Description
Book SynopsisThis book explores the relation between poststructuralist thought and postcoloniality, and identifies in that interaction the expression of a particular anxiety concerning the form of theoretical writing. Many so-called poststructuralist thinkers, such as Derrida, Cixous, Lyotard, Barthes, Kristeva and Spivak, have turned their attention at some point in their career towards questions either of postcolonialism, or of cultural domination and difference. For all these thinkers, however, a reflection on such questions has generated a sense of unease concerning the assumed neutrality of theoretical discourse, and the inevitable subjective or autobiographical investments of the writing self. The book argues that this anxiety betrays an unprecedented lucidity concerning the particular challenges of writing about ourselves and others at a time of postcolonial upheaval.
Trade ReviewA thorough, well-researched and well-written piece of scholarship. Though it covers a lot of ground, and deals with six notoriously complex and prolific thinkers, the overall project is impressively focused and coherent…This is clearly an accomplished piece of work, and it will be a valuable addition to the growing literature on the topic.
Peter Hallward, Middlesex UniversityTable of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part One: Poststructuralism in Algeria
- 1. Derrida in Exile: Philosophy, Postcolonialism and the Call for a Singular Universalism
- 2. In or Out? The Dislocations of Hélène Cixous
- 3. Lyotard’s Algeria: Theory and/or Politics
- Part Two: Theory and Cultural Difference
- 4. Displacing Barthes: Self, Other and the Theorist’s Uneasy Belonging
- 5. National Identity and Etrangeté: Kristeva’s Search for a Language of Otherness
- 6. Spivak’s Echo: Autobiography, Narcissism and the Theoretical Voice
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- Contents
