used, but you had to readthem with a different pair of lenses.  So even though we might besubject to using these same sources, we can read them "against the grain" –this phrase comes from Walter Benjamin's theoretical work.

Many SS critics, like Dipesh Chakrabarty ("postcoloniality and the artifice of history" in representations) suggest that it is really impossible to fully break from the western narrative.

Obviously, the introduction of subaltern studies, like all of ourtheories we've encountered this term, has tremendous political repercussions.  In a society like Great Britain, that claims to operate as a "Commonwealth" yet sees racism around every corner as well as the desire to keep out the blacks who cause all the problems (refer to recent Prime Minister elections), the writing and mapping of a history of previously silent groups creates an undercurrent throughout the society

 Thus subaltern history will help to lay bare previously covered histories, previously ignored events, previously purposeful hidden secrets of the past.

 All of these people dealt head on with the concept of the "other." Otherness is part of modern nationalist rhetoric to define a nation, to have a nationalist spirit—patriotism, for example is to suggest a certain level of inclusion.

If there is inclusion, a nation of the self, then how do you define it?  The most obvious idea is to think in terms of binary oppositions à self / other.  So, "the other" was constructed as outside the nation. When this kind of bipolarity is established, the opposite tends to be negated.  Otherness, once negated is subject to the power of the colonizer.  It is this discourse thatearly post-colonial thinkers, like Said, hoped to displace.  Likescholars of gender, Said argued that the bipolar reduced race to an "essentialist" category."

 III. Movement from the New Left to the New Cultural History.  Recovering the histories

-We could argue that this move began with the Fabians in the early twentieth century—a group of scholars dedicated to uncovering the role of the laboring classes in history.  In fact,we could argue that it began earlier, since Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were very concerned with the history of the proletarian and his role in history.

-But even if we discount the "theoretical" discussion by these groups, we see some glimpses of this in the 1930s—CLR James' The Black Jacobins was a Marxist study of the successful slave revoltin San Domingo led by Toussaint L'Ouverture.  The book continues to be regarded as one of the great work of black agency.

-Despite these early ventures, I argue that it's not really untilthe emergence of "The New Left" and the rise of non-Marxist social history in the 1960s that we see concerted efforts at a "history from below" that provided these characters with a voice.

-In the US, race and gender became especially important in the 1960s in the face of the Civil Rights Movement and the emergent Feminist Movement.  Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique really became a wake-up call

-In Europe, students faced the violence of global migration from colonized areas (specifically in England—Caribbean, African, South Asian, East Asian—and France—Vietnam/Indochina, Algeria/North Africa), they faced decolonization and in 1968 the

huge student riots in Europe showed the emergence of the "subaltern."

-But other areas of the world as well in Cold War society: Latin American Revolutions, The revolutions in Asia and Africa.

-The post-war world then, was one of growing discontent "at home"and "abroad"—to be more sophisticated, we should say "globally."

 The New Left came out of this discontent.  Dissatisfied with theSoviets after 1956, young scholars thought about alternative waysof thinking about the past by not relying on "working" models.  Saw a chance to see the past for what it was.1960s—lots of great stuff on class beginning with EPT's MEWC.

1960s & 1970s—lots of great stuff that begin to combine all three—what historians sometimes refer to as the mantra: race, class and gender.

 So what? How does this have to do with "subaltern" and "recovering" history?  EVERYTHING.

 IV.   This gets us to the point where we can talk about "postcolonial" theory and history.  It enables us to use a discourse that would have been forbidden.

 Over the next two weeks we will encounter various components of postcolonial theory.  We begin with race and nation and look to Said to provide definitions and starting ground for problematizing the lenses of European colonial historians.  We then look at Gilroy and his examples of a narrow definition of nationality.  We will then read another theory piece, Gyan Prakash's discussion of postcolonial discourse and its historicaldevelopment.  Then one case of historical practice—Ramachandra Guha's history of Indian nationalist politics by using the vehicle of cricket.  A very important point to note: not all works that deal with race or racism are "subaltern studies."  There are plenty of critical works that still remain focused on European politics—these works are collectively known as the New Imperial History.

Q#2 Discuss orientalism by Edward said?

An Introduction to Edward Said’s OrientalismAuthor: Edward W. Said

Publisher: Vintage

Year: 1994

“ORIENTALISM”Orientalism by Edward Said is a cononical text of cultural studies in which he has challenged the concept of orientalism or the difference between east and west, as he puts it. He says thatwith the start of European colonization the Europeans came in contact with the lesser developed countries of the east. They found their civilization and culture very exotic, and establishedthe science of orientalism, which was the study of the orientals or the people from these exotic civilization.

Edward Said argues that the Europeans divided the world into two parts; the east and the west or the occident and the orient or the civilized and the uncivilized. This was totally an artificialboundary; and it was laid on the basis of the concept of them andus or theirs and ours. The Europeans used orientalism to define themselves. Some particular attributes were associated with the orientals, and whatever the orientals weren’t the occidents were.The Europeans defined themselves as the superior race compared tothe orientals; and they justified their colonization by this concept. They said that it was their duty towards the world to civilize the uncivilized world. The main problem, however, arose when the Europeans started generalizing the attributes they associated with orientals, and started portraying these artificial characteristics associated with orientals in their western world through their scientific reports, literary work, and other media sources. What happened was that it created a

certain image about the orientals in the European mind and in doing that infused a bias in the European attitude towards the orientals. This prejudice was also found in the orientalists (scientist studying the orientals); and all their scientific research and reports were under the influence of this. The generalized attributes associated with the orientals can be seen even today, for example, the Arabs are defined as uncivilized people; and Islam is seen as religion of the terrorist.

Here is a brief summary of the book, followed by a critique by Malcolm Kerr.

The Scope of OrientalismIn this chapter, Edward Said explains how the science of orientalism developed and how the orientals started considering the orientals as non-human beings. The orientals divided the world in to two parts by using the concept of ours and theirs. Animaginary geographical line was drawn between what was ours and what was theirs. The orients were regarded as uncivilized people;and the westerns said that since they were the refined race it was their duty to civilize these people and in order to achieve their goal, they had to colonize and rule the orients. They said that the orients themselves were incapable of running their own government. The Europeans also thought that they had the right torepresent the orientals in the west all by themselves. In doing so, they shaped the orientals the way they perceived them or in other words they were orientalizing the orients. Various teams have been sent to the east where the orientalits silently observed the orientals by living with them; and every thing the orientals said and did was recorded irrespective of its context, and projected to the civilized world of the west. This resulted in the generalization. Whatever was seen by the orientals was associated with the oriental culture, no matter if it is the irrational action of an individual.

The most important use of orientalism to the Europeans was that they defined themselves by defining the orientals. For example, qualities such as lazy, irrational, uncivilized, crudeness were

related to the orientals, and automatically the Europeans became active, rational, civilized, sophisticated. Thus, in order to achieve this goal, it was very necessary for the orientalists to generalize the culture of the orients.

Another feature of orientalism was that the culture of the orientals was explained to the European audience by linking them to the western culture, for example, Islam was made into Mohammadism because Mohammad was the founder of this religion andsince religion of Christ was called Christianity; thus Islam should be called Mohammadism. The point to be noted here is that no Muslim was aware of this terminology and this was a completelywestern created term, and to which the Muslims had no say at all.

Orientalist Structures andRestructuresIn this chapter, Edward Said points the slight change in the attitude of the Europeans towards the orientals. The orientals were really publicized in the European world especially through their literary work. Oriental land and behaviour was highly romanticized by the European poets and writers and then presentedto the western world. The orientalists had made a stage strictly for the European viewers, and the orients were presented to them with the colour of the orientalist or other writers perception. In fact, the orient lands were so highly romanticized that western literary writers found it necessary to offer pilgrimage to these exotic lands of pure sun light and clean oceans in orderto experience peace of mind, and inspiration for their writing. The east was now perceived by the orientalist as a place of pure human culture with no necessary evil in the society. Actually it was this purity of the orientals that made them inferior to the clever, witty, diplomatic, far-sighted European; thus it was their right to rule and study such an innocent race. The Europeans said that these people were too naive to deal with the cruel world, and that they needed the European fatherly role to assist them.

Another justification the Europeans gave to their colonization was that they were meant to rule the orientals since they have developed sooner than the orientals as a nation, which shows thatthey were biologically superior, and secondly it were the Europeans who discovered the orients not the orients who discovered the Europeans. Darwin’s theories were put forward to justify their superiority, biologically by the Europeans.

In this chapter, Edward Said also explains how the two most renowned orientalists of the 19th century, namely Silvestre de Sacy and Ernest Renan worked and gave orienatlism a new dimension. In fact, Edward Said compliments the contribution madeby Sacy in the field. He says that Sacy organized the whole thingby arranging the information in such a way that it was also useful for the future orientalist. And secondly, the prejudice that was inherited by every orientalist was considerably low in him. On the other hand, Renan who took advantage of Sacy’s work was as biased as any previous orientalist. He believed that the science of orientalism and the science of philology have a very important relation; and after Renan this idea was given a lot attention and many future orientalists worked of in its line.

Orientalism NowThis chapter starts off by telling us that how the geography of the world was shaped by the colonization of the Europeans. There was a quest for geographical knowledge which formed the bases of orientalism.

The author then talks about the changing circumstances of the world politics and changing approach to orientalism in the 20th century. The main difference was that where the earlier orientalists were more of silent observers the new orientalists took a part in the every day life of the orients. The earlier orientalists did not interact a lot with the orients, whereas thenew orients lived with them as if they were one of them. This wasn’t out of appreciation of their lifestyle but was to know

more about the orients in order to rule them properly. Lawrence of Arabia was one of such orienatlists.

Then Edward Said goes on to talk about two other scholars Massignon and Gibb. Though Massignon was a bit liberal with orientalists and often tried to protect their rights, there was still inherited biased found in him for the orientals, which can be seen in his work. With the changing world situation especiallyafter World War 1, orientalism took a more liberal stance towardsmost of its subjects; but Islamic orientalism did not enjoy this status. There were constant attacks to show Islam as a weak religion, and a mixture of many religions and thoughts. Gibb was the most famous Islamic orientalist of this time.

After World War 1 the centre of orientalism moved from Europe to USA. One important transformation that took place during this time was instances of relating it to philology and it was relatedto social science now. All the orientalists studied the orientalsto assist their government to come up with policies for dealing with the orient countries. With the end of World War 2, all the Europeans colonies were lost; and it was believed that there wereno more orientals and occidents, but this was surely not the case. Western prejudice towards eastern countries was still very explicit, and often they managed to generalize most of the eastern countries because of it. For example Arabs were often represented as cruel and violent people. Japanese were always associated with karate where as the Muslims were always considered to be terrorists. Thus, this goes on to show that evenwith increasing globalization and awareness, such bias was found in the people of the developed countries.

Edward Said concludes his book by saying that he is not saying that the orientalists should not make generalization, or they should include the orient perspective too, but creating a boundary at the first place is something which should not be done.

Malcolm Kerr’s review on Orientalism

Malcolm Kerr did his specialization in International Relations and specialized in the Middle East from Princeton University. He worked on his PhD thesis with Gibb, and spent two years with him in Cambridge University.1 Malcolm’s review on Orientalism can be concluded by his following remarks, “This book reminds me of the television program “Athletes in Action,” in which professional football players compete in swimming, and so forth. Edward Said, a literary critic loaded with talent, has certainly made a splash, but with this sort of effort he is not going to win any major race. This is a great pity, for it is a book that in principle needed to be written, and for which the author possessed rich material. In the end, however, the effort misfired. The book contains many excellent sections and scores many telling points, but it is spoiled by overzealous prosecutorial argument in which Professor Said, in his eagerness to spin too large a web, leaps at conclusions and tries to throw everything but the kitchen sink into a preconceived frame of analysis. In charging the entire tradition of European and American Oriental studies with the sins of reductionism and caricature, he commits precisely the same error”2. He further goes on to say “The list of victims of Said’s passion is a long one, too long to examine in detail. Some of them deserve it: he has justly taken the measure of Ernest Renan. Some others are probably not worth it. One wonders why he is so ready to lump nineteenth-century travellers with professional philologists; whyhe found it necessary to twist the empathy of Sylvain Levi for colonized peoples into an alleged racism (pp. 248-250), or to dismiss the brilliance of Richard Burton as being overshadowed bya mentality of Western domination of the east (p. 197); why he condemns Massignon for his heterodoxy, and Gibb for his orthodoxy; or why he did not distinguish between Bernard Lewis’s recent polemics on modern politics and his much more important corpus of scholarship on the history of Islamic society and culture. For those who knew Gustave von Grunebaum and were aware of his scholarly genius and his deep attraction to Islamic culture in all its ramifications, Said’s exercise in character assassination (pp. 296-298) can only cause deep dismay. Suffice it to say that von Grunebaum’s view of Islamic culture as “antihumanist” was a serious proposition, and in fact not an

unsympathetic one, denounced but not rebutted by Said, who seems not to recognize the difference between an antihumanist culture and an inhumane one. He might have done well to note that Abdallah Laroui, whose penetrating criticism of von Grunebaum’s work he invokes, earned thereby an invitation from von Grunebaum to teach at UCLA”3.

Q# 3 Key terms in post-colonial theory?

Key Terms in Post-Colonial Theory

You should read over the following definitions in order to understand some of the basic ideas associated with post-colonialistliterature:

colonialism: The imperialist expansion of Europe into the rest of the world during the last four hundred years in which a dominant imperium or center carried on a relationship of control and influence over its margins or colonies. This relationship tended toextend to social, pedagogical, economic, political, and broadly culturally exchanges often with a hierarchical European settler class and local, educated (compractor) elite class forming layers between the European "mother" nation and the various indigenous peoples who were controlled. Such a system carried within it inherent notions of racial inferiority and exotic otherness.

post-colonialism: Broadly a study of the effects of colonialism on cultures and societies. It is concerned with both how European nations conquered and controlled "Third World" cultures and how these groups have since responded to and resisted those encroachments. Post-colonialism, as both a body of theory and a study of political and cultural change, has gone and continues to go through three broad stages:

1. an initial awareness of the social, psychological, and cultural inferiority enforced by being in a colonized

state2. the struggle for ethnic, cultural, and political autonomy3. a growing awareness of cultural overlap and hybridity

ambivalence: the ambiguous way in which colonizer and colonized regard one another.  The colonizer often regards the colonized as both inferior yet exotically other, while the colonized regards thecolonizer as both enviable yet corrupt.  In a context of hybridity,this often produces a mixed sense of blessing and curse.

alterity: "the state of being other or different"; the political, cultural, linguistic, or religious other. The study of the ways in which one group makes themselves different from others.

colonial education:  the process by which a colonizing power assimilates either a subaltern native elite or a larger population to its way of thinking and seeing the world.

diaspora: the voluntary or enforced migration of peoples from theirnative homelands.  Diaspora literature is often concerned with questions of maintaining or altering identity, language, and culture while  in another culture or country.

essentialism: the essence or "whatness" of something.  In the context of race, ethnicity, or culture, essentialism suggests the practice of various groups deciding what is and isn't a particular identity.  As a practice, essentialism tends to overlook differences within groups often to maintain the status quo or obtain power.  Essentialist claims can be used by a colonizing power but also by the colonized as a way of resisting what is claimed about them.

ethnicity: a fusion of traits that belong to a group–shared values,beliefs, norms, tastes, behaviors, experiences, memories, and loyalties. Often deeply related to a person’s identity.

exoticism: the process by which a cultural practice is made

stimulating and exciting in its difference from the colonializer’s normal perspective. Ironically, as European groups educated local, indigenous cultures, schoolchildren often began to see their nativelifeways, plants, and animals as exotic and the European counterparts as "normal" or "typical."

hegemony: the power of the ruling class to convince other classes that their interests are the interests of all, often not only through means of economic and political control but more subtly through the control of education and media.

hybridity: new transcultural forms that arise from cross-cultural exchange. Hybridity can be social, political, linguistic, religious, etc. It is not necessarily a peaceful mixture, for it can be contentious and disruptive in its experience.  Note the two related definitions:

catalysis: the (specifically New World) experience of several ethnic groups interacting and mixing with each other often in a contentious environment that gives way to new forms of identity andexperience.

creolization: societies that arise from a mixture of ethnic and racialmixing to form a new material, psychological, and spiritual self-definition.

identity: the way in which an individual and/or group defines itself. Identity is important to self-concept, social mores, and national understanding.   It often involves both essentialism and othering.

ideology: "a system of values, beliefs, or ideas shared by some social group and often taken for granted as natural or inherently true" (Bordwell & Thompson 494)

language: In the context of colonialism and post-colonialism, language has often become a site for both colonization and resistance. In particular, a return to the original indigenous language is often advocated since the language was suppressed by

colonizing forces.  The use of European languages is a much debatedissue among postcolonial authors.

abrogation: a refusal to use the language of the colonizer in a correct or standard way. 

appropriation: "the process by which the language is made to 'bear theburden' of one's own cultural experience."

magical realism: the adaptation of Western realist methods of literature in describing the imaginary life of indigenous cultures who experience the mythical, magical, and supernatural in a decidedly different fashion from Western ones. A weaving together elements we tend to associate with European realism and elements weassociate with the fabulous, where these two worlds undergo a "closeness or near merging."

mapping: the mapping of global space in the context of colonialism was as much prescriptive as it was descriptive.  Maps were used to assist in the process of aggression, and they were also used to establish claims.  Maps claims the boundaries of a nation, for example.

metanarrative: ("grand narratives," "master narratives.") a large cultural story that seeks to explain within its borders all the little, local narratives.  A metanarrative claims to be a big truthconcerning the world and the way it works.  Some charge that all metanarratives are inherently oppressive because they decide whether other narratives are allowed or not.

mimicry: the means by which the colonized adapt the culture (language, education, clothing, etc.) of the colonizer but always in the process changing it in important ways.  Such an approach always contains it in the ambivalence of hybridity.

nation/nation-state: an aggregation of people organized under a single government. National interest is associated both with a struggle for independent ethnic and cultural identity, and ironically an opposite belief in universal rights, often

multicultural, with a basis in geo-economic interests. Thus, the move for national independence is just as often associated with region as it is with ethnicity or culture, and the two are often atodds when new nations are formed.

orientalism: the process (from the late eighteenth century to the present) by which "the Orient" was constructed as an exotic other by European studies and culture. Orientalism is not so much a true study of other cultures as it is broad Western generalization aboutOriental, Islamic, and/or Asian cultures that tends to erode and ignore their substantial differences.

other: the social and/or psychological ways in which one group excludes or marginalizes another group. By declaring someone "Other," persons tend to stress what makes them dissimilar from or opposite of another, and this carries over into the way they represent others, especially through stereotypical images.

race: the division and classification of human beings by physical and biological characteristics.  Race often is used by various groups to either maintain power or to stress solidarity. In the 18th and19th centuries, it was often used as a pretext by European colonial powers for slavery and/or the "white man's burden."

semiotics: a system of signs which one knows what something is. Cultural semiotics often provide the means by which a group definesitself or by which a colonializing power attempts to control and assimilate another group.

space/place:space represents a geographic locale, one empty in not being designated. Place, on the other hand, is what happens when a space is made or owned.  Place involves landscape, language, environment, culture, etc.

subaltern: the lower or colonized classes who have little access totheir own means of expression and are thus dependent upon the language and methods of the ruling class to express themselves.

worlding: the process by which a person, family, culture, or people

is brought into the dominant Eurocentric/Western global society.

Q#4 Diaspora in postcolonial studies

Diaspora

• To repeat: The term diaspora describes an ethnic community that – because of expulsion or emigration –has spread from an original ‘center’ to at least two peripheral places;

• Diasporic identity/ies• Diaspora: term gained importance in social science,

cultural studies and literary studies

Diaspora and post-colonial studies

• Diaspora and Postcolonial Studies• 1980s and 1990: central discourse in Cultural Studies• Key topics/issues/areas of concern:

– (Im)-Migration; zones of contact and contestation– Imperialism

Economic, political & cultural legacies/inequities caused bycolonialism

Theorists/critics/writers (selective): Edward Said, Arif Dirlik, Benedict Anderson, Homi K. Bhabha; Gayatri Spivak, Robert Young, Robin Cohen, Bill Ashcroft, Helen Tiffin, Salman Rushdie, and many more

The Postcolonial Web is largely organized according to traditional categories: countries and regions that were once colonies of the British Empire, the authors who livein these countries, the type of literature they produce, their influences, historical or political conditions, andso on. While these categories were implemented for ease of navigation around the website, they can, admittedly, overwhelm the fluidity, borderlessness, and transculturalimplications of postcolonialism. There is only so much cross-listing can do on websites like the Postcolonial Web.

This new section on diaspora seeks to reorganize the links to documents on the website while also introducing new categories. By listing authors according to various general diasporas such as the African or Indian diasporas, it enables one to appreciate how the sense of homelessness and displacement has come to produce types of culture that are not geographically synchronous. For example, while the United States is not considered on this website as a postcolonial country, it is also the place where much of the diaspora culture is produced. Writers like Toni Morrison and Ishmael Reed speak powerfully to the postcolonial audiences, but because of the original categorization schemes they have been left out of the website. Furthermore, where would we situate the Indian born British author, Salman Rushdie, who has now made his home in New York?

On this new webpage, I take the concept of "diaspora" disjunctively from two sources. In Appiah and Gates'   The Dictionary of Global Culture, the only diaspora that is mentioned is that of the Jews (178-179). This appears to be disappointing because it omits the dispersal of so many other peoples around the world while lauding the

Judaic diaspora as the only legitimate historical example. Nonetheless Appiah and Gates' entry is of significance because the Jewish diaspora contains a tremendous amount of tension and ambivalence that one caninterpolate into other forms of diaspora. Particularly there is no simplistic response to this type of diaspora.Zionism does not offer any solution to the diaspora -- ineffect exacerbates it by fragmenting the Jewish sense of identity, history, and culture, while also forcing a confrontation between the religious, exo-modern sense of time and space with the more secular and modern conceptions of sovereignty, nationhood, and political destiny.

When we examine Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin's take on"diaspora," it is possible to discern a parallel form of ambivalence and cultural fragmentation. For them, diaspora cannot be separated from colonialism, as it was this historical condition that led to the displacement ofpeople across the world under different circumstances or forms of compulsion. Ashcroft et al. resist the temptation of dividing the subjects of diaspora into two categories: the people from metropolitan centres who relocated to the colonial peripheries or the colonized who were forced back into centres through processes like slavery. In effect the link between diaspora and colonialism is noted to be by far more complex. Whether or not the people of the diaspora were settlers, migrants, transported convicts, slaves, or labourers is beside the point; what is more apparent is the capacity of colonialism to produce so many varied forms of power that compel people to move. Consequently the culture produced by diaspora cannot but contain so many resonances of the movement, the imagination of their homelands, sense of tradition, the circumstances of their

removal, and the reaction to the places they currently live:

The descendants of the diasporic movements generated by colonialism have developed their own distinctive cultureswhich both preseve and often extend and develop their originary cultures. Creolized versions of their own practices evolved, modifying (and being modified by) indigenous cultures which they thus come into contact. The development of diasporic cultures necessarily questions essentialist models, interrogating the ideologyof a unified, 'natural' cultural norm, one that underpinsthe centre/margin model of colonialist discourse. It alsoquestions the simpler kinds of theories of nativism whichsuggest that decolonization can be effected by a recoveryor reconstruction of pre-colonial societies (Ashcroft et al. 70).

The importance of the tensions and ambivalence experienced by the Jews and notion of diaspora as a consequence of imperialism cannot be overstated. Both reinforce the constant intermingling between the nostalgia for an "irrecoverable" original history/tradition and the need to mediate this within more dominant or mainstream culture.

However, I am not claiming that these two notions of diaspora are the only valid ones. Rather, I suggest that they are interesting starting points that will, hopefully, lead to further discussion and examples of dissent that will appear here. While western imperialism did have a tremendous role in explaining the diaspora of the 18th to the early 20th centuries, it falls short of accounting for an interminable process. Refugees, job seekers, people moving for family reasons, are all

products of the old and new diaspora. They have their ownstories and actively contribute to the culture of diaspora. Both theoretical reflections on these forms of diaspora as well as the culture that is produced are something that needs to be addressed and will be most welcome on this site.

Q#5:

Discuss a Postcolonial analysis of Sidhwa's An American Brat.I think that Sidhwa's work can be approached from a postcolonial point of view in a couple of ways.  The first would be to examine how fundamentally uncomfortable Zareen is with the prospect of Feroza's marriage to someone outside of the Parsee sect.  The idea is something that can be approached from a postcolonial perspectivein that it displays a fundamental tension between the more indigenous approach to marriage and the one adopted by Feroza as she becomes increasingly acclimated to life in America.  I think that another postcolonial element that can be explored is the malleability of individual identity. Feroza is sent away from Pakistan because Zareen perceives her as becoming too orthodox.  The rise of Zia's rule and the imprisonment of Bhutto is what causes this fear to emerge.  The impact that this has on the daughter is what inspires the mother to send her away in the first place.  Such fluidity in character is evident when the daughter is sent to America and becomes "Westernized."  From the Postcolonial point of view, this reflects how individuals are contingent beings whose context plays a large role in the construction of individual identity.  This would only serve to prove the Postcolonial thinkersright in thinking that Colonialism played a powerful role in the development of individual and cultural notions of the good.  In Sidhwa's depiction, this tenet of Postcolonialism is demonstrated.

The Trials of Brother Jero Study GuideThe Trials of Brother Jero was first published in 1964. Its original performance was organized by Farris-Belgrave Productions and held at the Greenwich Mews Theatre in New York City in 1967. Today it is known as one of Soyinke’s most popular plays.The play mocks the effects of the quick spread of Christianity across Africa. Soyinka takes issue with a common figure of the time, the phony preacher who proselytizes by deceiving his followers. Many of these preachers did not have churches of theirown and so preached in public spaces, as does Brother Jero. The play thus exposes the contradictions in blind faith and following, while also drawing attention through satire to many ofthe social and political imbalances of Nigeria in the early 1960s.In 1966 Soyinka published another play featuring Brother Jero, called Jero's Metamorphosis.