63 research outputs found
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Postcolonialism and the study of anti-semitism
In recent years Hannah Arendtâs The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) has become a common point of reference for those within postcolonial studiesâsuch as Paul Gilroy, Aamir Mufti, and Michael Rothbergâwho wish to explore the historical intersections between racism, fascism, colonialism, and anti-Semitism. âPostcolonialism and the Study of Anti-Semitismâ relates Arendtâs comparative thinking to other anticolonial theorists and camp survivors at the end of the Second World Warâmost prominently, Jean AmĂ©ry, AimĂ© CĂ©saire, Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi, Primo Levi, and Jean-Paul Sartreâwho all made connections between the history of genocide in Europe and European colonialism. The article then compares this strand of comparative thought with postcolonial theorists of the 1970s and 1980s who, contra Arendt, divide the histories of fascism and colonialism into separate spheres. It also contrasts postcolonial theory with postcolonial literature by exploring the intertwined histories in the fiction of V. S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, and Caryl Phillips. Saidâs late turn to Jewish exilic thinkers such as Theodor Adorno, Erich Auerbach, and Sigmund Freud is also related to this Arendtian comparative project. The main aim of the article is to promote a more open-minded sense of historical connectedness with regard to the histories of racism, fascism, colonialism, and anti-Semitism
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âEnthusiastâ: a response to the responses
A reply to the responses of Michael Rothberg, Steven Robbins, John McLeod, Vivek Freitas and Nils Roemer to "Against Supersessionist Thinking: Old and New, Jews and Postcolonialism, the Ghetto and Diaspora
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Zygmunt Bauman's window: from Jews to strangers and back again
Modernity and the Holocaust (1989), followed by Modernity and Ambivalence (1991), and preceded by Legislators and Interpreters (1987), proved to be a foundational trilogy on which Zygmunt Bauman developed much of his later work (from postmodernity to liquid modernity and from âthe Jewsâ to âthe Strangerâ). My article is a personal reflection on Baumanâs first trilogy and on the metaphorical thinking which relates the trilogy to Baumanâs later work in the first two decades of the twenty-first century
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Afterword: 'little family quarrels'
There was a time when Frantz Fanonâs dismissal of the Nazi onslaught against European Jewry as a âlittle family quarrelâ would have caused outrage. Fanon himself realised thisââwhat am I thinking of?ââbefore he rightly characterised the Nazi genocide as that of a people âhunted down, exterminated, crematedâ. My article will explore literary and theoretical provocations caused by Jewish/Caribbean crossings. The identification/ differentiation of Fanon with victimized Jews have been taken up by cultural theorists and imaginative writers who decentre and decolonize Jewish history from the marginal position of the Caribbean.
The work of Paul Gilroy, Mark Mazower, Albert Memmi, Michael Rothberg, and Sarah Phillips Casteel, provide a theoretical context for my argument. Novels by Andrea Levy (especially), V. S. Naipaul, Caryl Phillips, and Zadie Smith provide an imaginative context. What I explore, above all, is the audacity which is at the heart of the Caribbean-Jewish nexus. With the help of Hilary Mantelâs critique of Caryl Phillipsâs The Nature of Blood (1997), the article demonstrates both the dangers as well as the abundant rewards of âmetaphorical thinkingâ in relation to such long-standing Jewish/Caribbean âcrossingsâ from Fanon to Levy and beyond
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Spark, trauma and the novel
What is clear from even a cursory reading of Muriel Sparkâs dazzling and cunning fictions is that she engages with a bewildering range of literary modes but only in so far as they can be subsumed by her singular vision. Sparkâs quirky and playful voice refuses to be contained by any one doctrine or identity. First among the philosophies and identities which she finds absurd is that of the conventional realist novel with its humanist assumptions that the plot of a novel, with the individual at its heart, can be confused with life. This essay will juxtapose Sparkâs scepticism in relation to the conventional novel form with the fierce self-protection of her life-story (before she was a novelist) which she, paradoxically, refigures in many of her imaginative works. The focus is on her fictions set in Africa where she felt at her most vulnerable as the potential object of various âshooting affairsâ. It will show the ways in which she redeems such trauma in her late fiction. In the dismissal of the human-centred realist novel, and the fantasy that individuals can control the world, Spark, is equally anarchic and orthodox; playful and controlling
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Following Laura Marcus: from autobiography to testimony
The publication of Laura Marcusâs Auto/biographical Discourses: Criticism, Theory, Practice (1994) coincided with a conference that I co-organised with her called âModernity, Culture and âthe Jewââ (1994). We both expected the conference to be a modest event, but it turned out to be over-subscribed with many hundreds in attendance. In the light of our conference, my essay explores some of the reasons why the 1990s was thought of as an âage of testimonyâ which is addressed in Auto/biographical Discourses and subsequent essays by Laura. The essay will then compare the playfulness of the autobiographical genre with the ethical seriousness of Holocaust testimonies and slave narratives. At the heart of the essay is Lauraâs conceptualisation of autobiography and its connections with those who write testimonial memoirs in extremis
The frankaus of London: A study in radical assimilation, 1837â1967
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43006/1/10835_2005_Article_BF01915911.pd
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Forging connections: anthologies, arts collectives, and the politics of inclusion
The changing social and political landscape of twentieth-century Britain catalysed a remarkable rise in collaborative activity by artists and activists of black and Asian heritage. Creative communities began to gather in both local and regional contexts, with the aim of sharing resources and securing an audience. This chapter records some of these many activities, tracing the groupsâ genesis, manifest objectives, and key contributions. It argues that anthologising should be understood as a specifically motivated activity. Literary anthologies of poetry and fiction served to showcase the diversity of contemporary writing, while also suggesting its coherence. Drawing on the concept of âstrategic essentialismâ elucidated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, I show that the anthology acts to ensure the visibility of a group, bannered as a unified and singly-titled selection of texts, while also insisting on the differences within: the heterogeneous multiplicity of black and Asian British experiences and creative practices
'Vernacular Voices: Black British Poetry'
ABSTRACT
Black British poetry is the province of experimenting with voice and recording rhythms beyond the iambic pentameter. Not only in performance poetry and through the spoken word, but also on the page, black British poetry constitutes and preserves a sound archive of distinct linguistic varieties. In Slave Song (1984) and Coolie Odyssey (1988), David Dabydeen employs a form of Guyanese Creole in order to linguistically render and thus commemorate the experience of slaves and indentured labourers, respectively, with the earlier collection providing annotated translations into Standard English. James Berry, Louise Bennett, and Valerie Bloom adapt Jamaican Patois to celebrate Jamaican folk culture and at times to represent and record experiences and linguistic interactions in the postcolonial metropolis. Grace Nichols and John Agard use modified forms of Guyanese Creole, with Nichols frequently constructing gendered voices whilst Agard often celebrates linguistic playfulness. The borders between linguistic varieties are by no means absolute or static, as the emergence and marked growth of âLondon Jamaicanâ (Mark Sebba) indicates. Asian British writer Daljit Nagra takes liberties with English for different reasons. Rather than having recourse to established Creole languages, and blending them with Standard English, his heteroglot poems frequently emulate âPunglishâ, the English of migrants whose first language is Punjabi. Whilst it is the language prestige of London Jamaican that has been significantly enhanced since the 1990s, a fact not only confirmed by linguistic research but also by its transethnic uses both in the streets and on the page, Nagraâs substantial success and the mainstream attention he receives also indicate the clout of vernacular voices in poetry. They have the potential to connect with oral traditions and cultural memories, to record linguistic varieties, and to endow âstreet credâ to authors and texts. In this chapter, these double-voiced poetic languages are also read as signs of resistance against residual monologic ideologies of Englishness.
© Book proposal (02/2016): The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing p. 27 of 4
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