Synopses & Reviews
In the late 1990's, Postcolonial Studies risked imploding as a credible area of academic enquiry. Repeated anthologization and an overemphasis on the English-language literatures led to sustained critiques of the field and to an active search for alternative approaches to the globalized and transnational formations of the post-colonial world. In the early twenty-first century, however, postcolonial began to reveal a new openness to its comparative dimensions. French-language contributors to postcolonial debate (such as Edouard Glissant and Abdelkebir Khatibi) have recently risen to greater prominence in the English-speaking world, and there have also appeared an increasing number of important critical and theoretical texts on postcolonial issues, written by scholars working principally on French-language material. It is to such a context that this book responds. Acknowledging these shifts, this volume provides an essential tool for students and scholars outside French departments seeking a way into the study of Francophone colonial postcolonial debates. At the same time, it supplies scholars in French with a comprehensive overview of essential ideas and key intellectuals in this area.
Synopsis
In the late 1990s, postcolonial studies risked imploding as a credible area of academic inquiry, in part due to the emergence of repetitive anthologies and an overemphasis on English-language literatures. In the early twenty-first century, however, the postcolonial began to reveal a new openness towards its comparative dimensions, and French-language contributions to the postcolonial debate—including the work of Edouard Glissant and Abdelkebir Khatibi—have risen to greater prominence in the English-speaking world. This volume, written by scholars working with French-language materials, acknowledges this shift and provides an essential tool for students and scholars seeking a way into the study of Francophone postcolonial debates.
About the Author
Charles Forsdick is James Barrow Professor of French at the University of Liverpool and the author/editor of eight previous books including Victor Segalen and the Aesthetics of Diversity (Oxford University Press, 2000) and Travel in Twentieth-Century French and Francophone Cultures (Oxford University Press, 2005).
David Murphy is Professor of Postcolonial Studies at the University of Stirling and President of the Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Situating Francophone Postcolonial Thought - Charles Forsdick and David Murphy
Section 1: Twelve Key Thinkers
1. Aimé Césaire and Francophone Postcolonial Thought - Mary Gallagher
2. Maryse Condé: Post-Postcolonial? - Typhaine Leservot
3. Jacques Derrida: Colonialism, Philosophy and Autobiography - Jane Hiddleston
4. Assia Djebar: 'Fiction as a way of "thinking"' - Nicholas Harrison
5. Frantz Fanon: Colonialism and Violence - Max Silverman
6. Édouard Glissant: Dealing in Globality - Chris Bongie
7. Tangled History and Photographic (In)Visibility: Ho Chi Minh on the Edge of French Political Culture - Panivong Norindr
8. Translating Plurality: Abdelkébir Khatibi and Postcolonial Writing in French from the Maghreb - Alison Rice
9. Albert Memmi: The Conflict of Legacies - Patrick Crowley
10. V. Y. Mudimbe's 'Long Nineteenth Century' - Pierre-Philippe Fraiture
11. Roads to Freedom: Jean-Paul Sartre and Anti-colonialism - Patrick Williams
12. Léopold Sédar Senghor: Race, Language, Empire - David Murphy
Section 2: Themes, Approaches, Theories
13. Postcolonial Anthropology in the French-speaking World - David Richards
14. French Theory and the Exotic - Jennifer Yee
15. The End of the Ancien Régime French Empire - Laurent Dubois
16. The End of the Republican Empire (1918-62) - Philip Dine
17. Postcolonialism and Deconstruction: The Francophone Connection - Michael Syrotinski
18. Negritude, Présence Africaine, Race - Richard Watts
19. Francophone Island Cultures: Comparing Discourses of Identity in 'Is-land' Literatures - Pascale De Souza
20. Locating Quebec on the Postcolonial Map - Mary Jean Green
21. Diversity and Difference in Postcolonial France - Tyler Stovall
22. Colonialism, Postcolonialism and the Cultures of Commemoration - Charles Forsdick
23. Gender and Empire in the World of Film - Winifred Woodhull
24. From Colonial to Postcolonial: Reflections on the Colonial Debate in France - Nicolas Bancel and Pascal Blanchard
Notes on Contributors
Bibliography
Index