Sarah McCall DeLaRosa

Colonial-Postcolonial Literature Studies: Things I Never Knew I Never Knew

            I was drawn to the study of literature because, above all else, I love stories. I love fictional and nonfictional stories, stories about people, about nations, about wars, about history, about the future. I read news stories and stories in the Bible and I try to understand the stories in poetry and song lyrics. What I was most excited about when I signed up for this class was the stories it could offer me. I had never read anything from the African continent at all, and I had not been much exposed to the writings of India or the Caribbean either. I was also very intrigued by the concept of classifying literature as colonial or postcolonial and studying the texts in relation to each other. This was a new way of looking at literature to me and I am very interested in it; it fits well with and allows for the style of learning that I like to be a part of. I plan to use colonial-postcolonial literature studies, and other examples of intertextuality and dialogue, in future classrooms of my own.

            I took this excitement and this interest and used it to fuel my first research post, where I explored what connections had already been made between colonial-postcolonial literature studies and contact zone theory[1] of managing a classroom. In my research I discovered that the founding text of contact zone theory, Mary Louise Pratt’s “Arts of the Contact Zone,” draws this connection right away. Pratt writes of two types of texts she finds productive for study: “ethnographic texts are those in which European metropolitan subjects represent to themselves their others (usually their conquered others),” and “autoethnographic texts are representations that the so-defined others construct in response to or in dialogue with those texts” (Pratt 5-6, her emphasis). Patricia Bizzell, in her writings, describes a way of reconstructing literature studies in a way that excites me to no end. She wants to “organize English studies not in terms of literary or chronological periods, nor essentialized [sic] racial or gender categories, but rather in terms of historically defined contact zones, moments when different groups within the society contend for the power to interpret what is going on” (Bizzell 53); and argues that we should “be reading all the texts as brought to the contact zone, for the purpose of communicating across cultural boundaries” (Bizzell 54). Bizzell’s writings provide for me a perfect example of how I hope to lead my classroom some day, because I believe so much good work can be done by looking at literature across boundaries as she illustrates.

            I discussed in greater depth the connection I feet between colonial-postcolonial literature studies and the contact zone theory in my midterm. As I say in that paper, “[t]he study of colonial and postcolonial literature is a topic perfectly explored by the contact zone classroom. The boundary between the colony and the postcolonial space left afterwards is the meeting place where two or more cultures negotiate each other and we can witness those interactions through their literature.” I go through several examples of opportunities in this class for contact zone-type learning, including the many pop-culture references made in Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy, and the dialogue between Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Derek Walcott’s “Crusoe’s Island.” Then, I go on to explain how we can improve American classrooms with this particular combination of subject matter and method. “Together, a contact zone, colonial and postcolonial literature class could reinvigorate classic novels for our American students and show them sides of history and humanity they have never before seen” (DeLaRosa). Aaron Morris preempted my feelings in his 2005 midterm when he wrote that the readings from Dr White’s class “may have helped me to understand and appreciate the viewpoints of colonized people and develop a greater sensitivity towards their plight; however, it still seems distant from my everyday thoughts and actions. Being exposed to some of these concepts and reading the texts is the first step in a greater understanding of the world around me, but there is still much to learn.” The positive influence Morris gained from a colonial-postcolonial literature class is what I think all Americans can benefit from. In my midterm paper, I was able to demonstrate my excitement for the concept of colonial-postcolonial literature studies, and the potential it could have when integrated into a contact zone classroom. 

            The reason why I addressed American students specifically in my midterm paper, calling them out in particular as being able to benefit from a colonial-postcolonial literature class, is because of American’s reputation for ignorance or resistance when it comes to postcolonial criticism and alternative world views. This issue is listed as one of the primary objectives for our class this semester, with Dr White asking us to consider America’s status as a quasi-colonial nation. I myself personified American ignorance to the issues of postcolonialism before I entered this class. I had no real knowledge of the subject and was completely unfamiliar with each of the works we studied. However, I like to consider myself a fairly open-minded person, and I was eager to learn from these new perspectives. I came to view America as less of a postcolonial nation and more a colonizing one—though more of a type of “non-settler” colonization in the way that we influence countries culturally and economically. I do not think that we are ignorant of other world views, though. As a rather imperialist nation covering all the ground that we do with our military, McDonald’s, and multi-national corporations, how can we not see the many alternative world views around us? What we do seem to be guilty of is apathy towards these views. “America” just does not care what the others think because “we” think “we” are right, so what does it matter what the other guy thinks? This is not, of course, the way all Americans feel, but that is perhaps how we as a nation are viewed because of the way we are represented. I have come to look at our country more critically after reading postcolonial writings like Jamaica Kincaid’s “A Small Place” and Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine. “A Small Place” pointed a very critical eye towards Antigua’s former colonizer, Great Britain, and Jasmine illuminated for me the strong and strange influences American culture can have on a person.

            Honestly, I found all of the texts for this course to be illuminating. Though I admit I was not always too engaged in the reading of some of the older texts like Robinson Crusoe, all of them together created a lot of understanding for me. I enjoyed the many different types of texts we studied this semester: novels, poetry, films, and essays; they all worked together to create a more complete picture of their native countries and of the world as a whole. I had never before had a class where we focused so much on the intertextuality and dialogue between texts, and I love that we did in this class. Reading each piece as an answer to another piece—Lucy to Robinson Crusoe, Train to Pakistan to The Man Who Would be King, Things Fall Apart to Heart of Darkness—was for me an exciting and novel way to study literature. Also studying the texts as trends of colonial writings or postcolonial writings provided a lot of insight. Robinson Crusoe, The Man Who Would be King, and Heart of Darkness all demonstrate the British colonial mindset; the way they viewed themselves as entitled to any land and resources they “discovered” and the way they dehumanized the local peoples, be they Native American, Arabic, or African. Looking at a few of our postcolonial texts, it was very interesting to see that Lucy, Jasmine, and Things Fall Apart each employ apocalyptic imagery, though they are all from different countries.

            The concept of intertextuality in texts is part of the value I find in literature studies; a dialogue between stories, across countries and across time. I think it is incredibly valuable to study what the pieces represent to us and teach us both separately and in relation to each other. Studying literature intertextually is an exciting and productive way to learn. It pushes us to read more, to learn more; I feel this myself very much. I read many of the optional texts that Dr White offered to us so that I could better understand what I was reading in the required texts. Reading The Man Who Would be King, which was optional, gave me a view of the British side of the history represented in the required text, Train to Pakistan. Seeing that there was a colonial view point and a postcolonial one being presented in class, I wanted to know a “neutral” history of the regions we studied, and was curious to see how things are there now. I was constantly feeling the push to know more about what I was reading for class. I wanted to know the full story.

            I am so glad I took this class—I could very well have missed it if I had not gone back to school just one month after my baby was born. It has reinvigorated me. Coming to this class and being bombarded with literature and other texts from across the globe was exciting and enlightening. I had never before thought of dividing literature along colonial/postcolonial lines and I now find that to be a very productive means of study. This class and what it has introduced me to has kept alive my need for learning and my love of stories. I am very interested in continuing this line of study and leading it into my Master’s thesis. 

Works Cited

Bizzell, Patricia. “Multiculturalism, Contact Zones, and the Organization of English Studies.”

            Professing in the Contact Zone: Bringing Theory            and Practice Together. Ed. Janice         M. Wolff. Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English, 2002. 48-57.

Morris, Aaron. “How to Use Knowledge Gained in POCO Lit at the Gas Station.” 2005

            <http://coursesite.cl.uh.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/5731copo/models/2005/finals/f05morri  s.htm>. 9 December 2009.

Pratt, Mary Louise. “Arts of the Contact Zone.” Professing in the Contact Zone: Bringing

Theory and Practice Together. Ed. Janice M. Wolff. Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English, 2002. 1-18.