Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

This volume of essays provides an innovative multi-disciplinary approach to postcolonial literature. Unlike other current guides to postcolonialism, which are chiefly concerned with the theoretical formulations of postcolonial discourse, it seeks to investigate and explain ideas, issues, and practices from ten fields and disciplines that have made significant impact upon the literatures and cultures of countries which became independent nation-states in and after 1947. The essays explore in depth the ways in which their respective areas – for example, cartography, anthropology, translation studies, feminism – have shaped and problematized the period's key concerns, such as ‘race’, culture, and identity; literary and cultural translations; and the politics of resistance. They draw attention to fresh developments in the areas; and discuss a wide range of postcolonial authors and their representations of the contemporary world. The Companion is an indispensable guide for literary students, specialists from other disciplines, and general readers seeking an authoritative and accessible overview of the intellectual contexts of postcolonialism. ‘Postcolonial’ is both a historical and an epistemological category, and the following brief reference to Heart of Darkness is indicative of a historicist reading as well as a reading according to postcolonialism's central concerns. In the waiting-room ... log in or subscribe to read full text