Postcolonial theory lacks a systematic periodization of its own practices.

Evidence

As one now examines that branch of literary theory which poses those questions, one is struck by the fact that while the privileging of cultural nationalism as the determinate political energy of our time takes place under one or another variant of the Three Worlds Theory, the subsequent move against nationalismall of itis made under a completely different theoretical signature, that of poststructuralism. The two moments - politically, for and against nationalism; .theoretically, Third-Worldism and poststrucruralism - remain discrete and epiphenomenal, even though the more outlandish of the poststructuralists have tried to combine them. What this branch of literary theory has lacked is a larger configuration of concepts that may produce a systematic periodization of its own practices and of that world to which it constantly refers, so that it may overcome the discreteness of moments and their second-order explanations. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 161

Categorization

• XREF: Ahmad’s critique of discourse-determinism blocking material/class analysis connects to the reader’s stated concern about strategic essentialism being discourse-first and evasive of material structures.
• QUESTION: Is this diagnosis borne out by Ahmad’s own analysis elsewhere, or does he offer the missing ‘larger configuration of concepts’?