Absolutely postcolonial : writing between the singular and the specific / Peter Hallward.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hallward, Peter.

Series:

Angelaki humanities

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Postcolonialism.

Physical Description:

xxi, 433 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Manchester ; New York : Manchester University Press ; New York : Distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave, 2001.

Summary:

Contrary to its usual characterisation in terms of plurality, particularity and resistance, this book argues that the post-colonial is best understood as an ultimately singular or non-relational category. A singularity is something that generates the medium of its own existence, to the eventual exclusion of other existences. Drawing on the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Alain Badiou and guided by comparisons with Buddhism and Islam, Absolutely postcolonial defends this approach both through a detailed critique of postcolonial theory and through comparative, comprehensive readings of four very different contemporary writers: Edouard Glissant, Charles Johnson, Mohammed Dib, and Severo Sarduy. Along the way, it also looks to some of these same writers for resources with which we might develop a relational or specific alternative to the postcolonial paradigm that has become so influential in literary and cultural studies.

Contents:

1 Postcolonial theory 20

I Postcolonial singularity 22

II Postcolonial specifications 35

III The Marxist counter-attack 41

IV Towards a concept of the specific 48

V Edward Said, between territory and de-territorialisation 51

Excursus I A postcolonial world? 62

2 Edouard Glissant: from nation to Relation 66

I The critical consensus 70

II Original and outcome: Glissant's totalite 71

III National redundance, dialectical depassement 76

IV Against folklore, against Creole 79

V La Lezarde (1958): the promise of national consciousness 81

VI Malemort (1975): the dialectic en panne 87

VII La Case du commandeur (1981): despair and transition 91

VIII Mahagony (1987), Tout-monde (1993): beyond national consciousness 100

IX Beyond specificity: Poetique de la Relation (1990) and after 118

Excursus II On the nation and its alternatives 126

3 Charles Johnson and the transcendence of place 133

I Critical contexts 137

II Johnson and the Good Thing 143

III Phenomenological implications 148

IV Allmuseri immanence 151

V Becoming-impersonal 155

VI Writing on the plane of immanence 168

VII The costs of singularisation 171

Excursus III The universal and the transcendental 176

4 Mohammed Dib and the 'alam al-mithal: between the singular and the specific 188

I Models of development 190

II Territory deferred 194

III Toward the limits of the specific 206

IV Ta'wil, Ishraq and the 'alam al-mithal 215

V Towards extinction 223

VI And then? 235

Excursus IV Return to the specific 247

5 Severo Sarduy: sunyata and beyond 254

I Territorial beginnings 265

II Gestos (1963): toward paralysis of the 'sensory-motor schema' 266

III Organisation by frame 270

IV Sarduy's neo-baroque 274

V De donde son los cantantes (1967): at the limits of lo cubano 276

VI Empty foundations 281

VII The Buddhist path 284

VIII Cobra (1972) 290

IX Maitreya (1978) 295

X Sarduy's singular univocity 298

XI Colibri (1984) and the renewal of situation 306

XII Cocuyo (1990) and disorientation 312

XIII From death to dying 318

XIV Pajaros de la playa (1993) 322.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [394]-425) and index.

ISBN:

0719061253

0719061261

OCLC:

48399001