Feminist literary criticism is the product of the women's movement of the 1960s. This theory depends on the image of women in the literary work. It also defined as the discussion of female issues by male or female writers.
Some terms:
According to Toril Moi:
Feminist: political position
Female: matter of biology
Feminine: a set of culturally defined characteristic
The stages of this movement:
In 1970s critical attention was given to book by male writers in which typical images of women were constructed.
In 1980s, there were drastic changes related to feminism:
Feminist started to be eclectic. (Benefiting from a lot of fields such as Marxism, structuralism and linguistics.
Feminist started to pay attention to the nature of female ( her interests , and her thinking instead of criticizing men only )
Feminist started to found new principles of literature; by rereading and rewriting (novel, drama and poetry) that was written by men in a way that neglected women.
Feminist started to establish set of ideas and thoughts and to invent new terminology.
Starting to publish and spread " gynotexts" ( books written by women). In the late 1970s there was a shift of attention from androtexts to gynotexts.
Studying gynotexts called gynocriticism.
According to Elaine Showalter gynocriticism is the study of individual or collective female careers.
Feminist individualism: women have their own decision to achieve their identity and self-determination and it is related to freedom.
Feminist collectivism: women constrain by some standers.
Waves of feminism
ý First wave: women asked for the primitive needs (the right to vote and to choose their husband).
ý Second wave: women wanted equality with men (in education, and business, money). They wanted to have political position in the government.
ý Third wave (radical feminism): in this wave women asked for their own societies and some of them wanted to corrupt the notion by (lesbian communities).
Feminism and the role of theory
There are three schools:
i. Anglo _ American feminism ( America)
ii. Social Marxist ( England)
iii. French feminism (France)
Anglo _ American feminism
This school presents the second wave of feminism where they demand equality with men.
Main characteristics
1. They believe in close reading of the text (objectivity). They pay individual emphasis on the historical background and memories of the author to understand the text.
2. They present traditional themes, ideas and characterization.
3. They accept literary realism / logic.
Social Marxist in England
1. Believe in cultural materialism.
2. Conflict of classes.
3. They do not believe in reality.
French feminism
They are the followers of Freud & Derrida.
1. they believe in the unconscious
2. meanings are subjective
3. they do not believe in the notion of reality
4. They believe in the notion of death of the author.
Important books
v Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)
The importance of this book arises from three factors:
1) The first emerged for feminist books.
2) It is purely the first book written by a female and disuses male writers like Milton and pop.
3) It describes the first wave of feminism.
v Virginia Woolf`s A Room of One's Own (1929)
This book portrays the unequal treatment given to women, seeking education and deciding their own marriage
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Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, or philosophical discourse, it aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's social roles and lived experience, and feminist politics in a variety of fields, such as anthropology and sociology, psychoanalysis, economics, literary criticism, and philosophy. While generally providing a critique of social relations, much of feminist theory also focuses on analyzing gender inequality and the promotion of women's rights, interests, and issues. Themes explored in feminism include art history and contemporary art,aesthetics,discrimination, stereotyping, objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression, and patriarchy.
ReplyDeletePsychoanalytic feminism is based on Freud and his psychoanalytic theories. It maintains that gender is not biological but is based on the psycho-sexual development of the individual. Psychoanalytical feminists believe that gender inequality comes from early childhood experiences, which lead men to believe themselves to be masculine, and women to believe themselves feminine. It is further maintained that gender leads to a social system that is dominated by males, which in turn influences the individual psycho-sexual development. As a solution it was suggested to avoid the gender-specific structuring of the society by male-female coeducation. In the last 30 years, the contemporary French psychoanalytical theories concerning the feminine, that refer to sexual difference rather than to gender, with psychoanalysts like Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, and Bracha Ettinger has largely influenced not only feminist theory but also the understanding of the subject in philosophy and the general field of psychoanalysis itself. Other feminist psychoanalysts whose contribution enriched the field are Jessica Benjamin[33] and Jacqueline Rose.
ReplyDeleteDefinition:
ReplyDeleteFeminist criticism is a type of literary criticism, which may study and advocate the rights of women. As Judith Fetterley says, "Feminist criticism is a political act whose aim is not simply to interpret the world but to change it by changing the consciousness of those who read and their relation to what they read." Using feminist criticism to analyze fiction may involve studying the repression of women in fiction. How do men and women differ? What is different about female heroines, and why are these characters important in literary history? In addition to many of the questions raised by a study of women in literature, feminist criticism may study stereotypes, creativity, ideology, racial issues, marginality, and more
Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, or philosophical discourse, it aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's social roles and lived experience, and feminist politics in a variety of fields, such as anthropology and sociology, psychoanalysis, economics, literary criticism, and philosophy.[1] While generally providing a critique of social relations, much of feminist theory also focuses on analyzing gender inequality and the promotion of women's rights, interests, and issues. Themes explored in feminism include art history[2] and contemporary art,[3][4] aesthetics,[5][6] discrimination, stereotyping, objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression, and patriarchy.[7][8][9]
Feminist literary criticism is literary criticism informed by feminist theories or politics. Its history has been varied, from classic works of female authors such as George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and Margaret Fuller to cutting-edge theoretical work in women's studies and gender studies by "third-wave" authors.
ReplyDeleteIn the most general, feminist literary criticism before the 1970s was concerned with the politics of women's authorship and the representation of women's condition within literature. Since the arrival of more complex conceptions of gender and subjectivity, feminist literary criticism has taken a variety of new routes. It has considered gender in the terms of Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, as part of the deconstruction of existing power relations.
Marxism and literature
ReplyDeleteMarxist literary critics tend to look for tensions and contradictions within literary works. This is appropriate because Marxism was originally formulated to analyze just such tensions and contradictions within society. Marxist literary critics also see literature as intimately linked to social power, and thus their analysis of literature is linked to larger social questions. Since Marxism is a belief system which can be used to analyze society at the grandest or most detailed level, Marxist literary criticism is ultimately part of a much larger effort to uncover the inner workings of society.
Marxism and other theories
Marxist literary criticism may be thought of as a reaction to many of the rigid theories of the New Critics. Unlike the New Critics, who saw the text as a self-contained whole, Marxists generally focus upon the unresolved tensions within works of literature.
Similarly, although Marxist criticism has both influenced and been influenced by structuralist criticism and post- structuralist criticism , it greatly differs from them in its refusal to separate literature and language from society. Marxist criticism is materialist, so it has more in common with theories that focus upon how literature functions within social, political, and economic structures, than it does with theories that focus only upon the text. Marxist criticism has had an enormous influence on feminism , new historicism , and most recently, cultural studies .
As a system that looks for causes beneath the surface of society, Marxist criticism has much in common with psychoanalytic criticism . In fact, it is possible to make a rough comparison between the Marxist model of base and superstructure and the Freudian model of unconscious and conscious.
Marxist criticism is a type of criticism in which literary works are viewed as the product of work and whose practitioners emphasize the role of class and ideology as they reflect, propagate, and even challenge the prevailing social order. Rather than viewing texts as repositories for hidden meanings, Marxist critics view texts as material products to be understood in broadly historical terms. In short, literary works are viewed as a product of work (and hence of the realm of production and consumption we call economics).
ReplyDeleteMarxism began with Karl Marx, the nineteenth-century German philosopher best known for Das Kapital (1867; Capital), the seminal work of the communist movement. Marx was also the first Marxist literary critic, writing critical essays in the 1830s on such writers as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and William Shakespeare. Even after Marx met Friedrich Engels in 1843 and began collaborating on overtly political works such as The German Ideology (1846) and The Communist Manifesto (1848), he maintained a keen interest in literature. In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels discuss the relationship between the arts, politics, and basic economic reality in terms of a general social theory. Economics, they argue, provides the base, or infrastructure, of society, from which a superstructure consisting of law, politics, philosophy, religion, and art emerges.
The term feminism can be used to describe a political, cultural or economic movement aimed at establishing equal rights and legal protection for women. Feminism involves political and sociological theories and philosophies concerned with issues of gender difference, as well as a movement that advocates gender equality for women and campaigns for women's rights and interests. Although the terms "feminism" and "feminist" did not gain widespread use until the 1970s, they were already being used in the public parlance much earlier; for instance, Katherine Hepburn speaks of the "feminist movement" in the 1942 film Woman of the Year.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Maggie Humm and Rebecca Walker, the history of feminism can be divided into three waves.The first feminist wave was in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the second was in the 1960s and 1970s, and the third extends from the 1990s to the present. Feminist theory emerged from these feminist movements. It is manifest in a variety of disciplines such as feminist geography, feminist history and feminist literary criticism.
Feminist & Women's Literature
ReplyDeleteThe literature that is categorized as women's or feminist literature often focuses on the struggles of women to achieve and maintain equality in a male-dominated society. As is the case with children's literature, not all works that are considered women's literature were originally intended by their authors to be given that distinction. Where women's literature is associated with equality and fairness, feminist literature often is given the connotation of implying some sort of vengeance or a more radical approach to achieving the goals of women.
What is Marxism?
ReplyDeleteMarxism is an economic and social system based upon the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. While it would take veritably volumes to explain the full implications and ramifications of the Marxist social and economic ideology, Marxism is summed up in the Encarta Reference Library as “a theory in which class struggle is a central element in the analysis of social change in Western societies.” Marxism is the antithesis of capitalism which is defined by Encarta as “an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods, characterized by a free competitive market and motivation by profit.” Marxism is the system of socialism of which the dominant feature is public ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange.
Postcolonialism
ReplyDeleteBy definition, postcolonialism is a period of time after colonialism, and postcolonial literature is typically characterized by its opposition to the colonial. However, some critics have argued that any literature that expresses an opposition to colonialism, even if it is produced during a colonial period, may be defined as postcolonial, primarily due to its oppositional nature. Postcolonial literature often focuses on race relations and the effects of racism and usually indicts white and/or colonial societies. Despite a basic consensus on the general themes of postcolonial writing, however, there is ongoing debate regarding the meaning of postcolonialism. Many critics now propose that the term should be expanded to include the literatures of Canada, the United States, and Australia. In his essay discussing the nature and boundaries of postcolonialism, Simon During argues for a more inclusive definition, calling it “the need, in nations, or groups which have been victims of imperialism to achieve an identity uncontaminated by universalist or Eurocentric concepts or images.”
FEMINIST LITERARY CRITICISM
ReplyDeleteThe assessment, analysis, study and debate on feminist literature can be defined as Feminist Literary Criticism . The criticisms are not only carried out by the theorists but many writers and journalists have taken part in this process. The first in the line of feminist literary critics would be two 19 th century women authors George Eliot and Margaret Fuller. From 18 th century to 1970's and then from 1970 to the present day are the two phases of feminist literary criticism . Before 1970 the main points of criticism were authorship and condition of women and the way they are portrayed in literature. Since 1970s things have become complex and varied. Gender studies after the 1970 were dominated by the revisionists. Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis are now taken into account while evaluating literary works relating feminism.
Marxism is a particular political philosophy, economic and sociological worldview based upon a materialist interpretation of history, a Marxist analysis of capitalism, a theory of social change, and an atheist view of human liberation derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
ReplyDeleteMarxism is an economic and social system based upon the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. While it would take veritably volumes to explain the full implications and ramifications of the Marxist social and economic ideology, Marxism is summed up in the Encarta Reference Library as “a theory in which class struggle is a central element in the analysis of social change in Western societies.” Marxism is the antithesis of capitalism which is defined by Encarta as “an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods, characterized by a free competitive market and motivation by profit.” Marxism is the system of socialism of which the dominant feature is public ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange
ReplyDeletepostcolonial theory:
ReplyDeletePostcolonial theory, particularly in its poststructuralist variant, presents important challenges to sociology's self-image, and open debate on these attempts to `unsettle' the modernist, Westernized disciplines is both conceptually and politically interesting. However, the postcolonial unsettling of sociology has to be actively extracted and reconstructed from the key texts of postcolonial theory - it is not transparently available as such - and this is the first main goal of the article. Particular attention is paid to the framings of these issues by Stuart Hall, Homi Bhahba and Robert Young. Second, the article offers the elements of a counter-critique, pointing out where the anti-sociological impulses of postcolonialism are exaggerated or unfounded, and also indicating serious internal problems for postcolonial theory when it is pitched as a direct and superior alternative to the modernist sociological `imaginary'. The continuing centrality (and difficulty) of questions on the nature of and purpose of explanatory social theory and postcolonial cultural studies are discussed
feminism in literature:
ReplyDeleteThe feminist movement in the United States and abroad was a social and political movement that sought to establish equality for women. The movement transformed the lives of many individual women and exerted a profound effect upon American society throughout the twentieth century. During the first two decades of the century, women's groups in the United States worked together to win women's suffrage, culminating in the ratification of a constitutional amendment in 1920 that guaranteed women the right the vote. During the later twentieth century, women's groups would again band together, this time to formulate and advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Though this proposed constitutional amendment ultimately failed to gain approval in the late 1970s, it became a rallying point for diverse women's groups and drew national attention to the feminist cause.
Marxism is a basic world view first developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the 19th century and further developed by various scholars and political activists. It has spawned diverse movements, eg, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, Trotskyism, Christian Marxism, Marxist Humanism, socialist feminism and eco-socialism, all of which can be found to some degree in Canada. Marxism was adopted as the official ideology of communist governments and movements around the world.
ReplyDeletePostcolonial Literature" is a hot commodity these days. On the one hand writers like Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy are best-selling authors; and on the other hand, no college English department worth its salt wants to be without a scholar who can knowledgeably discourse about postcolonial theory.
ReplyDeleteBut there seems to be a great deal of uncertainty as to just what the term denotes. Many of the debates among postcolonial scholars center on which national literatures or authors can be justifiably included in the postcolonial canon. Much of the discussion among postcolonial scholars involves criticisms of the term "postcolonial" itself. In addition, it is seldom mentioned but quite striking that very few actual authors of the literature under discussion embrace and use the term to label their own writing.
It should be acknowledged that postcolonial theory functions as a subdivision within the even more misleadingly named field of "cultural studies": the whole body of generally leftist radical literary theory and criticism which includes Marxist, Gramscian, Foucauldian, and various feminist schools of thought, among others. What all of these schools of thought have in common is a determination to analyze unjust power relationships as manifested in cultural products like literature (and film, art, etc.). Practitioners generally consider themselves politically engaged and committed to some variety or other of liberation process
Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are terms that cover work in philosophy that is strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory or that is written by Marxists. It may be broadly divided into Western Marxism, which drew out of various sources, and the official philosophy in the Soviet Union, which enforced a rigid reading of Marx called "diamat" (for "dialectical materialism"), in particular during the 1930s.
ReplyDeleteThe phrase "Marxist philosophy" itself does not indicate a strictly defined sub-field of philosophy, because the diverse influence of Marxist theory has extended into fields as diverse as aesthetics, ethics, ontology, epistemology, and philosophy of science, as well as its obvious influence on political philosophy and the philosophy of history. The key characteristics of Marxism in philosophy are its materialism and its commitment to political practice as the end goal of all thought.
Postcolonialism as a literary theory (with a critical approach), deals with literature produced in countries that once were colonies of other countries, especially of the European colonial powers Britain, France, and Spain; in some contexts, it includes countries still in colonial arrangements. It also deals with literature written by citizens of colonial countries that portrays colonized people as its subject matter. Colonized people, especially of the British Empire, attended British universities and with their access to education, created this new criticism. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union during the late 20th century, its former republics became the subject of this study as well
ReplyDeletePostcolonial Theory - as epistemology, ethics, and politics - addresses matters of identity, gender, race, racism and ethnicity with the challenges of developing a post-colonial national identity, of how a colonised people's knowledge was used against them in service of the coloniser's interests, and of how knowledge about the world is generated under specific relations between the powerful and the powerless, circulated repetitively and finally legitimated in service to certain imperial interests. At the same time, postcolonial theory encourages thought about the colonised's creative resistance to the coloniser and how that resistance complicates and gives texture to European imperial colonial projects, which utilised a range of strategies, including anti-conquest narratives, to legitimise their dominance.
ReplyDeleteIn Political Theory and Feminist Social Criticism, Brooke Ackerly demonstrates the shortcomings of contemporary deliberative democratic theory, relativism and essentialism for guiding the practice of social criticism in the real, imperfect world. Drawing theoretical implications from the activism of Third World feminists who help bring to public audiences the voices of women silenced by coercion, Brooke Ackerly provides a practicable model of social criticism. She argues that feminist critics have managed to achieve in practice what other theorists do only incompletely in theory. Complemented by Third World feminist social criticism, deliberative democratic theory becomes critical theory - actionable, coherent, and self-reflective. While a complement to democratic theory, Third World feminist social criticism also addresses the problem in feminist theory associated with attempts to deal with identity politics. Third World feminist social criticism thus takes feminist theory beyond the critical impasse of the tension between anti-relativist and anti-essentialist feminist theory.
ReplyDelete• A new departure in feminist theory, arguing that feminism is essential to political theory, and to thinking about democracy • Draws insights from real world activism, rather than abstract theory, examining the work of women campaigners in India, Bangladesh, and elsewhere • Wide potential market, from pol/soc theory, to women’s studies, human rights and development studies
Criticisms of Marxism have come from the political left as well as the political right. Democratic socialists and social democrats reject the idea that socialism can be accomplished only through class conflict and a violent proletarian revolution. Many anarchists reject the need for a transitory state phase. Some thinkers have rejected the fundamentals of Marxist theory, such as historical materialism and the labor theory of value, and gone on to criticize capitalism - and advocate socialism - using other arguments.
ReplyDeleteis probably best to approach the term "structuralism" through an attempt to understand the concept of "structure" within this theoretical point of view. Without an understanding of this fundamental concept, it is difficult to arrive to an understanding of the intellectual movement referred to as structuralism. Traditionally the major problem with the term structure has been its concreteness. The word refers to phenomena, e.g. buildings, which are most physical in their essence. Needless to say, structures in structuralism are not neither concrete nor physical. Structures refer to mental models built after concrete realty. Furthermore these models are not obvious but demand an understanding of hidden, or deep aspects, of the matter at hand. Following this approach structuralism is an attempt to build models which can help understand or, as structuralists, would put it explicate the materials at hand.
ReplyDeleteFeminism
ReplyDeleteTo speak of "Feminism" as a theory is already a reduction. However, in terms of its theory (rather than as its reality as a historical movement in effect for some centuries) feminism might be categorized into three general groups:
theories having an essentialist focus (including psychoanalytic and French feminism);
theories aimed at defining or establishing a feminist literary canon or theories seeking to re-interpret and re-vision literature (and culture and history and so forth) from a less patriarchal slant (including gynocriticism, liberal feminism); and
theories focusing on sexual difference and sexual politics (including gender studies, lesbian studies, cultural feminism, radical feminism, and socialist/materialist feminism).
Further, women (and men) needed to consider what it meant to be a woman, to consider how much of what society has often deemed inherently female traits, are culturally and socially constructed. Simone de Beauvoir's study, The Second Sex, though perhaps flawed by Beauvoir's own body politics, nevertheless served as a groundbreaking book of feminism, that questioned the "othering" of women by western philosophy. Early projects in feminist theory included resurrecting women's literature that in many cases had never been considered seriously or had been erased over time (e.g., Charlotte Perkins Gilman was quite prominent in the early 20th century but was virtually unknown until her work was "re-discovered" later in the century). Since the 1960s the writings of many women have been rediscovered, reconsidered, and collected in large anthologies such as The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women.
However, merely unearthing women's literature did not ensure its prominence; in order to assess women's writings the number of preconceptions inherent in a literary canon dominated by male beliefs and male writers needed to be re-evaluated. Betty Friedan's The Feminist Mystique (1963), Kate Millet's Sexual Politics (1970), Teresa de Lauretis's Alice Doesn't: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema (1984), Annette Kolodny's The Lay of the Land (1975), Judith Fetterly's The Resisting Reader (1978), Elaine Showalter's A Literature of Their Own (1977), or Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's The Madwoman in the Attic (1979) are just a handful of the many critiques that questioned cultural, sexual, intellectual, and/or psychological stereotypes about women.
Key Terms
Androgyny .Patriarchy ,Jouissance ,Gynocentrics,Androgyny ,Backlash...
Second- and Third-Wave feminism - "Second-wave feminism refers to a period of feminist thought that originated around the 1960s and was mainly concerned with independence and greater political action to improve women's rights" . "Third-wave feminism is a feminist movement that arguably began in the early 1990s. Unlike second-wave feminism, which largely focused on the inclusion of women in traditionally male-dominated areas, third-wave feminism seeks to challenge and expand common definitions of gender and sexuality"
Post-colonial theory and criticism is concerned with several issues and topics, involving textual representation, postmodernism, nationalism, history, education – just to mention a few. These issues are equally important from the point of view of showing the width and the diversity of this field. However, one issue seems to outstand from the topics of post-colonialism with its importance and influence on literary theory and it is the issue of feminism. Feminist theory and post-colonial theory have much in common; women and the colonised races and cultures both share the politics of oppression and repression. Therefore it seems natural that the development of these two fields are parallel and similar in many ways. Earlier feminist and post-colonial theorists did not draw conclusions valid to both discourses and did not try to compare their findings and bring the two theories closer to each other. “In the last ten years, however, there has been increasing interest not just in their parallel concerns but in the nature of their actual and potential intersections – whether creatively coincident or interrogative.”
ReplyDeleteFeminist criticism is a type of literary criticism, which may study and advocate the rights of women. As Judith Fetterley says, "Feminist criticism is a political act whose aim is not simply to interpret the world but to change it by changing the consciousness of those who read and their relation to what they read
ReplyDeleteestablishing equal rights and legal protection for women. Feminism involves political, cultural and sociological theories, as well as philosophies concerned with issues of gender difference. It is also a movement that advocates gender equality for women and campaigns for women's rights and interests.[1][2][3][4][5]
ReplyDeleteAccording to Maggie Humm and Rebecca Walker, the history of feminism can be divided into three waves.[4][6] The first feminist wave was in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the second was in the 1960s and 1970s, and the third extends from the 1990s to the present.[7] Feminist theory emerged from these feminist movements.[8][9] It is manifest in a variety of disciplines such as feminist geography, feminist history and feminist literary criticism
feminism is a term that describes a political,social,economical,cultural movement aimed at establishing more rights and legal protection for women.It involves political and sociological theories and philosophies concerned with issues of gender differences .in other words it's a belief of social ,economical,political equality of the sexs.
ReplyDeletewith regards to feminist criticism;it's the product of women's movement of 1960s that focused on the importantce of women in literary work ;it's the discussion of femal issues by male and female writers.
it worths mentioning what considered a major division withen feminist criticism that has concerned disagreements about the amount and type of theory which is usually called the 'ANGLO-AMERICAN 'version.Anglo-American version of feminism has tended to be more sceptical about recent critical theory ,and more cautious in using it,than have the 'French' feminism who have adopted and adapted a great deal of post-structuralist and psychoanalytic critisim as the basis of their work .The Anglo- Americans maintain a major interest in traditional critical cocepts like themes ,motifs ,and characterisation .They treat literature as a series of representations of women's lives and experience which can be measured and evaluated against reality .
Marxism is a polittical,economic,and sociological philosophy based upon a materialist interpretation of history:that is ,it tries to explain things without assuming the existence of a world or forces beyond the natural world .it looks for concrete,scientific,logical explanations of observable fact.The aim of Marxism is to bring about a classless society,based on common ownership of the means of production, distribution,and exchange.
ReplyDeleteKarl Marx,the German philosopher,and Friedrich Engles,the German sociologist,were the founders of Marxism;they called their theories 'Communism'designating their belief in the state ownership.
postcolonial criticism is a type of cultural criticism that involves the analysis of literary texts produced in countries and cultures that have come under the control of European colonial powers at some point in their history .
ReplyDeleteIt refers to the the analysis of texts written about colonial places by writers hailing from colonizing culture .
Edward Said,a pioneer of postcolonial criticism and studies,focused on the way in which the colonizing first world has invented false images and myths that have justified Western expliotation and domination of Eastern and Midddle Eastern cultures and peoples.
Hami K Bhabha in his essay postcolonail has shown how certain cultures misrepresesnt other cultures.
Postcolonial criticism has been influenced by Marxist thought, by the work of Michel Foucault (whose theories about the power of discourses have influenced the new historicism), and by deconstruction, which has challenged not only hierarchical, binary oppositionsas but also the notions of superiority associated with the first term of each opposition.