Description
Book SynopsisLiterature for Our Times offers the widest range of essays on present and future directions in postcolonial studies ever gathered together in one volume. Demonstrating the capacity of different approaches and methodologies to ‘live together’ in a spirit of ‘convivial democracy’, these essays range widely across regions, genres, and themes to suggest the many different directions in which the field is moving. Beginning with an engagement with global concerns such as world literatures and cosmopolitanism, translation, diaspora and migrancy, established and emerging critics demonstrate the ways in which postcolonial analysis continues to offer valuable ways of analysing the pressing issues of a globalizing world. The field of Dalit studies is added to funda¬mental interests in gender, race, and indigeneity, while the neglected site of the post¬colonial city, the rising visibility of terrorism, and the continuing importance of trauma and loss are all addressed through an analysis of particular texts. In all of these ap¬proaches, the versatility and adaptability of postcolonial theory is seen at its most energetic. Contributors: Satish Aikant, Jeannette Armstrong, John Clement Ball, Elena Basile, Nela Bureu Ramos, Debjani Ganguly, K.A. Geetha, Henry A. Giroux, John C. Hawley, Sissy Helff, Feroza Jussawalla, Chelva Kanaganayakam, Dorothy Lane, Pamela McCallum, Sam McKegney, Michaela Moura–Koçoğlu, Angelie Multani, Kavita Ivy Nandan, Stephen Ney, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Mumia G. Osaaji, Marilyn Adler Papayanis, Summer Pervez, Fred Ribkoff, Daniel Sanjiv Roberts, Anjali Gera Roy, Frank Schulze–Engler, Paul Sharrad, Lincoln Z. Shlensky, K. Satyanarayana, Vandana Saxena, P. Sivakami, Pilar Somacarrera, Susan Spearey, Cheryl Stobie, Robert J.C. Young
Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgements, R. Mendis Introduction: A Convivial Critical Democracy – Post-Colonial Studies in the Twenty-First Century, B. Ashcroft The Idea of (Postcolonial) Literature: Conceptual and Methodological Issues The Commonwealth Legacy: Towards a Decentred Reading of World Literature, F. Schulze–Engler Global Literary Refractions: Reading Pascale Casanova’s The World Republic of Letters in the Post-Cold War Era, D. Ganguly Not (Yet) Speaking to Each Other: The Politics of Speech in Jamaica Kincaid’s Postcolonialism, L.Z. Shlensky Frailty and Feeling: Literature for Our Times, P. Sharrad Spaces of Desire: A Pleasant Séjour in Robert Kroetsch’s The Hornbooks of Rita K, N. Bureu Ramos After Said: Imperial Scholarship, Race, and Ethnicity From Indomania to Indophobia: Thomas De Quincey’s Providential Orientalism, D. Sanjiv Roberts Rebels of Empire: The Human Idiom in Ruskin Bond’s A Flight of Pigeons, S.C. Aikant Translations and Transformations A Multi-Centred Globe: Translation as the Language of Languages, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o Ngũgĩ’s Wizard of the Crow and the Edifice Complex, J.C. Hawley Re-membering the Dismembered: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Language, Resistance, and Identity-Formation, M.G. Osaaji Scars of Language in Translation: The ‘Itchy’ Poetics of Jam Ismail, E. Basile English in the Languages of Cultural Encounters, R.J.C. Young Literatures of Diaspora and Migrancy The Missing Link: Transculturation, Hybridity, and/or Transculturality?, S. Helff Drickie Potter and the Annihilating Sea: Reading Jamaica Kincaid’s Waves of Nothingness, J. Clement Ball Bhangra Boomerangs: Re-Imagining Apna Punjab, A. Gera Roy ‘Trading Places in the Promised Lands’: Indian Pilgrimage Paradigms in Postcolonial Travel Narratives, D. Lane Writing as Healing: Fijindians – The Twice Banished?, K. Ivy Nandan Gendered Bodies To Veil or Not to Veil: Muslim Women Writers Speak Their Rights, F. Jussawalla Gendered Bodies in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus, C. Stobie Bearing Witness: Gender, Apocalypse, and History, M. Adler Papayanis Indigenous Literatures, Literatures of the Land: An Ethos for These Times Literature of the Land: An Ethos for These Times, J. Armstrong Masculindians: The Violence and Voyeurism of Male Sibling Relationships in Recent First-Nations Fiction, S. McKegney From Noble Savage to Brave New Warrior? Constructions of a Māori Tradition of Warfare, M. Moura–Koçoğlu A Native Clearing Revisited: Positioning Philippine Literature, C. Kanaganayakam Asia’s Christian-Latin Nation? Postcolonial Reconfigurations in the Literature of the Philippines, S. Ney Dalit Literature and Its Criticism A Dalit Among Dalits: The Angst of Tamil Dalit Women, K.A. Geetha Tamil Dalit Literature: Some Riddles, P. Sivakami Categories of Caste, Class, and Telugu Dalit Literature, K. Satyanarayana The City Plotting Hogwarts: Situating the School Ideologically and Culturally, V. Saxena & A. Multani Streets and Transformation in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and ‘Stuart’, P. McCallum Terrorism, Trauma, Loss Bharati Mukherjee’s ‘The Management of Grief’ and the Politics of Mourning in the Aftermath of the Air India Bombing, F. Ribkoff Affect and the Ethics of Reading ‘Post-Conflict’ Memoirs: Revisiting Antjie Krog’s Country of My Skull and Philip Gourevitch’s We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families, S. Spearey Literature as Arduous Conversation: Terrorism and Racial Politics in Hanif Kureishi’s Borderline, ‘My Son the Fanatic,’ and The Black Album, S. Pervez ‘Witness is what you must bear’: Politics in Margaret Atwood’s Poetry, P. Somacarrera Afterword Collaterally Damaged: Youth in a Post-9/11 World, H.A. Giroux Notes on Contributors and Editors Index
