E.E.205:- Cultural Studies

Name: Nargis I. Saiyad

Paper: E-E-205-B: Cultural Studies

Topic: Post-Colonial Study

SEM: 2, Part: 1.

Year: 2011/12.

Submitted To,

 Dr. Dilip Barad,

Dept.of English,

Bhavnagar University.

 Post-Colonial Studies

·         Meaning of 'Cultural studies':

                            

                        The meaning of 'cultural studies' is hard to define. Let's see Showman's definition:

                 

·         Elaine Showalter:

                                 "Cultural studies" is not so much a discrete approach at all, but rather a set of practices.

·         Types of Cultural Studies:

                          There are five types of cultural studies. They are as follows:

> British cultural Materialism,

> New Historicism,

> American Multiculturalism,

> Post modernism and popular Culture,

> Postcolonial studies

                    We will evaluate postcolonial studies.

·         Definition of Postcolonial studies:

                     

                      We can define post-colonial studies as given below:

                         "Post-colonial studies means the study of the English language within politicized context, especially those writings that developed at the colonial "front", which also explores the oppression of the non-European races by European once and which also studies diasporic texts outside the usual western genres."

·         Post-colonial studies:

                   The word 'Post-colonial' refers to the time after the colonialism. After the colonialism, the third world countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean were separated from colonialism but left to rebuit themselves. Many post-colonial writers focus on both colonialism and the changes that came after the colonialism.

·         Edward said:

                His book 'Orientalism' was an important touchstone to postcolonial studies. In it he describes how the Eastern people were called by the western people.

·         Frantz Fanon:

                      He was a French Caribbean Marxist, who wrote in French Algerian language to deconstruct emerging national regimes that were based on inheritances that were given from the imperial powers.

                              In his book 'Black Skin White Mask', he talks about racial prejudice. The book is the reflection of his own experience of life. He describes how the white people behaved with black people, how black people were feeling inferiority, how the life of black people was crushed by the white. His book, 'The wretched of the Earth' published in 1961, was an inspiring book for postcolonial critics.

·         Homi k. Bhabha:

     

                                   Homi Bhabha's post-colonial theory is very important in post-colonial studies. It includes the analysis of nationality, ethnicity,       politics etc... He takes the idea from de-construction that the dichotomies between center and periphery, colonized and colonizer, self and other are false binaries.

                                              

·         Salman Rushdie:

    

                                                      One best-known example of diasporic text is Salman Rushdie' essay is 'Imaginary Homelands'. The powerful conflict arising from the colonial past in Rushdie's   'Midnight's Children’ published in 1980, gives his viewpoint about the history of modern India.

·         Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak:

       

                                In the post-colonial feminism, the most important figure is Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. She examines the effect of political independence upon "subaltern" or women in the third world. She gives voice to their problems and pains. Her best-known work, "Can Subaltern Speak?" is very effective and popular one.

   

·         Other examples:

        

                    Besides the writing, given above the works of Rudyard Kipling, E.M.Foster, Jean Rhys, Jamaica Kincaid are also important. Even Shakespeare's Caliban is also re-read today in their New World contexts.

·         Pramod K. Nyre's view:

              

                         Pramod K. Nyre presented his view about postcolonial studies in his book 'Cultural Studies: Scope, Aim, Methods' in the title of 'Postcolonialism and cultural studies.'

                          

                              Globalization has an influence on local cultures. Cultural studies also need to be conscious of the racialized nature of globalized. Simon outlines a set of reasons for connecting postcolonialism with globalization of studies. (2000)

                            He means culture is affected by economic factors. Media also determine what aspects of culture are adopted. For example, fashion. Cultural study should know the colonial relationship between first world's and 'Third world.'

            Colonialism is one kind of globalization where the European imposes their cultural modes of the colonized people. MTV, McDonald's are global companies which spread in all the countries, with local effects. So, cultural studies try to know how a globalized market makes the formation of cultures.

                Nyre has given the example of the movies. How Hollywood fills circulate globally? Will the audience watching those movies from Asia or Africa create any effect to the film-maker? A culture can not be reduced to its material goods or products. For example, American food or cloths doesn't mean Americanization but it is also that they carry cultural values.

                               Globalization produces 'hybrid' products. Global goods are manufactured in South and South East Asian sweatshops where employees are paid very low wages but because agencies market it, because that are local and global both, profits goes with the 'First World' companies.

                                 For example, in India purified water bottles of some company are popular and are highly sold but those are of the foreign companies. So, water goes from our rivers, workers are from our country but the profit goes with the foreign country.

·         Conclusion:

                        

                    Thus, Postcolonial theory is one of the best theories to study culture which gives deep understanding of the relationship between the local and first world countries.