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.
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