Postcolonial theory’s turn to representation displaced study of imperialist political economy
Evidence
In terms of social processes, interest has shifted from the ‘facts’ of imperialist wars and political economies of exploitation to ‘fictions’ of representation and cultural artefact. In terms of global spaces, one is hearing, as these subdisciplines now function in the United States, a lot less about the United States itself and a lot more about Britain and France. In terms of academic disciplines, much more prestige attaches now to Literature, Philosophy and radical Anthropology than to Political Economy. In terms of theoretical positions, Marxism is often dismissed as a ‘modes-of-production narrative’, a ‘totalizing system’, and so on, while engagements shift more towards Narrarology, Discourse Analysis, Deconstruction, or New History of a Foucauldian kind. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 366
Categorization
- XREF: This maps exactly the displacement Ahmad attributes to discourse theory that the reader seeks to connect to strategic essentialism’s material evasiveness. — connects to: Postcolonial subdisciplines emerged by distancing themselves from anti-imperialist activist politics and economics — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 365; Postcolonial literary theory obscures the political and economic materialities determining it — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 43; Poststructuralism’s rise in colonial literary theory conceals rather than explains its material-economic context — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 163 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Postcolonial literary theory obscures the political and economic materialities determining it
#expands(0.90) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 43 - Poststructuralism’s rise in colonial literary theory conceals rather than explains its material-economic context
#expands(0.88) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 163 - Postcolonial literary theory’s rapid shift from nationalism to poststructuralism concealed material world dynamics
#expands(0.88) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 163 - Postcolonial subdisciplines emerged by distancing themselves from anti-imperialist activist politics and economics
#corroborates(0.86) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 365 - Postcolonial theory recasts decolonization as a literary-critical rather than political contest
#expands(0.85) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 393