Third World literary theory’s rise marked retreat from activist anti-imperialism

Evidence

The cognate subdisciplines of ‘Third World Literature’ and ‘Colonial Discourse Analysis’ emerged at a time when radical theory was in the process of distancing itself from the kind of activist culture that had started developing throughout Western Europe and North America during the period of the great anti-imperialist struggles in Indochina and Southern Africa. This distancing on the part of contemporary metropolitan radicalism from its own immediate past has led to other kinds of distancing as well. In terms of historical periodization, there appears to be in both these subdisciplines far greater interest in the colonialism of the past than in the imperialism of the present. 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 Narratology, Discourse Analysis, Deconstruction, or New History of a Foucauldian kind. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 145

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the reader’s noted tension in the sacrifice article between political economy and cultural representation framings. — connects to: Third World Literature is a metropolitan fabrication, not a pre-existing category — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 192; Academic displacement of anti-imperial struggle substitutes literary critique for lived resistance. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 871; Cultural nationalism remains the constitutive ideology of Third World literary theory. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 263 (+2 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: Dense and paradigm-shifting: links the entire shift of academic interest from past colonialism to present imperialism, from facts to fictions, from the US to Britain/France, to a single political origin — distance from the actual anti-imperialist activism of the Indochina era. Resists one-sentence summary.

Related

• Third World literary theory effaces Marxism-rooted radical cultural heritage (similarity 0.93)
• Postcolonial subdisciplines emerged by distancing themselves from anti-imperialist activist politics and economics (similarity 0.88)
• Cultural nationalism remains the constitutive ideology of Third World literary theory. (similarity 0.88)
• Third World Literature emerged only through the mediating archive of Western languages (similarity 0.86)
• The ‘Third World Literature’ category originated amid socialist retreat and bourgeois-nationalist resurgence. (similarity 0.85)
• Metropolitan theory idealized the singularized Third World as the site of cultural opposition (similarity 0.85)
• Third World Literature is a metropolitan fabrication, not a pre-existing category (similarity 0.85)
• Postcolonial theory’s turn to representation displaced study of imperialist political economy (similarity 0.85)
• The ‘Third World Literature’ category presumed a primordial civilizational difference from the West. (similarity 0.85)
• Academic displacement of anti-imperial struggle substitutes literary critique for lived resistance. (similarity 0.84)
• Cultural nationalism is constitutive of postcolonial theory’s theoretical stances. (similarity 0.84)
• Claims that homogenize ‘Third World Literature’ obscure the imperialist-determined fortunes of its producing bourgeoisie (similarity 0.84)
• Third World Literature as a category is built on Western language archives (similarity 0.84)
• The category ‘Third World’ has polemical but no theoretical status (similarity 0.83)
• The category ‘Third World Literature’ emerged only when ex-colonial migrants demanded metropolitan middle-class inclusion (similarity 0.83)