Colonial Discourse/Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader

This first-of-its-kind collection of both groundbreaking and classic essays drawn from a diverse selection of third world and Western thinkers, both historical and contemporary, provides an in-depth introduction to the debates within postcolonial theory and criticism. For both the specialist and the general reader, this volume includes statements by all the major writers on the topic–including Leopold Senghor, Franz Fanon, Homi Bhaba, Gayatri Spivak, Edward Said, Aime Cesaire, Chandra Mohanty, Sara Suleri, Stuart Hall, Jean Franco, bell hooks, and Chinua Achebe. They explore issues such as the nature of colonized cultures and anticolonial resistance; subaltern historiography; the construction of Western subjectivity and knowledge; gender; the formation of postcolonial intellectuals; the metropolitan institutionalization of postcoloniality; neocolonialism; the nature of minority and postcolonial identity and discourse. One section is devoted to the application of theoretical formulations to cultural criticism, and contains several textual analyses. Through the general introduction, and introductions to each section, the editors provide a historical, theoretical, and political context for the readings. The book concludes with an extensive bibliography and suggestions for future reading.