Writing histories, constructing identities: Postcolonial narratives of cultural recovery
Abstract
"Writing histories, constructing identities: Postcolonial narratives of cultural recovery" investigates the current western preoccupation with postcolonial literatures and disputes the common assumption by western critics that contemporary postcolonial cultural production operates fundamentally and inevitably as a form of resistance to western cultural hegemony. There is, of course, an attempt by writers from the former colonies to rearticulate their pre/postcolonial experience and construct alternative paradigms of cultural identity. Key writers such as Shashi Tharoor from India; Linton Kwesi Johnson, an Afro-Caribbean poet from Britain; and Cheikh Anta Diop, Molefi Kete Asante, and Chinweizu--afrocentric theorists from the African diaspora--have constructed oppositional "historical" narratives and tried to write themselves back into history. However, by examining representative works of the above writers, this dissertation questions the premise of creating alternative histories, whatever their political or emancipatory agendas. My primary intention is to map certain dangers of constructing alternative histories, which often silence contestory voices and dehistoricize or ignore specific moments of class or gender opposition. These histories are also informed by the writers' divided loyalties and ambivalent alliances. Their class position among largely illiterate populations, and the lure of recognition and publication offers from London and New York, among other factors, contribute to their unavoidable involvement in western cultural systems. Alternative narratives, then, have to be historicized within the context of such ambivalent concerns. This dissertation estimates the extent to which each writer succeeds in addressing these concerns and constructing viable alternative histories and identities.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Rowe, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Literature|Comparative literature|African literature
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