CROSSROADS IN CULTURAL STUDIES
Fourth International Conference
June 29 - July 2, 2002, Tampere, Finland

Post/Colonial Texts and Identities

Organisers: Jopi Nyman and Joel Kuortti

Post/Colonial Texts and Identities: Nations, Diasporas, Novelists

Burul, Yesim (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) THE WORLD OF AZIZA A: "IDENTITY" AND "HOME" IN DIASPORIC CULTURAL PRODUCTION
Some of the contemporary debates around the notion of "identity" are adjoined by reconsiderations of the idea of "home" and how it can possibly be conceptualised in these times of constant movement, migrancy, exile, travel and diasporic formations. In this paper my main concern is to show how the notion of "home" is also transformed when "becoming" precedes "being" in formation of identities both in terms of theoretical analyses and real life experiences. Attempting to rework Homi Bhabha's notion of "third space" and its critiques, I will pursue an analysis of the latest album of Aziza A - a female Hip Hop artist, actress and radio host from Berlin - Kendi Dunyam (My Own World) to reveal how she presents her own multifaceted identity in the album and how this particular presentation in return problematises the ideas of "belonging" and "home."

Rantonen, Eila (University of Tampere, Finalnd) AFRICA, EUROPE AND THE REVENGE OF THE POOR WOMAN IN VERONICA PIMENOFF'S LAND WITHOUT WATER
My paper deals with the Finnish author Veronica Pimenoff's transcultural novel Land without Water (1999) in a postcolonial context. The novel that concentrates on the conflict between the rich and the poor countries includes an allegorical dialogue between Europe and Africa personified by the main female characters. The focus is on the issues of the postcolonial feminism: "Is global feminism possible in the era of globalisation?" Moreover, the issue of bio-terrorism as a form of postcolonial resistance is inscribed into the plot structure of the novel. The paper discusses the novel as a political allegory and its imagining of diasporic postcolonial identities.

Blake, Andrew (King Alfred's College, United Kingdom) THE MONSTER AND THE CRITICS: A READING OF FURY
I propose to examine the critical reception of Salman Rushdie's Fury. The novel was reviewed in the UK not as an attempt to weave myth and science fiction into the contemporary world, nor as an exploration of postcolonial spatial and political relationships (all of which it is), but as a representation of recent events in the author's personal life. The paper discusses a) the ways in which these reviews reinscribe, and/or de-scribe, the Author, and b) how Fury might be re-viewed in the light of the September 11th attack on New York, which occurred less than a fortnight after its publication.

Kuortti, Joel (University of Tampere, Finland) NOVELISTS & POLITICS: THE ESSAYS OF RUSHDIE & ROY
The fictional writings of Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy have internationally been hailed as masterpieces of Indian (English) literature. As part of postcolonial Indian literary scene these writers do not, however, easily fall into any nationalist concept of identity. Their novels themselves problematize such positioning but even more so do their essays. In my paper I look at the ways in which Rushdie and Roy participate in discussions of political themes. During the past three years, Rushdie has regularly written articles for newspapers. In these he takes issue with pressing topics such as the case of Élian, the politics of Jörg Haider, or the coup in Fiji. Roy for her part has published fewer essays since the publication of her single novel, The God of Small Things (1997), but these have been long pamphlets. How do these writings reflect their identification as Indian writers?

Post/Colonial Texts and Identities: Globalization, Culture, Intellectuals

JongMi, Kim (London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom) GLOBAL CULTURE, AUDIENCE AND TRANSFROMATIVE IDENTITIES
This paper is prompted by a number of questions about the formation of global media images in local contexts in terms of differing locations and historical moments. Traditional norms of Korean culture as well as influences from globalisation of culture have been influential in shaping the conflictual identities of Korean women. For example, the contradiction between women adopting sexual activities associated with 'Western' media images whilst still opting for hymen surgery to conform to Korean norms of virginity. I will examine three questions. Firstly, what can postcolonial concepts, such as 'hybridity', 'mimicry', 'inbetween', and 'ambivalence', offer in relation to comprehending the specificity of Korean women's experiences of forming national, ethnic and gender identities in a global context using the example of plastic surgery? Secondly, how does the complexity of Korean women's experiences reflect the possibility for global processes, as projected through media images, to be transformed in the local context? In order to address this question, I will explain the dominant binary discourse of western/other appearance in relation to plastic surgery. Secondly, I will show how plastic surgery, through Korean women's agency in the context of mass media consumption blurs the boundaries of Western/Other and culture/nature and exemplifies the concept of hybridity in the Korean context.

Reinikainen, Hanna (University of Joensuu, Finland) DECOLONIZING THE MIND AND THE BODY: THE CASE OF TONI MORRISON
While the abolition of slavery ended allegedly the colonialist period in the USA, it did not abolish the hierarchy, where the white European male is superior to the African, and the black woman the lowest of all. Western feminism has been criticized of racism, of lumping black women together and of silencing them. I argue that Morrison attempts to give voice to this silenced otherness. My emphasis in this paper is on Morrison's Jazz (1992), a historical novel set in Harlem in the 1920s, in which Morrison rewrites American history from a perspective that challenges official historical narratives. It will be my aim to show that by examining the empowering of black subjectivity Morrison creates instruments to face the colonial past in order to change the neocolonial present and thus engages in collective decolonization.

Savolainen, Matti (University of Oulu, Finland) THE CREATION OF THE SELF IN NO MAN'S LAND: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF EDWARD SAID
Out of Place, A Memoir (1999) covers Edward Said's early years in Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, and the United States from his birth (1935) to his graduate studies in literature at Harvard University (1958-63). Characteristicly, the themes of homelessness, exile, and being out of place, appear in Said's memoir but they are not explaned away only through his colonial/postcolonial background.The moment of recognizing his ultimate difference which, simultaneously, provides a paradigm of colonial encounter, took place in Cairo, when young Edward was told to go away from the grounds of an exclusive club ("Don't answer back, boy. -- Arabs are not allowed here, and you're an Arab"). In the case of Said, however, the colonial encounter is preceded and intermingled by an existential awareness of his being out of place within his family as well. His farther, a well-to-do businessman with an American passport, was a demanding presence who constantly urged his son to do something useful and to exercise his body. In disciplining his son the father went as far as to force Edward to wear a harness underneath the shirt in order to "correct" his posture.In my paper I want to analyse the ways in which the familial and colonial sense of being different or out of place developed into a split between the public, outer self, and the private, inner self. Furthermore, I shall ponder upon how this split might be linked with the difference between the narrated self and the narrating self. The ultimate question which I can only open up is the following: How is it that a shy, insecure, "selfless" boy could develop into such a brilliant scholar and intellectual in the public sphere, especially since there is hardly any indication of an emerging political awareness during his formative years.

Parker, Douglas A. and Maria L. Parker (California State University, USA) THE CASE OF ALBERT CAMUS: AN UNRECOGNIZED POSTCOLONIAL SUBJECT
This paper assesses Edward Said's criticism of the works of Albert Camus. For Said, western literature (including Camus' work) creates feelings and sentiments that "support, elaborate, and consolidate the practice of empire." Said's harsh judgment of Camus was made just before the publication of The First Man in France in 1994 in which Camus constructs an imaginary community which is the basis for a new inclusive Algerian nationalism. That Camus did not live long enough to mobilize support for his vision should not keep Said (and others) from a close reading of Camus's texts, including the recent fictional autobiography which was published posthumously. Indeed, after such an examination, Said could revise his judgment and possibly even conclude that Camus should not be seen as an "Occidental French Other" but rather as a heretofore unrecognized "Postcolonial Algerian Subject."

Nyman, Jopi (University of Joensuu, Finland) FROM THE VELD TO THE SHELTER: READING POST/COLONIAL ANIMALS IN SOUTH AFRICA
In this post-humanist era the unity of the white male subject, the main agent of humanism, has been shown to be an illusion and its status challenged by cyborgs, animal rights activists, postcolonialists, feminists, and queer theorists, criticizing the ideological construction of subjectivity. This paper dealing with the use of animals in cultural texts focusses on issues of race by discussing two South African animal narratives, Sir Percy Pitzpatrick's Jock of the Bushveld (1909) and J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace (1999). Reading the texts from a postcolonial perspective, I will explore the connection of the representation of race and the animal. While in colonialist narratives the representation of the animal is often framed in a narrative of race, issues of racial difference are no less important in Coetzee's novel focussing on post-apartheid South Africa.