The background reading of Ania Loomba's book Colonialism/Postcolonialism.

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    * The background reading of Ania Loomba's book Colonialism/Postcolonialism.

Name : Radha B. Ghevariya 

Std. : M.A. SEM-3

Sub : The Colonialism and Postcolonialism

Roll no : 22 

Topic :  The background reading of Ania Loomba's book Colonialism/Postcolonialism.

Submitted to : Smt. S. B. Gardi Department of English 

Introduction

                      First of all I have two question about my topic, 

        

1)what is Colonialism?

             The control and governing influence of a nation over a dependent country , territory , or people.

2) what is Postcolonialism?

            The postcolonialism  is the study of a culture after the physical and or political withdrawal of an oppressive power.

              Now let us discuss about the more view about the Colonialism and Postcolonialism . Colonialism is a dialect process. It's divided into two parts colonizer and colonized. Colonizer gives identity crises. We have to power to choose the Identity and also colonizer is a collaborated exerciser. It's like a master/slave relation. At last we can say that the idea about the colonialism is ambivalence. However , we all are colonizer because far colonialism still exists with the power.

*Roots of Colonialism/Postcolonism

                There is no much difference between colonialism / postcolonialism. The colonialism and postcolonialism began with the ending of 20th century or after post-war but, actually it's roots were in the Columbus’s arrival for the new found land and with the vasco-de-gama.

"Colonialism and postcolonialism is a comprehensive yet accessible guide to the  historical and theoretical dimensions of colonial and postcolonial studies"

* Colonial and Postcolonial Writers

                ' Lenin and Philosophy'

                                         -Althusser (1971)

- Chinua Achebe

 - Ashcroft

 - Griffiths(1995)

- Baudrillard

- Homi K. Bhabha

- Cessaire

- Gayatri Chakravorty Spiva

 - Franz Fanon

 - Gramusci

 - Mahasweta Devi

 - Shashi Tharu

 - Thiongo

                   Etc...... .......

Ania Loomba

              Ania Loomba is Catherine Bryson professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Her recent publication include,

- Postcolonial studies and Beyond(2005)

- Shakespeare , Race and Colonialism(2002)

                  - Gender, Race , Renaissance drama

                       Etc..........

               The word colonialism according to oxford English dictionary comes form the Roman word 'Colonia' which means 'farm' or 'settlement' and referred to romans who settled in other lands but still retained their citizenship.

According the OED,

" A settlement in new country ..... a body of people who settle in new locality, forming a community subject to or connected with their parent state; the community so formed , consisting of the original settlers and their descendants and successors, as long as the connection with the parent state is kept up"

                                    -Ania Loomba's (colonialism and postcolonialism)[second edition]

                Colonialism was not an identical process in different parts of the world but everywhere it looked the original inhabitants and the newcomers into the most complex and traumatic relationships in human history. For Example:

           The Tempest  

                      - Shakespeare

            The Tempest as a work under the umbrella of postcolonial literary theory. However , is looking at the work within the field that it has inspired. The colonialism / postcolonialism it's based on language , race, gender , attitude economy they all are those thing decides that one is 'superior' another is 'Inferior'.

* Ania Loomba's Views about Colonialism / Postcolonialism (Ania Loomba)

               The colonialism is the roman who settle in other land it means the physical occupation of territory and the postcolonialism is the awareness of the social , psychological and cultural inferiority enforced on a colonized state. The book 'Colonialism/Postcolonialism' second edition. In the beginning of the book some critic given the view about the colonialism/ postcolonialism like that,

"Loomba is a keen and canny critic of ever-shifting geopolitical realities and colonialism/postcolonialism remains a primer for the academic and common reader alike"

                                                        -Antoinette Burton , Department of History , university of Illinois

             The book 'colonialism/postcolonialism' by Ania Loomba’s divided into main three parts like,

1) chapter-1

            Colonial and postcolonial studies, Imperialism , neo-colonialism, colonial discourse , colonialism and knowledge, colonialism and literature.

2) chapter-2

          About the colonial and postcolonial Identities, Race ,class and gender ,sexuality, hybridity , constricting racial and cultural difference.

3)chapter-3

           About the challenging colonialism , nationalism, pan-nationalism , feminism, can the subaltern speak? , post-modernism and postcolonial studies. And at last the globalization and the future of postcolonial studies.

* Imperialism

              The Imperialism is connected with Empire. The imperial as pertaining to empire and the direct rule is important for imperialism. This is somewhat misleading because imperialism , like colonialism, stretches back to a pre-capitalist past.

For Example:

               Imperial Russia was pre-capitalist , as was Imperial Spain.

              The OED define 'Imperial' as 'pertaining to empire' and 'Imperialism' as the rule of an emperor especially when despotic or arbitrary.

* Neo-Colonialism / Neo- Imperialism

               The word neo-colonialism known as neo-Imperialism are used to describe these situations. We can also see that imperialism is the highest stage of colonialism Imperialism is defined as a political system in which an imperial center governs colonized countries. Then the granting of political independence signals the end of Empire. The collapse of imperialism. The Imperialism and colonialism the differences between them are defined differently depending in their historical mutations. One useful way of distinguishing between them might be to separate them not in temporal but in spatial terms and to think of imperialism or neo-imperialism as the phenomenon that originates in the metropolis. The process which lead to domination and control.

* Colonial  Discourse

                      Colonial Discourse  it is connected with the power. Orientalism uses the concept of discourse to re-order the study of colonialism. Foucault he also wishes to concept them to structures of thought and to the working of power.

"The authority of academics, institutions, and governments.... most important such text can create.......not only knowledge but also the very reality they appear to describe in time such knowledge and reality produce a tradition or what Michael Foucault calls a discourse whose material presence or weight , not the originality of a given author , is really responsible for the text produced out of it"

                            - Edward Said’s  (1978-99)

                 Even 'colonial discourse' theory 1980 about Homi Bhabha given hid views that it's also dealt with the hybridity , ambivalence and mimicry.

* Colonial Literature

                          Accordingly the relationship between colonialism and literature was not, anthill recently dealt with by literary criticism still recent attention to the relationship between literature and colonialism has provoked serious reconsiderations of each of these terms. First, literature's pivotal role in both colonial and anti-colonial discourses has began to be explored.

For Example:

"The Tempest"

                     -William Shakespeare

"Othello"

                   - William Shakespeare

            Plays such as Othello and the tempest thus evoke contemporary ideas about the bestiality or incivility of non-Europeans.

- Does Othello serve as a warning against inter-racial love, or an indictment of the society which does not allow it?

-Does The Tempest endorse Prospero view of caliban as a bestial savage , or does it depict the dehumanization of colonial rule?

            Both plays have been interpreted and taught in ways that endorse colonialist ways that endorse colonialist ways of seeing but both have also inspired anti-colonial and anti-racist movements and literatures as texts that expose the working of colonialism. The study of colonialism in relation to literature and of literature in relation to colonialism has thus opened up important new ways of looking at both. Even more important perhaps is the way in which recent literary and critical theory has influenced social analysis.

* Race

           The modern discourse of 'Race' was the product of western science in the 18th century. 'Race' how became the part of colonialism/postcolonialism that Ania Loomba discussed through the term 'Race'.

       - " Descent of Man"(1871)

                       -Darwin

  In his 'Descent of Man' Darwin wrote :

" Extinction follows chiefly from the competition of tribe with tribe, and race with race.......... when civilized nations come into contact with barbarians the straggle is short"

                              - quoted by Young (1995-18)

 * Class

               Class and caste system always creates differences in the human beings.

"My Beautiful Laudrett"

                          - Hanif Kureishi's (film)

           In film 'My Beautiful Laudrett' in which white working employer that as a non-white he shouldn't evict his Caribbean tenant. The landlord  replies ;

" I am a professional businessman

                                   Not a professional Pakistani"

             In this film how the connected think like professional businessman and professional Pakistani and also this example proves that the contextual language also became the question of class conscious and Race discrimination.

* Colonialism &Psychoanalysis

                         The effect of colonialism also creates vast influenced on the mind of the people.

" Black skin, White mask"

                       - Frantz Fanon

            The book look at the what goes through the minds of blacks band white under the conditions of white rule and strange effect that especially on black people.

* Sexuality

          The sexuality of black men and especially that of black women becomes an icon for deviant sexuality in general: thus black women are constructed in terms of animals, lesbians and  prostitutes ; conversely the deviant sexuality of white women is compared with blackness :

" The primitive is black and the qualities of blackness , or at least of the black female, are those of the prostitute"

For Example:

" Waste Land"

             -  T.S.Eliot

" Black skin, White mask"

- Frantz Fanon

              In which common people always had to suffered just because either to fulfilled their desire or need.

* Hybridity

            Postcolonial studies have been preoccupied with issues of hybridity creolisation and mestizaje , Hybridity is always problematic also hybridity is journey from biological to cultural discussions.

* Nationalism/ Pan-Nationalism

            The idea of nation is itself paradox. The idea of nation is imagination also nation is always change.Aurobindo talk about the different idea of nation Homi Bhabha says that "Nation is mind of Constractef"and when we believe in the idea of 'nation' became 'imperialism'. When we imagine 'India' is our country and mother land. In that time invisible one more view also comes out with it. There is 'other' also which is different from 'mother land' that's very living example of 'Nationalism' and 'Pan-Nationalism'.

For Example:

" The Tempest"

"A Tempest"

                  -William Shakespeare

* Feminism / Postcolonialism

               Feminism also becomes part of the 'colonialism'. Ania Loomba talk about the one example like, women . The educated women is represented as becoming a mob teacher or English women but who is don't careful about her home child and her husband. In the feminism and pseudo-feminism is also the representation of postcolonialism.

            Power does not emanate from some central or hierarchical structure but flows through society in a sort of capillary action:

"Power is every where’s not because it embrace everything;

              But because it comes from everywhere"

                            -Foucault ( 1990-93)

         The one feminist argue of Foucault at the idea of power is rendered so diffuse that it cannot be either understood or challenged.

* Can the Subaltern Speak?

                Can the subaltern speak?  This idea given by Gayatri Spivak. In 'Can the Subaltern Speak?' (1985) Spivak suggest that it is impossible for as to recover that voice of the 'subaltern' or oppresses colonial subject.

"The subaltern cannot speak there is no virtue in global laundry lists with 'woman' as a pious item. Representation has not withered away the female intellectual has a circumscribed task which she must not disown with a flourish"

                              - Gayatri Spivak (1988:308)

         Spivak effectively warns the postcolonial critic against Romanizing and homogenizing the subaltern subject. However, her insistence on subaltern 'Silence' is problematic if adopted as the definitive statement about colonial relations also subaltern is connected with speech.

For Example:

"A Tempest"

                      - William Shakespeare

             The character of 'caliban' caliban speaking subaltern but it is empowered subaltern.

* Globalization

                  The last point of view about the globalization and thr future of postcolonial studies. Globalization can't using concepts like margins centers. But , today social networking also become much helpful in  to understand the process of 'Globalization' in context of colonialism/ postcolonialism.

* Conclusion

               In conclude , Ania Loomba defined the term Colonialism/ Post colonialism. She talks about the various discourse like, Imperialism, Globalization, Nationalism/pan-nationalism, Feminism/ postcolonialism , Race, class, Hybridity, Sexuality, etc........ here, i put the my view about the simple way in the colonialism / postcolonialism ideas.

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Works Cited

Ania Loomba. "colonialism/ postcolonialism." Ania Loomba. COLONIALISM / POST-COLONIALISM SECOND EDITION. New Yourk: Routledge, n.d. 7-204.