Anglophone third-world intellectuals are elevated into representatives of entire civilizations.

Evidence

One consequence, then, is that the few writers who happen to write in English are valorized beyond measure. Witness, for example, the characterization of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children in the New York Times as ‘a Continent finding its voice’ – as if one has no voice if one does not speak in English. Or Richard Poirier’s praise for Edward Said in Raritan which now adorns the back cover of a recent book of Said’s: ‘It is Said’s great accomplishment that thanks to his book, Palestinians will never be lost to history.’ This is the upside-down world of the camera obscura: not that Said’s vision is itself framed by the Palestinian experience, but that Palestine would have no place in history without Said’s book! The retribution visited upon the head of an Asian, an African, an Arab intellectual who is of any consequence and writes in English is that he or she is immediately elevated to the lonely splendour of a representative – of a race, a continent, a civilization, even the ‘Third World’. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 153 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

I carry around at least three: I’m expected to speak for the entire black race on all questions theoretical, critical, etc.; sometimes for British politics; as well as for Cultural Studies. This is what is known as the black person’s burden, and I would like to absolve myself of it at this moment. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 234 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: English-writing non-Western intellectuals get elevated into representatives of whole continents — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 153; Marginalized intellectuals are expected to represent entire communities, not just themselves. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 234

Related

• English-writing non-Western intellectuals get elevated into representatives of whole continents (similarity 0.92)
• Marginalized intellectuals are expected to represent entire communities, not just themselves. (similarity 0.83)
• Translated non-Western writing is absorbed through a single representative voice (similarity 0.82)
• Third-world writers have achieved real canonical standing in US academia. (similarity 0.82)
• Elite immigrant critics displaced the original national Third World canon (similarity 0.80)
• The category ‘Third World Literature’ emerged only when ex-colonial migrants demanded metropolitan middle-class inclusion (similarity 0.80)
• African-American intellectuals largely rejected Third World Literature as not encompassing their slave-derived specificity (similarity 0.79)
• Third World Literature as a field was professionalized by metropolitan universities (similarity 0.79)
• Asian-origin critics, not Said, cemented immigrant-centered literary Third-Worldism (similarity 0.78)
• Third World Literature theory mostly excluded African-American intellectuals (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• English-writing non-Western intellectuals get elevated into representatives of whole continents #corroborates (1.00) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 153
• Marginalized intellectuals are expected to represent entire communities, not just themselves. #expands (0.85) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 234