Postcolonial theory recasts decolonization as a literary-critical rather than political contest

Evidence

In this sort of formulation the ‘contest over decolonization’ becomes mainly a literary and literary-critical affair, and the elite academic intelligentsia claims for itself, in an amazing gap between fact and self-image, the role of the world’s revolutionary vanguard. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 393

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader claim that academic theory substitutes discursive for material struggle; resonates with critiques of the linguistic turn in political history. — connects to: Decoloniality rejects postcolonialism for complicity in Western universalist thinking — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 267; African literature entered US syllabi as nationalist evidence, not critical object — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 261; Postcolonial literary theory’s rapid shift from nationalism to poststructuralism concealed material world dynamics — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 163 (+8 more)

Related

• Postcolonial literary theory obscures the political and economic materialities determining it (similarity 0.88)
• French colonial defeats and occupation, not Asian decolonization, radicalized Western literary theory (similarity 0.87)
• Poststructuralism’s rise in colonial literary theory conceals rather than explains its material-economic context (similarity 0.87)
• Theory’s ideological shifts track the real fortunes of decolonized states (similarity 0.87)
• African literature entered US syllabi as nationalist evidence, not critical object (similarity 0.87)
• Postcolonial literary theory’s rapid shift from nationalism to poststructuralism concealed material world dynamics (similarity 0.85)
• Postcolonial theory’s turn to representation displaced study of imperialist political economy (similarity 0.85)
• Postcolonial theory lacks a systematic periodization of its own practices. (similarity 0.85)
• Postcolonial subdisciplines emerged by distancing themselves from anti-imperialist activist politics and economics (similarity 0.84)
• Postcolonial status denotes structural state shifts, not mere birth after decolonization (similarity 0.83)
• Decolonization produced a proliferation, not decline, of literature in colonial languages (similarity 0.82)
• Cultural theory requires a materialist theory of imperial history (similarity 0.82)
• Western literary theory’s political turn originated in crises from anti-colonial wars (similarity 0.82)
• Postcolonial Anglo-American academy discourse erased a structural split between revolutionary and national-bourgeois decolonization. (similarity 0.82)
• Cultural nationalism is constitutive of postcolonial theory’s theoretical stances. (similarity 0.82)