Postcolonialism
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Postcolonialism (also known as postcolonial theory, or spelled with a hyphen) refers to a set of theories in philosophy, film and literature that grapple with the legacy of colonial rule. As a literary theory or critical approach, it deals with literature produced in countries that were once colonies of other countries, especially the major European colonial powers Britain, France and Spain; in some contexts, it may include also countries still under colonial arrangements. It may also deal with literature written in or by citizens of colonizing countries that takes colonies or their peoples as its subject matter. People from colonized countries, especially the British Empire, came to universities in Britain; their access to education that was then still unavailable in the colonies opened a new criticism, mostly in literature, especially in novels. Postcolonial theory became part of the critical toolbox in the 1970s, and many practitioners take Edward Said's book Orientalism to be the theory's founding work.
See also
- Inversion in postcolonial theory
- Cultural Alienation
- Cultural cringe
- Ethnology
- Cross-culturalism
- Post-Communism
- Nation-building
- Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
- Homi K. Bhabha
- Ranajit Guha Subaltern Studies
- Robert J.C. Young
- Alamgir Hashmi Commonwealth Literature: An Essay Towards the Re-definition of a Popular/Counter Culture
- Chinua Achebe's An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"
- Ranjit Hoskote
- Postcolonial feminism
- Post-colonial anarchism