LITR 5731 Colonial-Postcolonial
Literature
|
|
1st Research Posts 2009
Debbie Sasser
11-10-09 (revised 11/23/09)
Pico Iyer, Post-Colonial Travel Writer
The travel writing genre is populated by many freelance writers like myself, who seek to share the sights, sounds, smells flavors, and feelings of the world around them. As a freelance writer, I am inspired by reading about the lives and publications of other writers from various genres. During this semester, the colonial and post-colonial literature took my mind on journeys to foreign places from the perspectives of colonial and post-colonial characters, which led me to research the travel writing field. I wondered if it relates to our objectives, because although the novels we have read are not necessarily travelogues, they do involve voyages in which the characters experience some of the same phenomenon that travelers write about.
As I searched for information about either colonial or post-colonial travel writers, I discovered an interview by Kati Stammwitz with several post-colonial travel writers. Her interviews have proven that travel writing, which has sometimes not been considered real literature, can be an important source for scholars to discern culture. Pico Iyer was her first interview subject, and his ideas were so interesting that I decided to research more about his post-colonial travel writer perspective and delve into his contributions to the multicultural genre of literature.
According to the Bloomsbury Publishing website, Iyer was born in Oxford, England to Indian parents, and grew up in California in the 1960s. He earned a Congratulatory Double First in English from Magdalen College, Oxford, and a master's degree in literature from Harvard. He taught literature and writing courses at Harvard for two years (Bloomsbury). Iyer frequently dialogues with the Dalai Lama, a family friend, regarding globalism and his philosophy as a Tibetan head of state (Bloomsbury). Iyer is the author of eight books and has written for many other publications like Salon, The New York Review of Books, Harper's, Conde Naste Traveler, and Time (Bloomsbury). The central themes of the majority of his publications are globalism, travel, and post-colonial culture. He currently lives in Japan.
Stammwitz believes that traveling may pose a threat to one's identity, because it questions one's perspective of self versus other (Stammwitz). During the interview, Iyer gives a response to Stammwitz introductory thoughts when he says, "We may be free from traditional empires, but we're all part of the new empires of 'post-colonial' culture, and globalism itself . . ." (Stammwitz). Iyer considers himself to be post-national, because he doesn't feel his personal identity is tied to his British, Indian, or American heritage (Stammwitz). Samir Dayal wrote an article that gives reason for this post-ethnic phenomenon. Dayal cites Iyer's book, Video Night in Kathmandu, in which he says that post-colonials can lose their idea of real culture because the Western culture has suppressed, ignored, or marginalized the native culture to the point of depthlessness, creating a flattened world viewpoint (Dayal, 121). In a book review of Iyer's The Global Soul, Margaret Gunning talks farther about Iyer's perspective on world culture. The book is about how most people nowadays are full time citizens of nowhere. Iyer talks about how, "The modern airport stands as a prime example, with its forced multiculturalism (the airport is "based on the assumption that everyone is from somewhere else") and shallow, Westernized uniformity (McDonald's, The Body Shop, Holiday Inn and Muzak)" (Gunning).
Iyer's unique outlook on the multicultural, post-colonial, and globalism found in our world reveals how travel writing is useful in discerning culture. As he has traveled throughout the world, his concept of self versus other has been challenged. His travels have led him to the blurred, flattened idea that suggests most people are citizens of nowhere. He considers this idea to be liberating, because he does not feel any limiting attachment to his past ethnic heritage or his current home in Japan. I plan to explore Iyer's ideas on the concept of "home" in my second research post. I will aim to bring Iyer's overarching concept of globalism into dialogue with his current lifestyle and post-colonial perspectives.
Works Cited
Dayal, Samir. "Postcolonialism's Possibilities: Subcontinental Diasporic Intervention."
Cultural Critique No. 33. Spring, 1996: 113-49. Print. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1354389
Gunning, Margaret. "Soul Food." http://januarymagazine.com/nonfiction/globalsoul.html
Pico Iyer Biography. http://www.bloomsbury.com/Authors/details.aspx?tpid=1657
Stammwitz, Kati. "Turning the Telescope in the Other Direction': Four Interviews with Post-Colonial Travel Writers. Pico Iyer, Frank Delaney, Dan Jacobson, and Dervla Murphy."
http://webdoc.gwdg.de/edoc/ia/eese/artic99/stamm/1_99.html
(original version)
Research Post #1
Debbie Sasser
11-10-09
Pico Iyer: Post-Colonial Travel Writer on the Sense of Home
Simply put, traveling brings a person from one place to another. However, during a trip, the traveler will see, feel, smell, touch, hear, and experience different as well as familiar things. I have traveled to eight countries outside the US, and enjoy the experience of going places—both new and well-known destinations. When I discovered an interview by Kati Stammwitz with the travel writer, Pico Iyer, I wanted to expand my knowledge of travel from Iyer's post-colonial perspective. My research aims to discover how travel can cause a person to feel either at home or alienated in a similar way that colonization can make natives feel out of place even though they are at home. Pico Iyer was born in Britain to Indian parents, and spends about half of his time in both California and Japan and the other 50 percent traveling. Iyer has written many books and articles on the subject of globalism, travel, and post-colonial culture.
OPTIONAL LINKS TO BE ADDED:
Pico Iyer Publications. http://www.bookfinder.com/author/pico-iyer/2
Pico Iyer Biography. http://www.bloomsbury.com/Authors/details.aspx?tpid=1657
Iyer can provide an authoritative viewpoint on the post-colonial idea of home, because his background is international and his lifestyle is fragmented and free from traditional empirical boundaries. He claims to feel at home in the post-colonial culture of globalism with no particular links to Britain, India, Japan, or America (Stammwitz). In an interview with Joe Moe for Weekend America, Iyer gives an interesting, post-colonial analogy for home—he says home is like a manuscript that he is constantly revising, updating, and adding to. He went on to say that when he was young his idea of home was like a 20 page essay, whereas now it had become more of a haiku (Moe).
Iyer's simplified perspective on home, came partly during the time when he lost his home and all his possessions in the California wildfires of 2000. He was not particularly crippled by this tragedy, because he possessed the secure, comforting concept of home internally. He maintains this inner outlook, stating that it is something fires or other natural disasters cannot take away (Moe). Iyer believes that a person can feel either estranged everywhere or at home everywhere, because of the international, blurred, and fragmented qualities of the world (Stammwitz). When Iyer stays at an apartment in Japan, he says he feels the most at home, because he is 100 percent an outsider (Moe).
Samir Dayal wrote an article that gives reason for this phenomenon of feeling at home as an outsider. Dayal cites Iyer's book, Video Night in Kathmandu, in which he says that post-colonials can lose their idea of real culture because the Western culture has suppressed, ignored, or marginalized the native culture to the point of depthlessness, creating a flattened world viewpoint (Dayal, 121). Margaret Gunning highlights and expands the blurred, dissolved idea of post-colonials in a book review she wrote about Iyer's book, The Global Soul. In the book, Iyer says that most people nowadays are global souls—full time citizens of nowhere. Iyer says that the lives people live make it difficult to make commitments, because they do not experience the concept of community in their lives. He goes on to say that it is as if their feet are never on the ground long enough to make any kind of significant contact (Gunning).
Iyer makes clear points about the international environment's affects on travelers. His ideas on globalism cross over into the experience of post-colonials, because their idea of home diminishes as colonial influences cause depthlessness, suppression of native values and norms, and marginalization of culture. As a habitual traveler, Iyer articulates his own personal experiences in a way that nearly perfectly illuminates the experience of post-colonials. Even though native people live in the colonized place, they are likely to feel, over time, like Iyer—citizens of nowhere.
Works Cited
Dayal, Samir. "Postcolonialism's Possibilities: Subcontinental Diasporic Intervention."
Cultural Critique No. 33. Spring, 1996: 113-49. Print. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1354389
Gunning, Margaret. "Soul Food." http://januarymagazine.com/nonfiction/globalsoul.html
Moe, Joe. "On the Road with Pico Iyer." November 29, 2008. http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/11/29/pico_iyer/
Pico Iyer Biography. http://www.bloomsbury.com/Authors/details.aspx?tpid=1657
Pico Iyer Publications. http://www.bookfinder.com/author/pico-iyer/2/
Stammwitz, Kati. "Turning the Telescope in the Other Direction': Four Interviews with Post- Colonial Travel Writers. Pico Iyer, Frank Delaney, Dan Jacobson, and Dervla Murphy."
http://webdoc.gwdg.de/edoc/ia/eese/artic99/stamm/1_99.html