Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies

State of the Field

Simon Lewis — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

This article considers the history and current status of African literary studies in the anglophone academy, especially in the United States. While African literary production has been valorized and validated in recent years, African literary studies lacks the recognition it deserves. In the US, African literary studies has always struggled to gain a foothold, tending to be marginalized within the marginalized. In African/Africana studies programs, literary studies can play second fiddle to political science, anthropology, history, and environmental studies. In language/literature departments, African literature courses—if taught at all—are likely to be infrequently offered electives. Outside of the big Title VI universities, the chances of finding an African literature specialist are slim—and those specialists are likely to be expected to teach a range of more general courses such as introductory surveys and upper-level courses in “rest-of-the-world”/postcolonial/Global South literature. African literary specialists have frequently expressed suspicion of the generalizing tendencies of literary theories, including postcolonial theory. Questions about the validity and applicability of postcolonial theory in the study of African literature still persist, but for grad students starting PhD programs since the mid 2000s what has dominated their experience has been the explosion not only of new primary texts and forms and modes of circulation, but the proliferation of ways of reading. Moving well beyond concerns with authenticity, tradition and modernity, language questions, questions about formalist or political approaches, contemporary scholars and their students are offering radically new kinds of readings, offering hope that the same kind of prominence enjoyed by Africa’s creative writers in recent years may yet be enjoyed by African literary scholars.

The Ambivalence of Revolutionary Cleaning in Mona Prince's "Revolution is My Name"

Nada Ayad — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Egyptian writer Mona Prince’s self-published 2012 memoir Revolution is My Name abounds with descriptions of transferring Tahrir Square into a domestic space during the 2011 Revolution: people nurturing fellow visitors and protestors; sharing of blankets, warm clothing and mattresses; cooking and eating; distributing Coca-Cola, endless cups of tea, cigarettes; and nursing the injured who clashed with the police. In one point in her chronicling of her political participation, she describes moving one of her friend’s mattresses out into the square and accepting food from whoever is offering it to her. She also details the square being cleaned by women of the elite class, heralding, in Prince’s imaginings, “a new people.” Focusing on descriptions of the cleaning of the square, this article argues that Prince expands domesticity’s political function while overlooking class and religious biases and blindness that undergird her theorizations of it. This blindness, I argue ultimately undermines the revolution’s attempt at total rupture from the unjust state regime of the past and extends insights into the entanglement of power, oppression and political resistance. Given that theorizations of cleanliness have been mobilized by the colonial project as an alibi for the gendered and racialized inequality of colonialism (and neocolonialism), cleaning here raises the specter of colonialism and highlights its mobility to function as a tool to measure complex class ambivalences.

Migration without Movement

Osarugue Otebele — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Discourses of migration often figure the migrant and those who stay behind as separate identities marked by locational differences. However, what is often the case is that movement is inextricable from immobility, and those who stay behind also perform culturally specific forms of migration. This possibility of migration without mobility and movement without migration is central to Sudabeh Mortezai’s 2018 Joy. Throughout the film, the physical and psychological immobility of Edo Women migrants captures viewers within the constructive structures of irregular migration. Looking closely at the film’s presentation of the relation between those who migrate and those who stay behind, this paper examines the manners through which the migrant body remains tethered to the country of departure and the migration of others. To do this, I engage the Nigerian concept of arrival, where one is said to have “arrived” when a family member travels to Europe. As the film demonstrates, and as I will explore, the migration process produces a bodily split that renders the migrant legible for migration and illegible for mobility while also securing the societal mobility of those left behind.

Situating Traditional Political Systems in the Nigerian Federal Governance

Ufot B. Inamete — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 00:00:00 -0400

The goal of this study is to examine how the precolonial political system impacts the postcolonial political system of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in order to provide an increased understanding of how the Nigerian political system functions. The traditional political systems that exist today in Nigeria constitute a fundamental element in the political system of postcolonial Nigeria (Awolowo 1975, 103–106 and Azikiwe 1975, 100–102). Universally, political systems contain both older and newer political socialization frameworks, political cultures/value systems, political processes, political structures/institutions, and policy outputs. The differing dynamics of political history of various countries result in varying profiles of mixture of older and newer frameworks for each country. The older or newer frameworks may be large, medium, or small in different countries. Therefore, the differing dynamics of political history result in a blend of older and newer frameworks on a continuum for countries. These frameworks will also inform this study’s focus on the impacts of traditional political systems in the modern political system of postcolonial Nigeria.

Imagining a New State

Rangnath Thakur, Binod Mishra — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 00:00:00 -0400

The famous Miliband-Poulantzas debate between the Marxist theorists Ralph Miliband and Nicos Poulantzas gave a new way to understand the conditions of states in a capitalist and neocolonial world. Later theorists, like Hamza Alavi, critiqued state theorists and emphasized that state formation and nation-building in postcolonial societies differ from the Western understanding of the state. In today’s world, there is an extensive body of literature by theorists and critical ethnographers defining and theorizing the postcolonial state. However, much before these “state theorists,” M. K. Gandhi problematized the conditions of postcolonial states. His emphasis on the localization of government is distinct from the economic model of capitalization and globalization in the current socioeconomic
configurations of the world. He imagined a state where Panchayat (villages) would be the basic units of administration, and every individual would be an essential part of the system. He emphasized empowering Grams (villages), which would lead India to be a truly progressive and democratic state. This localization of governance stands in direct opposition to the prevailing homogenous model of governance. Through a detailed analysis, this paper aims to shed light on the contrasting nature of localized governance and its divergence from centralized approaches. Additionally, it seeks to contextualize the various facets of Panchayati Raj within the framework of a capitalist and globalized society in the modern world. In doing so, the argument unfolds to underscore the significance of revisiting and reevaluating Gandhian principles for their potential insights into governance in the present context.

Expansions of the Real

Sten Moslund — Wed, 08 May 2024 00:00:00 -0400

This article explores the challenges posed by the Anthropocene and climate change to human perceptions of reality and the need to revise traditional notions of the real. The article examines Amitav Ghosh’s novel Gun Island as an attempt by Ghosh to break free from the anthropocentric limitations in the realist tradition that he identifies in his critical work in The Great Derangement in order to give shape to a new climate change realism capable of representing larger than human realities. The article studies the literary strategies Ghosh uses in Gun Island to cause a post-anthropocentric reality to emerge from beneath its concealment by anthropocentric worldviews: from uncanny animations of settings by nonhuman agencies to a metafictional blurring of fiction, imagination, perception and more-than-human realities, which, the article argues, inspires new ways of reading the real and quite concretely performs some of literature’s affordances in the cultural struggle against climate change.

Islam and the Thanatoethics of Sacrifice

Sk Sagir Ali — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 00:00:00 -0400

The Prophet Muhammad (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) once said that whoever is capable of performing qurbani (Muslim charitable giving) but does not should not come close to my Eidgah (a place of offering Eid prayers) (Khattab and
Khattab 2123). The primary objective of qurbani should be to achieve attainment that is intended to satisfy and get nearer to Allah in the way He likes. Sacrifice in Islam, in a circuitous logic, underlies the act of submission of one’s will to Him, the act of spending one’s material possessions on the path of the Supreme, an act of true giving. We would begin with the question: Is the moment of infinite giving, the transcendent offering, in a way, self-preserving? This paper shall attempt to understand how the theo-ontological idea of “sacrifice” operates in Islamic philosophy and how a deeper understanding of the gesture of qurbani might help us reconfigure the major representational elements surrounding Islamic culture and ethos in the post-9/11 scenario. Taking a cue from Derrida’s understanding of ethical “sacrifice,” this article shall try to understand how the figural gesture of sacrifice in Islam vis-à-vis Abrahamic ethics is fundamental to the understanding of qurbani in the post-9/11 xenophobic climate that has reduced the idea to a mere signifier of fundamentalism and cultural monism.

The Influence of Colonial Trauma on the Masculine Characteristics of Georgian Identity

Mzia Jamagidze — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 00:00:00 -0400

The present paper explores two Georgian literary texts written at the beginning of the twentieth century, at the early stage of Sovietization: Sanavardo by Demna Shengelaia, and Jaqo’s Dispossessed by Mikheil Javakhishvili. I aim to explore the traumatic effects of colonization on Georgian national consciousness and analyze its influence on the masculine characteristics of the Georgian identity. The issue of national self-identification has been raised, with all its sharpness, at every stage of fundamental historical and political changes in Georgia. The permanency of the issue is an indication of the fact that the national self-identification process has been associated with certain historical facts and events that have not been fully realized and existed as not overcome trauma, by society. Such an event is the Russian occupation of Georgia at the end of the nineteenth century. Based on trauma theory, the research shows that in both novels, the writers describe the lives of the main characters who lost their abilities and were unable to make purposeful use of their potential. Therefore, their political and social functions were represented by disregarding reality and distancing themselves from the present. The reasons for the negation of the present refer to the so-called existential fear of reality, which has caused a weakening or disappearance of masculine characteristics of
identity such as power, assertiveness, desire to own and control, and individual initiative.

Editor's Note

Hans-Georg Erney — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's note to issue 12-1 by Hans-Georg Erney

Notes on Contributors

JGPS Editors — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Contributor biographies for volume 12, issue 1 of the Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies.

Postcolonial Cinema’s Pop-Culture Turn

Jerod Ra’Del Hollyfield — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Bannister, Matthew. Eye of the Taika: New Zealand Comedy and the Films of Taika Waititi. Wayne State UP, 2021. 304 pp. Paperback. $36.99.

Carter, Erica, Bettina Malcomess, and Eileen Rositzska. Mapping the Sensible: Distribution, Inscription, Cinematic Thinking. De Gruyter, 2023. 155 pp. Paperback. $22.99.

Dima, Vlad. Meaninglessness: Time, Rhythm, and the Undead in Postcolonial Cinema. Michigan State UP, 2022. 190 pp. Paperback. $49.95.

Kim, Soyoung. Korean Cinema in Global Contexts: Post-Colonial Phantom, Blockbuster, and Trans-Cinema. Amsterdam UP, 2020. 212 pp. Hardcover. $131.00.

Majumdar, Rochona. Art Cinema and India’s Forgotten Futures: Film and History in the Postcolony. Columbia UP, 2021. 306 pages. Paperback. $35.00.

Sim, Gerald. Postcolonial Hangups in Southeast Asian Cinema: Poetics of Space, Sound, and Stability. Amsterdam UP, 2020. 254 pp. Hardcover. $138.00.