Postcolonialism Cross-Examined
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Postcolonialism Cross-Examined Taking a strikingly interdisciplinary and global approach, Postcolonialism Cross-Examined reflects on the current status of postcolonial studies and attempts to break through traditional boundaries, creating a truly comparative and genuinely global phenomenon. Drawing together the field of mainstream postcolonial studies with post-Soviet postcolonial studies and studies of the late Ottoman Empire, the contributors in this volume question many of the concepts and assumptions we have become accustomed to in postcolonial studies, creating a fresh new version of the field. The volume calls the merits of the field into question, investigating how postcolonial studies may have perpetuated and normalized colonialism as an issue exclusive to Western colonial and imperial powers. The volume is the first to open a dialogue between three different areas of postcolonial scholarship that previously developed independently from one another: • the wide field of postcolonial studies working on European colonialism, • the growing field of post-Soviet postcolonial/post-imperial studies, • the still fledgling field of post-Ottoman postcolonial/post-imperial studies, supported by sideways glances at the multidirectional conditions of interaction in East Africa and the East and West Indies. Postcolonialism Cross-Examined looks at topics such as humanism, nationalism, multiculturalism, nostalgia, and the Anthropocene in order to piece together a new, broader vision for postcolonial studies in the twenty-first century. By including territories other than those covered by the postcolonial mainstream, the book strives to reframe the “postcolonial” as a genuinely global phenomenon and develop multidirectional postcolonial perspectives. Monika Albrecht is Professor of literary and cultural studies (apl. Prof.) at the University of Vechta, Germany. Postcolonialism Cross-Examined Multidirectional Perspectives on Imperial and Colonial Pasts and the Neocolonial Present Edited by Monika Albrecht First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Monika Albrecht; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Monika Albrecht to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Albrecht, Monika, editor. Title: Postcolonialism cross-examined / edited by Monika Albrecht. Description: First edition. | New York, NY: Routledge, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019004304 | ISBN 9781138344174 (hardback: alk. paper) | ISBN 9780367222543 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Postcolonialism in literature. | Postcolonialism– Political aspects. | Postcolonialism–Social aspects. Classification: LCC PN56.P555 P6776 2019 | DDC 809/.93358–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019004304 ISBN: 978-1-138-34417-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-22254-3 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India A. Paul Weber: The White Man’s Burden (c) VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018 Contents List of figures x List of contributors xi Acknowledgments xiv 1 Introduction: Postcolonialism cross-examined: Multidirectional perspectives on imperial and colonial pasts and the neocolonial present 1 MONIKA ALBRECHT PART I Post-colonial complexities 49 2 Humanism, embodied knowledge, and postcolonial theory 51 JOHN K. NOYES 3 Postcolonial studies, creolizations, and migrations 65 FRANÇOISE LIONNET 4 The pre-postcolonial and its enduring relevance: Afro-Asian variations in Edwar al-Kharrat’s texts 79 HALA HALIM PART II Case studies in light of unchanged asymmetries 97 5 Accommodating “Syrien im Krieg”: Matrices of colonialism 1914–1917 99 FLORIAN KROBB viii Contents 6 Postcolonial asymmetry: Coping with the consequences of genocide between Namibia and Germany 117 REINHART KÖßLER 7 Postcolonial theory as post-colonial nationalism 135 DIRK UFFELMANN 8 Colonial lifestyle and nostalgia: The Ottoman Belle Époque and the project of modernization in Greek literature and heritage TV series 153 YANNIS G.S. PAPADOPOULOS 9 The postcolonial condition, the decolonial option, and the post-socialist intervention 165 MADINA TLOSTANOVA PART III Towards a multidirectional approach to the postcolonial 179 10 Unthinking postcolonialism: On the necessity for a reset instead of a step forward 181 MONIKA ALBRECHT 11 From Cuzco to Constantinople: Rethinking postcolonialism 196 GREGORY JUSDANIS 12 Afrasian prisms of postcolonial memory: German colonialism in East Africa and the Indian Ocean universe in contemporary anglophone and German literature 217 DIRK GÖTTSCHE 13 The colonizer’s day off: Colonial subjectivities in the Soviet-era Baltics 240 EPP ANNUS 14 Latvian multiculturalism and postcolonialism 255 BENEDIKTS KALNAČS Contents ix PART IV Yet another major challenge 269 15 Narratives of the Anthropocene: From the perspective of postcolonial ecocriticism and environmental humanities 271 GABRIELE DÜRBECK Index 289 Figures Frontispiece: A. Paul Weber: The White Man’s Burden (c) VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018 v 3.1 Reena Saini Kallat: Untitled Map Installation, 2011 69 3.2 Oost Indien (East Indies), 1689 70 5.1 Map 1913 104 Contributors Monika Albrecht is Professor of literary and cultural studies (apl. Prof.) at the University of Vechta, Germany, and Director of a University Partnership with Greece (2017–2019). Her areas of research are in German culture, history, politics, and literature of the 20th/21st century. Recent publica- tions include “Southeastern European History as (Post-) Colonial History” and “Displacement and Extinction of the Ottoman Greeks.” Epp Annus is Senior Researcher with the Estonian Literature Museum, Estonia. She is the author of Soviet Postcolonial Studies: A View from the Western Borderlands (Routledge, 2018) and the editor of Coloniality, Nationality, Modernity: A Postcolonial View on Baltic Cultures under Soviet Rule (Routledge, 2018). Gabriele Dürbeck is Professor of literary and cultural studies at the University of Vechta, Germany. Her areas of research and publication include travel literature, postcolonial studies, and environmental humanities. She is currently directing a project on “Narratives of the Anthropocene in Science and Literature” (2017–2019), funded by the German Research Foundation. Dirk Göttsche is Professor of German at the University of Nottingham. He completed his PhD at the University of Münster in 1986 and his Habilitation in 1999; he is a member of the Academia Europaea and Honorary President of “Internationale Raabe-Gesellschaft.” His research areas include German literature from the Enlightenment to the present day; literary Realism, short prose, Austrian Modernism, and postcolonial literary studies; time, history, and memory in literature; and comparative literature. Hala Halim is Associate Professor of comparative literature and Middle Eastern studies at New York University, USA. Her scholarship addresses cosmopolitanism, Global South comparatism, and translation studies. She served as guest editor of the 2017 special issue of the annual peer- reviewed bilingual (Arabic/English) Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics published by the American University in Cairo. xii Contributors Gregory Jusdanis is Distinguished Arts and Humanities Professor and teaches comparative literature and modern Greek at the Ohio State University, USA. His most recent publication was A Tremendous Thing: Friendship from the “Iliad” to the Internet, and he is now working on a biography of C.P. Cavafy and a comparative study between Greece and Latin America. Benedikts Kalnačs is Head of the Literature Department at the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia, Riga, and Professor of comparative literature, University of Liepāja (Latvia), as well as Executive Committee Member of the European Society of Comparative Literature. His most recent publication was 20th Century Baltic Drama: Postcolonial Narratives, Decolonial Options (2016). Reinhart Kößler was Director of the Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institut, Freiburg, and is Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Freiburg. He is Visiting Professor and Research Associate at the Institute of Reconciliation and Social Justice, the University of the Free State, South Africa, and Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Education Freiburg. He is editor of Peripherie: Politik – Ökonomie – Kultur, and author of Namibia and Germany: Negotiating the Past (2015). Florian Krobb is Professor of German in the School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, National University of Ireland Maynooth, and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Stellenbosch. His latest book is Vorkoloniale Afrika-Penetrationen: Diskursive Vorstöße