Introduction to post-colonial perspectives

Palestinian-American literary historian Edward Said showed how the West had the power to represent the colonial ‘other’ – while simultaneously leaving them silent.

More Introduction to Postcolonialist Perspectives

“Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, University Professor and Director of the Center for Comparative Literature and Society, Columbia University This presentation will attempt to situate feminism geographically, in terms of the triumph of the Euro-specific (even Anglo-specific) model, in terms of the history of both of Marxism and Capitalism. It will trace feminisms itinerary through both coloniality and globalization. It will also attempt to situate feminism historically in terms of the provenance of what we at radical U.S. universities call feminism and see how it reflects on the development of mobility among women in terms of not only capital but also the great engines of world governance.”

“In this month’s episode of What the Theory?, we’re diving into postcolonialism with an intro to postcolonial theory in literature, film and culture. We’ll be looking at the ideas of Edward Said (as laid out in his book Orientalism), Gayatri Spivak (Can the Subaltern Speak?), Homi Bhabha (The Location of Culture) and Stuart Hall (The West and Rest). In particular, this postcolonialism crash course hopes to give you an insight into how some of these core ideas of post-colonialism can be used to analyse cultural texts through the critical lens of postcolonial theory. As such, we’ll put these ideas into action in discussing James Cameron’s 2009 film Avatar and Ryan Coogler’s 2018 film Black Panther.”