Post-Colonialisms (II)

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Post-Colonialisms (II)

• (Post-)Colonial Identities and Strategies of
  Resistance

1. Colonialism, Orientalism and Racism 3. Nation
and Narration
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Starting Questions

• Any questions about your readings?
• What have you learned so far re. colonialism and
  postcolonialism?

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Outline

• A Review and Overview
• Colonial Identities
• Postcolonial Identities

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Post-Colonialism A Review and Overview

• Colonialisms Racism
• Definitions
• Cultural Imperialism (Orientalism) examples
• Racism Stereotypes (chap 4 p. 208-) Containment
  and Appropriation. (chap 4 p. 94) ?
• Colonial Identities The Tempest e.g. Prospero,
  Caliban, Ariel and Miranda
• Mimicry and the Subaltern
• 2. Post-Colonial Identities
• Starting with The Tempest
• Language
• History
• Identity Construction
• Strategies
• Examples of identity politics

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Race Definition

• Are racial attributes (e.g. what being a
  Chinese means) naturally born, or socially
  acquired?
• The classification of humans into races is now
  widely regarded as arbitrary from a biological
  viewpoint because actual genetic differences
  between racial groups are trivial.
• However, racial groups are real in a sociological
  sense insofar as people with different skin
  colour, etc., are commonly treated differently.
  (www.soc-canada.com/ppp/ch09.ppt)
• In other words, race is now not essentially
  defined, but more of a social-historical
  construction. ? strategic use of essentialism
  (3 214) or ethnicity (4 195)

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Race Different definitions

• new racism -- involves the belief that the races
  are inherently different from one another in a
  cultural and behavioural sense, and problems
  result when they try to live together. (textbook
  chap 4 --94)
• Different definitions of race in different
  nations e.g. race related to nationality in UK
  and in Taiwan, but not in the U.S.
• Subtler forms of racism containment and
  appropriation.

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Colonial Texts/Identities and their Revisions

• Major Texts frequently revised
• The Tempest, --17th c. usurpation and
  abandonment (Caliban)
• Robinson Crusoe 18th c. a colony established
  (Friday)
• Jane Eyre, -- 19th c a woman brought back home.
  (Other in the Self Bertha)
• Heart of Darkness. --20th c.material
  pursuit/spiritual disintegration (Self
  discovery black mistress and the intended.)

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The Tempests

• Shakespeare didnt invent Caliban Caliban
  invented Shakespeare (Russell Hoban qtd in Zabul
  9). ? What does this mean?
• The Tempest revised by
• Postcolonialists
• Postfeminists
• Postmodernists (Zabus 1)

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The Tempests

• Contemporary revisions (general trends)

Prospero De-privileged
Miranda (actually the most powerless) Supported by sisters Gang-raped
Ariel Queered
Caliban Rise to power queered
Present, with her magic
Sycorax
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The TempestsPostcolonial Interpretations (1)

• Ethnopsychiatry (D. O. Mannoni)
• Caliban complex that of inferiority and
  dependency
• When thou cam'st first,Thou strok'st me and
  made much of me wouldst give meWater with
  berries in't and teach me howTo name the bigger
  light, and how the less,That burn by day and
  night and then I lov'd thee,And show'd thee all
  the qualities o' th' isle,The fresh springs,
  brine-pits, barren place, and fertile.
• . . . and here you sty meIn this hard
  rock,

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Ethnopsychiatry Caliban complex

• that of inferiority and dependency
• Gifts with self-interest ? return of love and
  Dependency ? betrayal or demands of more gifts
  from the colonized
• Another interpretation by F. Fanon in The
  Wretched of the Earth
• Caliban needs to use violence --cathartic
  violence to cleanse him of his inferiority
  complex.

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Ethnopsychiatry (2) Prospero complex

• that of inferiority and vocation
• Hidden in the assumptions of the superiority of
  European culture
• Inability to adapt to reality ? flight from home
  or with a desire to travel
• Excessive idealism.
• Prospero anxiety (over Calibans rebellion) and
  sexual guilt (over the possibility of incest?
  thus feeling threatened by both Ferdinand and
  Caliban in their confidence in their sexual
  appeal.) (Zabus 22-23)

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Ethnopsychiatry (3) Prospero complex

• Do you agree with this interpretation?
• Can you find examples of people with Caliban
  complex or Prospero complex?
• There are variations in the interpretation of
  these two prototypes. But Prosperofor whatever
  reasonsattempts to subject the Other, and the
  two are caught in a master-slave mutual
  dependency.
• How about Ariel and Miranda? --What types do
  they fit into? Intellectual Go-between
  (messenger) and Woman?
• Type-casting can always be limiting and
  simplifying, despite the truths they reveal about
  some people.

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Colonial Identities Mimicry and the Subaltern
(textbook 206-14)

• Between the colonizer and the colonized
• Self defined in terms of the Other the two are
  thus inseparable and mutually dependent
• Uncertainty of the colonizers
• revealed through their repetition (in
  stereotyping or control)
• Undermined by mimicry (which is all the same but
  not quite). ? Hybrid
• Two possible critiques of this view
• armchair theory, not realistic
• too general and abstract. (p. 210)
• E.g. A Passage to India the Bridge Party scene

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Colonial Identities Mimicry and the Subaltern
(textbook 206-14)
The Subaltern cannot speak (Spivak).

Différance
C center
Colonial Mimicry All the same but not quite--
Indian gentleman or Indian celebration of U.K.s
national day.
e.g. Taiwanese Imitation of Madonna
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Colonial Identities the Subaltern G. Spivak
(textbook 206-14)

• Spivak focuses on racial, gender and class
  differences, acknowledging her position as a
  third-world intellectual.
• Unlike the intellectuals, the Subaltern can not
  speak. The colonized who are not given the
  language to speak, or whose voices are not heard,
  leave no mark in official history.
• e.g. Sati and a woman killing herself at a time
  not proper for Sati (????). P. 213
• Possible criticism the subaltern can speak and
  have been expressing themselves a lot.

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Postcolonial Identities I. Postcolonial
Revisions The Tempests (1)

• Aimé Césaires Une Tempête
• Caliban (black) vs. Ariel (mulatto)
• Caliban as close to Earth Ariel airy Intellect
• Caliban vs. Prospero
• Caliban You didnt teach me a thing! Except to
  jabber in your own language so that I could
  understand your orders chop wood, wash the
  dishes, fish for food, plant vegetables, because
  you were too lazy to do it yourself. (qtd Zabus
  45)
• Ending Prospero stays aged and weary and then
  dies. Caliban is free.

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Postcolonial Identities I. Postcolonial
Revisions The Tempests (2)

• II. Miranda postpatriarchal reading
• Canadian version (develops to a full-grown
  woman-artist wrestling her way out of patriarchal
  bounds (husband, lover, father or foster-father)
  
• -- Caribbean version away from the mother (and
  the patriarchal society she supports).
• III. Postmodern Prospero e.g. Jarmans film
• -- the use of the Gothic ? renders Prosperos
  mind unstable
• --excessive physicality of Caliban as a parody of
  an Edwardian butler
• -- homoerotic aura around Stephano/Trinculo.
• ? history as masquerade or camp.

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Postcolonial Identities II. Language

1. The Caliban legacy ? to give up using the
   masters language to claim English as their own
   language and change it ? englishes
2. For Afro-Americans, Australians and Canadians,
   English is their only language.

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Postcolonial Identities II. Language (2)
--Strategies

• 1. Preserving and developing ones mother tongues
  with romanization, etc.
• 2. Changing or reversing or confusing the
  language hierarchy
• e.g. the use of Taiwanese and Hakka in Taiwan ???
• 3. mixing languages
• (Three stages of the use of colonizers
  language Adopt, Adapt, Adept)
• e.g. My Man Bovanne

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Postcolonial Identities III. Re-Visioning
History

• Re-writing
• e.g. Japanese rule--????? mainland
• Chinese soldiers to Taiwan--?????
• Re-Visioning
• Japanese rule--?????? ????
• 228 -- ????? ????
• White Terror -- ?????
• The American Armies in Taiwan -- ????(our
  example)?lt????.??gt?lt???gt?lt???????gt? lt?????gt?

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Postcolonial Identities III. Identity and
Strategies

• Identity
• Separatism (Nativism),
• Integration, Active participation,
• Assimilation.

• Strategies
• Essentialist Construction
• Re-Creation,
• Cultural Syncreticism,
• Conscious Mimicry
• Mimicry

Duality and Hybridity
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Postcolonial Identities III. Hybridity
different kinds (textbook4 202)

• (Against Multiculturalism)
• Cultural Difference with gaps and fissures in
  need of constant negotiation.
• Culture as a strategy of survival is both
  transnational and translational. (Homi Bhabha)

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Conscious Mimicry

• Yong Soon Min Make Me, 1989

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Conscious Mimicry/Parody

• Ken Chu
• I Need some More Hair Products (1988)

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Identity Politics My Man Bonvanne

• Toni Cade Bambara (1939
  - 1995), author of The Lesson
• the narrator, Miss Hazel Peoples
• her language Black English
• (ebonics)
• her style wig, cornroll (25)

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My Man Bonvanne

• The setting?
• Why does Miss Hazel dance so closely with
  Bonvanne? What role does she play in her
  relationship with Bonvanne? (p. 23 "Wasn't about
  tits. p. 26)
• Her childrens disagreement and Ms. Hazels
  response (Task, Elo, and Joe Lee)
• What does the last bathing ritual mean?

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My Man Bonvanne

• the Activists or intellectuals. vs. Grass Roots
  People
• Identity politics ?
• 1. Focus too much on their cause and ignore a
  real contact with the people they should care
  about.
• 2. In the childrens criticism of their mother,
  they assume the need of proper dress, proper
  Black appearance and proper things to do for
  the elderly, ignoring their really needs
  (emotional and material).

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You have learned . . .

• A. Colonialism
• More examples of race and Racism (e.g.
  Containment and Appropriation)
• Colonial Types (Prospero complex and Caliban
  complex) in The Tempest
• Mimicry and the Subaltern
• 2. Post-Colonial Identities
• Revisions of The Tempest --e.g. Caliban, Miranda
• Language and Identity
• Different ways of constructing Colonial History
• Identity Construction positions
  (Separatism/Nativism Active participation,
  Assimilation), and strategies (Re-Creation,
  Cultural Syncreticism, Mimicry)

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You will talk more about . . .

• Nation and Narration
• Essentialism vs. Constructionism
• Globalization Multiculturalismits different
  forms.

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Reference

• Tempests After Shakespeare. Chantal Zabus.
  Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.