The Pre-Occupation of Postcolonial Studies

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Edited by Fawzia Afzal-Khan and Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks

Duke University Press

Due/Published September 2000, 448 pages, paper

ISBN 0822325217

A new collection of work from both established and younger scholars representing a wide range of disciplines and viewpoints that examines/questions the limits and limitations of postcolonial thought. Essays address the broad theoretical issues at stake; the position of the "field" of postcolonial studies within the academy; as well as its relationship to modern, postmodern, and Marxist discourses. Contributors offer critiques on ahistorical and universalizing tendencies in postcolonial work as well as address the need for scholars to attend to issues of class, ideology, and the effects of neo-colonial practices. Others take up large thematic issues to examine specific sites of colonial activities with all of their historical, political, and cultural significance. The volume concludes with an interview with Homi Bhabha in which he addresses the state of postcolonial studies in the context of contemporary cultural politics and theory.

Contributors: Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Ali Behdad, Homi Bhabha, Daniel Boyarin, Neil Larsen, Saree Makdisi, Joseph Massad, Walter Mignolo, Hamid Naficy, Ngugi Wa Thingo, Timothy B. Powell, R. Radhakrishnan, Bruce Robbins, Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks, Ella Shohat, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan

Contents

Introduction
At the Margins of Postcolonial Studies: Part 1--Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks
At the Margins of Postcolonial Studies: Part 2--Fawzia Afzal-Khan

1. The Occupation of Postcolonial Studies: Knowledge and Institutional Politics
Postmodernism and the Rest of the World--R. Radhakrishnan
Une Pratique Sauvage: Postcolonial Belatedness and Cultural Politics--Ali Behdad
(Post)Occidentalism, (Post)Coloniality, and (Post)Subaltern Rationality--Walter Mignolo
Borders and Bridges: Seeking Connections between Things--Ngugi Wa Thiongo
Notes on the "Post-Colonial"--Ella Shohat
DetermiNation: Postcolonialism, Poststructuralism, and the Problem of Ideology--Neil Larsen
Secularism, Elitism, Progress, and Other Transgressions--Bruce Robbins

2. The Preoccupations of Postcolonial Studies: Modernity, Sexuality, Nation
Street Theater in Pakistani Punjab: The Case of Ajoka, Lok Rehs, and the (So-Called) Woman Question--Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Beyond the Hysterectomies Scandal: Women, the Institution, the Family, and State in India--Rajeswari Sunder Rajan
The Colonial Drag: Zionism, Gender, and Mimicry--Daniel Boyarin
Postcolonial Literature in a Neocolonial World: Modern Arabic Culture and the End of Modernity--Saree Makdisi
Self-Othering: A Postcolonial Discourse on Cinematic First Contacts--Hamid Naficy
The "Post-Colonial" Colony: Time, Space, and Bodies in Palestine/Israel--Joseph Massid
Postcolonial Theory in an American Context: A Reading of Marin Delany's Blake--Timothy Powell

Postscript
Surviving Theory: A Conversation with Homi K. Bhabha--Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks