From Post-Colonial to Post-ImperialThe Case of Europe

Paulo de MedeirosPaulo.deMedeiros@let.uu.nl

Seminar on Postcolonial Europe

Sweeping historical considerationso Imperialism and colonialismo Modern imperialism and colonialism

Atlantic expansion towards Asia and America (Portugal and Spain)19th Century scramble for Africa

o Decolonisation after WWIIPassing of imperial mantle from Europe to USALate decolonisation (NL, PT) and colonial wars

Before Postcolonial Theoryo Frantz Fanono Amílcar Cabral

Breaking pointso Leeds Center for Commonwealth Literatureo Edward Said

Orientalism Foucault, Althusser, Gramsci as modelsImplication of academic studies in the political sphereCriticisms

o After ’68: Derrida and feminist theoriesSpivak and Bhabha

o Subaltern, Voice, Hybridity, MimicryAgainst postcolonial theory

o Arlik and AhmahdRe-thinking Postcolonial Theory

o McClintock and “The Angel of Progress”o Huggan and “The Postcolonial Exotic”

From Postcolonial Theory to Post-Imperial Studies: The Question of Europe

imperialism

Function: noun1 : imperial government, authority, or system2 : the policy, practice, or advocacy of extending the power and dominion of a nation especially by direct territorial acquisitions or by gaining indirect control over the political or economic life of other areas; broadly : the extension or imposition of power, authority, or influence

colonialism

Function: noun1 : the quality or state of being colonial2 : something characteristic of a colony3 a : control by one power over a dependent area or people b : a policy advocating or based on such control

neocolonialism

Function: noun: the economic and political policies by which a great power indirectly maintains or extends its influence over other areas or people

Merriam-Webster OnLinehttp://www.m-w.com/

Postcolonialism

Two views: Chronological, that is, after independenceTheoretical, that is, as anti-colonial

European Maritime Expansion

Decolonization

Paasing the Mantle of Imperialism

Late Decolonization

Before Postcolonialism

Fanon

“For Fanon, being colonized by a language has larger implications for one's consciousness: "To speak . . . means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization" (17-18). Speaking French means that one accepts, or is coerced into accepting, the collective consciousness of the French, which identifies blackness with evil and sin. In an attempt to escape the association of blackness with evil, the black man dons a white mask, or thinks of himself as a universal subject equally participating in a society that advocates an equality supposedly abstracted from personal appearance. Cultural values are internalized, or "epidermalized" into consciousness, creating a fundamental disjuncture between the black man's consciousness and his body. Under these conditions, the black man is necessarily alienated from himself.”

Source: 1996. Jennifer Poulos. http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Fanon.html

Amílcar Cabral

“The value of culture as an element of resistance to foreign domination   lies in the fact that culture is the vigorous manifestation on the ideological or idealist plane of the physical and historical reality of the society that is dominated or to be dominated. Culture is simultaneously the fruit of a people’s history and a determinant of history, by the positive or negative influence which it exerts on the evolution of relationships between man and his environment, among men or groups of men within a society, as well as among different societies. Ignorance of this fact may explain the failure of several attempts at foreign domination--as well as the failure of some international liberation movements.”

Source: Amílcar Cabral. 1970 (Syracuse University). “ History is a Weapon: National Liberation and Culture”. http://historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/cabralnlac.html

Leeds and Commonwealth Studies