A Brief Introduction to Postmodernism and Postcolonialism

Introduction to Postmodern Theory and Literature:

The term postmodernism is often considered contradictory, exasperating, problematic, and indefinable (Hutcheon, Politics 1; Bertens 3; McHale 3; Aylesworth) and also its derivations – postmodern, postmodernist, and postmodernity (Bertens). Often the definition of the term, both in cultural theory and literary production, depends on the person defining it: for Lyotard it means displacement of grand narratives; for Baudrillard a manifestation of a hyperreal world; for Habermas a continuation of the incomplete project of modernity; for Jameson the cultural logic of late capitalism; for Hassan something which can only be defined in a particular context; for McHale a literary historical fiction signifying a shift from the epistemological to the ontological; for Huyssen an attempt to make history an obsolete episteme; for Norris intellectual vandalism; for Barth the literature of exhaustion; for Newman literature in the age of inflation; for Bertens a crisis in representation; for Butler a deliberate attempt to disturb one’s audiences or readers; and for Hutcheon it reinforces and subverts the very constructs it attempts to challenge.

However, the above-mentioned inconclusive, diverse, and heterogeneous array of various viewpoints should not deter one from exploring or theorizing the basic tenets of this multifarious phenomenon using, what Hassan calls, a family of congenial words (Hassan). Hutcheon adumbrates that postmodernism is concerned with scrutinizing institutions; challenging the notions of authenticity, perspective, presence, and originality; undermining principles such as value, order, meaning, and identity; and dislodging the construct of the center (Hutcheon, Poetics). Bertens seems to be in agreement with Hutcheon when he articulates the basic tenets of postmodernism as: language constitutes reality rather than representing it; the identity of the postmodern subject is other-determined; and knowledge functions as such within a given power structure (Bertens 9).

Unlike its scope there seems to be a general consensus among postmodern theorists, and intellectuals as regards the period of postmodernism which is from the 1960s to the early1990s (Bertens 13; Lewis 121; McCaffrey qtd. in Nicol 17). It is important to situate this phenomenon historically because the period saw rapid technological advancements undermine ideological certainties (Lewis 121).

Postmodernism is a perspective (Bertens 9), a discursive artifact (McHale 4), which paradoxically attempts at, what Hutcheon via Barthes calls, the de-doxification of cultural representations (Hutcheon, Politics 3). This basis of postmodernism is rooted in Foucault’s exegesis of Nietzsche that representations inadequately and partially represent a given subject and are, therefore, ideologically and politically motivated (Bertens 7; Butler 13). The process of de-doxification resulting from and giving rise to a crisis in representation posits a plural and heterogeneous constitution of culture (Hutcheon 12) and foregrounds the marginalized discourses of those who constitute the other of a liberal humanist subject (Bertens 7) i.e. white, male, heterosexual, educated, middleclass, Western. Among the major casualties of de-doxification are the concepts and constructs of objective knowledge, truth, reason, and self which dominated science, arts, and history in the West ever since the Enlightenment. Although these theoretical categories survive the critique of postmodernism these have inevitably been redefined and refashioned (Luntley xiv).

Among these constructs and categories, self is of particular relevance to the present critical enterprise. Understandably, the innate self-contradictions and self-referentiality of postmodernism are at work in the process of redefining and refashioning the category of self which comes out as fragmented, decentered, flat, and depthless (Allan). Baudrillardian concepts of hyperreality and simulacrum echo in critiques of scholars like Gergen who posit that the category of self is erased in postmodern culture which replaces it with images (Gergen 6). This argument contains its own critique for if postmodernism replaces the category of self with images it merely redefines and refashions it and does not erase it. Allan has looked into the theoretical considerations surrounding the construction of self as a social construct and argues that postmodern era follows the same processes for construction of self which have been followed from the Enlightenment to the modern era (Allan).

Postmodernism situates the identity of self within its performativity and it is this notion of performative subjectivity developed from the critiques of psychoanalysis, feminism, and postcolonialism which has radically undermined the modern subjectivity (Malpas 73-75). Apart from performance the other important feature as regards postmodern subjectivity is technological advancements. There is a disagreement among postmodern theorists as to whether technology has oppressive or liberating effects for a postmodern subject. Lyotard argues that the category of a humanist subject has been dehumanized by technological innovations while Haraway observes the liberating potential technology has to offer in order to get rid of the sexism of modernism (Malpas 75).

The question which needs to be asked here is which self postmodernism presents as fragmented and decentered. Ross observes that Western Enlightenment philosophy posits its constructs as universals and promotes a social logic through which the whole world is supposed to conform to the image of the Western man (Ross xii). Postmodernism, Ross argues, is a wholesale abandonment of these universals (xiii) which means the universality of the construct of self – as white, heterosexual, male – has been put paid to. The premise of abandonment of universals leads one to ask whose interests this abandonment serves (xiv) and this is where the question of politics of postmodernism enters.

Best and Kellner argue that the postmodernism of Foucault, Lyotard, and Rorty rejects the ideals of modern politics in favor of local strategies and individual liberty, however, Laclau and Mouffe posit that postmodernism does not reject the political model of modernism and is a mere continuation of it (Best and Kellner). According to Ross the cultural politics of postmodernism with no institutional boundaries – as espoused by Foucault, Lyotard and Rorty, and many other postmodern theorists – is a result of the interaction between postmodernism and poststructuralism which is, paradoxically, a continuation of modernism by other means (Ross viii-ix).

Postmodern politics, generally, is regarded as a politics of the particular and the local; the politics of color, gender, race, and sexual orientation; the politics of differences, margins, and identity (Ross vii; Best and Kellner; Grant 30). Postmodern identity politics is its own critique for postmodernism undermines essentialism while identity politics is based on it (Ross xi, Best and Kellner; Grant 32). Identity politics defines individuals as others of the white, male, heterosexual, educated, capitalist, colonizer self and favors one only aspect – e.g. race, gender, sexual preference – to define the identity of their whole and complex beings (Best and Kellner). One can, thus, argue that essentialism may also be considered a postmodern subject position (Ross xi). The immediate question such an argument begs is to what extent such essentialism may be tolerated. Postmodern politics allows one to essentialize as long as it does not make one so different as to deny the value of difference (Grant 31). Best and Kellner argue that despite its seemingly enormous emancipatory potential postmodern identity politics falls short of engendering a complete systemic change (Best and Kellner) because of the diversity among marginalized group (Best and Kellner; Ross xiv) which may be at odds with one another (Grant 31). Postmodernism’s focus on micro-politics, Grant observes, leaves macro political structures uncontested (31).

Although it’s cultural manifestations can be found all over the world postmodernism, fundamentally, is a Western phenomenon with its theoretical origins in Western academia (Hassan; Hutcheon, Poetics 4). In the West, the question of postmodern politics, Grant observes, finds particular relevance in the North Atlantic English speaking world which has a continuing tradition of colonization by the white, male, heterosexual, and capitalist self (Grant 28-31). Critics exploring postmodern politics frequently refer to American society and culture (Arac; Kariel). Hall argues that postmodernism is particularly popular in America and is about how the world sees itself as “American” (Hall 132). Hall’s argument follows Laclau’s assertion that postmodernism merely challenges the ontological status of modern constructs while their content remains the same (Laclau 66) which seems to endorse Allan’s thesis about the construction of self in a postmodern era as mentioned earlier.

Debates surrounding the politics of postmodernism have largely been informed by Marxist critique because postmodernism emerged from the works of white, male, Marxists or ex-Marxists (Ross xii). Just like Enlightenment and modern ideals Orthodox Marxism also promotes universal categories and while the constructs of Enlightenment and modernism have been widely contested Marxist view of capital has remained the same (xiv). Theorists like Jameson and Baudriallard alert us to the complicity of postmodern modes of resistance with capitalism while Eagleton argues that postmodernism lacks a comprehensive account of the complex social relations which produce contemporary reality (Malpas 128). Political ideals espoused by postmodernism reject Marxism for its overly reductionist and essentialist view of politics (Best and Kellner) and also because of its limited relevance to contemporary reality (Hassan).        

Among the various examples and manifestations of postmodernism, only postmodern(ist) literature is of immediate concern and relevance to the current project. Critics and theorists exploring the phenomenon of literary postmodernism tend to focus on narrative fiction, in favor of postmodern drama or verse, for its omnipresence and superiority in illustrating the problematic of postmodern representations (Conner; Hutcheon, Politics; McHale; Nicol). The process of construction and deconstruction of the category of self in a postmodern world is one of the major concerns of postmodernist fiction. McHale argues that the dominant (Jakobson’s term) of modernist fiction is epistemological and is concerned with questions such as: how one can interpret the world and what the status of a human being in it is. The dominant in postmodernist fiction, he observes, shifts to the ontological which is interested in exploring questions like: which is this world, what is one supposed to do with it, and most importantly which of the selves is to do it (McHale 9-10). Nicol observes that postmodern fiction is characterized by an incredulity and ambivalence towards realism rather than its outright rejection, is conscious that it constructs reality rather than transcribing it, and is aware that storytelling is not an innocent act and also that nothing is natural in a narrative (Nicol 19-27). Hutcheon observes that postmodern fiction preserves certain values of realism and, paradoxically, at the same time undermines and critiques them (Hutcheon Poetics 11).

Critics interested in theorizing postmodernist fiction have highlighted major narrative techniques and strategies postmodernist fiction writers generally adopt to address the ontological questions in a culture replete with temporary simulacra, pervasive superficiality, and fragmentation (Baldick 201). According to Lewis, some of the characteristic features of postmodernist fiction are: temporal disorder employing and resulting from anachronism and confluence of history and fantasy; pastiche resulting from an annoyance and disappointment that everything has been done before and nothing new can be done; fragmentation highlighting the disintegration of characters and an absence of plot to illustrate the ontologically challenged and fragmented postmodern self; looseness of association which introduces randomness and chance into the compositional process; paranoia felt by characters resulting from feelings of threat and anxiety that they are dominated by someone else’s system; vicious circles illustrating a conflux of text and world and a merger of the literal and the metaphorical (Lewis 124-132).

Postmodern fiction, concerned with disturbances of scale and proportion, tries to present the unpresentable (Connor 67), deliberately attempts at being less unified and more anarchic, fashions a particular disturbing experience, and disrupts “normal” ways of thinking (Butler 5-11). Nicol seems to be in agreement with Connor when he writes that postmodern fiction does what fiction has done previously but takes it to an extreme level (Nicol 32). The chaos and flux which modernist artists consider a threat, Connor observes, is celebrated in postmodernist fiction as an energizing force which is concerned with outdoing the world (Connor 69-71). The sense of not being able to understand the complexities of life becomes a source of consolation (Connor 74) in postmodern fiction which, Lewis observes, erodes the distinction between mainstream (or high) and fringe (or low) art (Lewis 122) and depends on the voice rather than on the eye (Connor 64). Malpas argues that postmodern art is concerned with exposing the politics of grand narratives which institute structural violence and addresses the marginalized subjectivities which the universal categories of modernism overlook (Malpas 131).

Introduction to Postcolonial Theory:

The term postcolonialism is considered diffuse, nebulous (Ghandi viii) and one full of contradictions and qualifications (Loomba 16).  Despite a lack of agreement within postcolonial studies (Ghandi 2, McLeod 7) and its contradictory and paradoxical nature there seems to be a general consensus among postcolonial theorists, practitioners, and critics with regards to its concerns. Postcolonialism, broadly, engages questions related with the history and legacy of European imperialism (Loomba 2); with the culture, which has been and continues to be, affected by the process of European colonization (Ashcroft et al 2); with a variety of colonial experiences of different nations (Lopez 1); with the discourse of minorities, a critical evaluation of the ambivalences of modernity, and incommensurability of various cultures (Bhabha 171-174); with evaluating, retrieving, and interrogating the colonial past ( Ghandi 4); and with understanding the material consequences of colonialism ( McLeod 4). The disagreement within postcolonial studies, which Ghandi and McLeod refer to, generally stems from a difference in approaches and strategies postcolonial theorists and critics adopt and adapt to address and answer these questions. For postcolonial theorists how we approach and what we approach are equally important questions (McLeod 8).

The two theoretical reserves postcolonialism primarily draws on are Marxism and poststructuralism (Loomba 5; Ghandi 3; Young 6). The modern European colonial project entailed grabbing foreign lands; disenfranchising, exploiting, and forcing locals to coopt into the European capitalist enterprise which forever changed the prior function, purpose, and meaning of colonized lands and peoples (McLeod 1,2). Marxist critics distinguish between different colonialisms with respect to the relationship between colonialism and capitalism and opine that while earlier colonial projects were pre-capitalist, the modern European colonial enterprise flourished alongside capitalism which restructured the economies of colonies (Loomb 9). In Loomba’s words, colonialism was the midwife which assisted during the birth of capitalism (10) which Marxists term as the constant of the world history (Childs and Williams 5). Along with Marxism, poststructuralist critique of Western epistemology is also considered indispensable to postcolonialism (Ghandi ix, Loomba 5). Ashcroft et al observe that deconstruction and poststructuralist rejection of the idea of a Cartesian individual which has dominated the Western epistemology ever since the Enlightenment is central to the postcolonial project which is concerned with dislodging the binary of center/margin (Ashcroft et al 117). The poststructuralist concepts that signification is inherently unstable and that a subject is located in language and discourse (Ashcroft et al 117) lie at the heart of postcolonial studies. De Alva observes a fundamental connection between postcolonialism and poststructuralism as regards multiplicity of histories (de alva).

Postcolonialism critiques history as epistemology and tries to rewrite and reconsider it from the perspectives of those who are marginalized by colonialism (Young 4). Childs and Williams observe that postcolonial critics contest the idea of the Western-ness of history (Childs and Williams 9). Ghandi argues that the emergence of independent nation-states after the demise of colonialism creates a collective desire among formerly colonized people to forget their colonial history and start anew (Ghandi 4). Postcolonialism, she posits, is a resistance to this postcolonial historical amnesia and attempts to evaluate, critique, and interrogate colonial history (4). Realizing that colonial pasts contain stories of contestation, complicity, ambivalence, and symbiosis (Ghandi 5-11), postcolonial critics opine that by devising new ways of looking at and perceiving the world we might be able to initiate a process of de-doxification of knowledge (McLeod 5). Postcolonialism posits that in colonial contexts there exists an inseparable relationship between history and culture (McLeod 8) and the colonized subjects can neither completely get rid of the culture of the colonizer nor can they completely identify with it (Lopez 5). The cultural contamination resulting from the process of colonization, Stuart Hall argues, forces us to recognize new ethnicities, and hybrid cultural identities (qtd. in Lopez 5). According to Balme, Young, and Lopez, terms like “hybridity” and “syncretism” seem to be some of the positive results of European colonial oppression (Lopez 5-6). Culture, according to Bhabha, is constructed through alterity, and instead of treating it as an epistemological object postcolonialism considers it an enunciatory site (Bhabha 172-178).

Postcolonialism’s insistence on relating cultural practices with historical and political consequences of colonialism has made it, according to McLeod, a controversial project (7). Postcolonialism, he argues, explores this relationship in three different ways: how the cultural and intellectual practices of colonizers represented colonialism; how colonized cultures responded to colonialism; and how these cultural relations continue to affect postcolonial nations (McLeod 7). Central to the cultural enterprise of Empire, Ashcroft et al argue, is literature and imperial oppression is maintained through a control over language and literature (Ashcroft et al 3-7). Literature, these writers observe, is controlled by colonizers and the structures and values installed by its unquestioned and canonical nature continue to influence the cultures of postcolonial peoples (4-6). According to Lopez, postcolonialism is tasked with scrutinizing these still continuing cultural and historical pressures and also with a revision of colonial history to make the complicity of literature with colonialism visible (Lopez 7).

Critics of postcolonialism consider it a reductive term (Loomba 4) and argue that it is located in, and primarily addresses, the Western academy and others non-Western knowledge and culture against the normative Western self (Ghandi ix-x). Loomba observes that postcolonial critics often blame each other for being complicit with colonialism (2). Arif Dirlik and Slavoj Zizek think that postcolonial theorists especially from the Third World exploit narratives of colonial oppression and use the guilt of white liberals to advance their careers in Western academia (Dirlik; Zizek). Similarly, Kawami Anthony Appiah argues that postcolonialism is the condition of those Western trained Third World intellectuals who negotiate the trade in cultural commodities (Appiah 119). Arif Dirlik, Ella Shohat, and E. San Juan agree that postcolonialism substitutes a clear position of oppositionality and resistance against colonial oppression with theorizations of cultural difference done in Western academia by cosmopolitan elite of the Third World (Lopez 13). These theories of difference, critics of postcolonialism opine, favor Third World academics and not Third World workers (Lopez 15) and remain irrelevant to real cultural differences (Dirlik 10). Loomba observes that names of postcolonial theorists, Bhabha, Said, and Spivak, have become more important than postcolonialism itself (4) and a field which foregrounds margins has, ironically, come to designate them as “holy trinity” (McLeod 15).

The conflation of mutually antagonistic theories of Marxism and poststructuralism in postcolonialism precludes the possibility of a uniformed approach (Ghandi 3). According to Aijaz Ahmad postcolonialism designates far too many things to remain a meaningful term (Ahmad 9). Lopez seems to be in agreement with Ahmad when he acknowledges the possibility that the term postcolonialism may never be able to produce its referent (Lopez 8). Loomba observes that the inadequacies of postcolonialism in theorizing postcoloniality can be attributed to poststructuralism (Loomba 20) and highlights that on one hand postcolonialism foregrounds cultural differences while on the other it is concerned with the postcolonial subject (19). Dirlik observes another paradox in postcolonial epistemology that postcolonial discourse foregrounds the same national, racial, and ethnic essentialisms which it attempts to dismantle (Dirlik 7). He criticizes postcolonialism of being complicit with Global Capitalism, for blurring the distinction between its critique and legitimation, and for offering itself as a metanarrative which can be extended to explain the past too (10-12). Postcolonialism’s focus on culture, Benita Parry argues, overlooks historical and social explanations (Parry 4) and the categories of hybridity and ambivalence make it a conciliatory rather than a critical enterprise with regards to colonialism (During qtd. in Parry 4). Aijaz Ahmad observes that postcolonialism inherently privileges European colonialism as the dominant around which history is structured (Ahmad 9) which undermines the attempt of postcolonialism to question the idea of the Western-ness of history. Despite cultural differences which postcolonialism tries to foreground and celebrate Michael Gorra observes that postcolonial theorists, like Edward Said and Abdul R. JanMohamed, resort to binaries of center/margin and canonical/non-canonical (Gorra 4-5).   

Postcolonialism as a term has also been widely contested because there seems to be nothing post about colonialism (Loomba 13); the effects of colonialism still linger in cultural practices and institutions of decolonized nation-states (McLeod 4); and these states give liberty selectively (Loomba 16) and continue to suppress their populations even worse than colonizers (Lopez 21).   Robert Young proposes to rename the term as tricontinentalism which, he argues, incorporates both the politics and epistemology of postcolonialism (Young 5).  

Alfred Lopez has tried to formulate a comprehensive critique of the critique of postcolonialism (17). He concedes that postcolonialism does have its shortcomings but at the same time one has to acknowledge the extent to which it critiques colonialism (2). He dismisses Dirlik’s claim that postcolonialism is a metanarrative of its own kind and argues that instead of being a finished product, postcolonialism is a work in progress and incorporates a vast and heterogeneous array of cultural discourses (6). According to Ghandi, postcolonialism is important because it has responded most enthusiastically to Spivak’s question “Can the subaltern speak?” Lopez quips that while critics of postcolonialism like Dirlik, Juan, and Parry accuse postcolonial critics like Bhabha and Spivak of being complicit with the West they never mention or analyze their own complicity or subject position (9, 26). According to Ashcroft et al, it was the inability of European literary theories to explain postcolonial writings which gave rise to the postcolonial literary theory (Ashcroft et al 11). European literary theories, these writers posit, were extensions of the cultural traditions which were based on the idea of “the universal” – an idea which was responsible for the political and cultural monocentrism of the colonial empire (11). However, the continuous expansion of European colonialism undermined its own power to the extent that its monocentrism could no longer be accepted and had to give way to pluralism (12).

The relationship between postcolonialism and postmodernism has also been studied in detail because there are obvious links, and a commonality of formal, thematic, and strategic concerns, between these two theories (Hutcheon 130-131). Both postcolonialism and postmodernism share the notion of marginalization (Hutcheon 132), question the assumptions regarding cultural purity and authenticity (Brydo 136) and challenge earlier legitimating narratives (Appiah 123). Brydo argues that while both postcolonialism and postmodernism address the same questions their modes of interpretation are different: postmodernism aestheticizes the political while postcolonialism posits that the aesthetic is inevitably political (Brydo 137). According to Frank Davey, it is the critique of modernism as an international imperialist movement from a non-European perspective which brings postcolonialism and postmodernism together (qtd. in Hutcheon 131).  Hutcheon highlights that postcolonialism and postmodernism share doubleness as a discursive strategy which makes their critiques complicitous (134). Bhabha foregrounds poststructuralism as the common ground between postcolonialism and postmodernism and argues that his semiotic account can provide the basis for a multicultural society (Bhabha).

Appiah observes that the “post” in postcolonialism is like the “post” in postmodernism and acts as a space-clearing gesture (119), however, Ashcroft et al do not agree with this statement. They argue that while we are told that we live in a postmodern world we are not likely to be told that we live a postcolonial world any time soon (Ashcroft et al 117, 118). Dirlik and Loomba agree that postcolonialism is a child or an offshoot of postmodernism and, therefore, it neither provides a thorough understanding of the world nor attempts to change it (Dirlik 1; Loomba 204). During highlights a dichotomy between postcolonialism and postmodernism and argues that the idea of a postcolonial identity needs to be obliterated to think that our world is postmodern (During 125). He argues that victims of imperialism use postcolonialism to have a pure identity which is not contaminated by European ideals (125). Hutcheon, however, disagrees with During and says that postcolonialism rejects the very idea of a pure or uncontaminated identity (135) but she concedes that the notions of cultural difference and marginality can, paradoxically, be used as colonizing strategies (132, 133). Kumkum Sangari observes that postmodernism’s crisis of legitimation and meaning has become yet another metanarrative which the West uses to reconstrue its hegemonic identity by denying others the desire for metanarratives (Sangari 146). Postmodernism has also been seen as the neo-universalist imperial discourse of the West (Tiffin qtd. in Hutcheon 133) which is used to further internationalize the international role of the West (Sangari 147).

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