Postcolonial literary theory obscures the political and economic materialities determining it

Evidence

This book is nor offered as yet another contribution to literary theory as it is currently constituted, nor as an extension of the discussions of colony and empire as they are at present conducted within branches of this theory. The intention, rather, is to mark a break with the existing theoretical formation both methodologically and empirically, and to base alternative ways of periodization, for theoretical production as a whole and for individual authors, not on discrete developments within literary theory but at points of confluence between literary theory, other kinds of theories and the world whose knowledge these theories offer. This necessarily involves raising the suppressed questions of institutional site and individual location while negotiating the dialectic between the relatively autonomous status of literary theory as such, as a distinct form of cultural practice, and its determination, in a last instance which is not infinitely postponable, by the world of political and economic materialities which surrounds and saturates it. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 43

Categorization

• XREF: This is Ahmad’s core materialist thesis against discourse-determinism; connects directly to the reader’s research question about whether postcolonial theory obscures material/class structures. — connects to: Academic theory domesticated 1960s political dissent into textual culture — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 23; Postcolonial films legitimized secular-modern authority precisely through its forged, fraudulent English — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 2055; Postcolonial literary theory’s rapid shift from nationalism to poststructuralism concealed material world dynamics — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 163 (+9 more)
• DEFINE: Names the book’s own alternate method: periodization built at points of confluence between theory and material world, not within discrete literary-theory developments.

Broader Connections

• Postcolonial theory recasts decolonization as a literary-critical rather than political contest #expands (0.85) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 393
• Cultural theory requires a materialist theory of imperial history #corroborates (0.85) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 156
• Critics ignore how literary theory legitimated colonial subjugation #complicates (0.80) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 561
• Materialist literary history argues basic economic structures appear in literature #corroborates (0.78) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 497