McLeod, J (2017) Postcolonial Studies and the Ethics of the Quarrel. Paragraph, 40 (1). pp. 97-113. ISSN 0264-8334
Abstract
The history of postcolonial studies is a history of quarrels. Since its emergence in the late 1970s in the wake of Edward W. Said's Orientalism (1978), a book with which many have quarrelled due to its daring conjoining of culture with imperialism, the fortunes of postcolonial thought have been shaped by ongoing wrangles between contrary positions. These conceptual quarrels, turning still, include: Marxist versus ‘culturalist’ postcolonialisms; diasporic theory versus nationalism; metropolitan versus ‘third world’; cosmopolitanism versus materialism; cultural studies versus the ‘English department’; anglophone versus ‘native’ languages; poststructuralism versus tricontinentalism; globalization versus planetarity. Acknowledging that postcolonial studies is arguably one of the most critiqued and self-critical theoretical paradigms of recent decades, this essay considers the quarrel not simply as the product of divergent politics but as a crucial element of postcolonialism's ethical modus operandi. It ultimately both establishes the ethical agency of quarrels in postcolonial thought and looks ahead to the latest unfolding of key contentions in an ever-developing field.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | (c) 2017, Edinburgh University Press. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Paragraph. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | postcolonial, quarrels, guilt, materialist, culturalist, ethical |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of English (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 21 Jul 2016 09:58 |
Last Modified: | 30 Nov 2020 14:18 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.3366/para.2017.0217 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Edinburgh University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.3366/para.2017.0217 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:102733 |