Download Cultural identities

“Can the Subaltern Speak?”
Colonial Education &
the Cultural Identities
Outline
Colonial Education
Cultural Identities: (Post)colonial
intellectuals; the subaltern.
Examples of the interrelations between
the two:
“Columbus in Chain”
“Good Advice is Rarer than Ruby”
“My Man Bonvanne”
Colonial Education
An example of Cultural imperialism
(knowledge is power) .
Colonial Education = Cultural
Assimilation. In this case, assimilation
“involves those who are colonized
being forced to conform to the cultures
and traditions of the colonizers.”
‘cultural domination works by consent
and often precedes conquest by
force“
(Gauri Viswanathan 85).
Source: http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Education.html
Presumptions & Goals of
Colonial Education: an example
Thomas B. Macaulay
1. Went to India when the
rule of East India was
being superseded by
that of the British crown.
2. in favor of the liberty of
the press and of the
equality of Europeans
and Indians before the
law.
3. who established India’s
educational system.
source
Presumptions & Goals of
Colonial Education: an example
Racist Presumptions: e.g. “a single shelf
of a good European library was worth the
whole native literature of India and Arabia”
Goal: "We must at present Can we use the same
standard to evaluate
do our best to form a
all kinds of literature?
class who may be
interpreters between us
and the millions whom we
Thus come the
govern; a class of
post/colonial
persons, Indian in blood
intellectuals.
and colour, but English in
taste, in opinions, in
(Thomas B. Macaulay)
morals, and in intellect.“ (source)
Colonial Education:
Consequences
Hierarchy of according to the people’s
languages and knowledge ;
Loss (or lack of interest in) of local
culture and history;
Identity: Silence, Lack of identity;
assimilated or hybrid identities.
“postcolonial/third-world intellectual”
: in an awkward position
The “subaltern” – Can they speak?
Cultural Identities: example 1
postcolonial/third-world intellectual:
sell-out/
Assimilationist
Imposition
of colonial
value
standards
One
language
nativist
separatist
Trying to
localize c.
culture, use
its power, to
serve one’s
own people.
Critical
Adaptation,
appropriation
(pc writers
writing in
English)
Hybridity;
dual language/identity
Celebrating
one’s own
culture/power
.
(e.g. Black
Power mov.)
One
language
postcolonial/third-world
intellectual: examples
-- some of the postcolonial theorists;
some of your teachers;
-- Buddha Bless America by 吳念真
The translators
-- 阿盛 (a retired teacher) in between the U.S.
(envy), Japan(hatred) and KMT (sly civility).
Clips 17, 18, 19
-- the US. army’s translator Clip 23.
Cultural Identities: example 2
“the subaltern” (textbook 210-14)
The subaltern: (definition p. 212)
The subordinated, the colonized.
“In, in the context of colonial
production, the subaltern has no
history and cannot speak, the
subaltern as female is even
more deeply in shadow.”
(textbook 212)
“Cannot speak” can mean:
1) = cannot be heard or understood.
-- does not have the master’s language to
speak; (in the chaos outside History,
outside the différence of language )
-- is not in a speaking position;
2) -- have no resisting consciousness.
Once they start to resist, they are no
longer “the subaltern.”
Spivak’s attempts in Context
Spivak: Stops over-simplistic representation of
the colonized.
Discuss women’s position as doubly
victimized. (e.g. Sati)
Politics of difference. (textbook 214)
Debates in postcolonialism:
High theories vs. literature of the people;
anti-humanism vs. revised views of humanism;
(e.g. “strategic use of positivist essentialism”)
total difference (sameness) vs. difference +
sameness.
The Subaltern: Examples
Buddha Bless America by 吳念真
阿盛 and his brother’s quest:clip 22;
The kids: appropriation clips: 20, 21, 24
Ms. Havana, My Van Bonvanne, Ms.
Hazel – can they really be heard? Or
only heard through a postcolonial
intellectual?
“Good Advice is Rarer than Ruby”
What position does Muhammad Ali take
in relation to Ms. Rehana and the other
applicants? What knowledge does he
hold?
Use of power: His speech about the
questions; his ”connection” with ‘a man
working in the Consulate.”
yelling
about the curse of “our people.”
His attraction to Ms. Rehana.
How do Ms. Rehana and the people
around (the bettlenut woman) respond
“My Man Bonvanne”
Toni Cade Bambara –committed to social
work but self-critical of her own work.
(e.g. the role of Ms. Moore in “The Lesson” &
the young activists in My Man Bonvanne.”)
Afro-American literature as minorities
literature.
Postcolonial because the Afro-Americans
suffer from internal colonization
Slavery, caused by capitalism as well as
colonialism.
examples of internal colonies: racial ghetto
and reservation areas for the aborigines.
“My Man Bonvanne”
Mrs. Hazel Peoples and Bonvanne:
Another blind person. How is
Bonvanne treated differently from
Maurice in “The Blind Man”?
How does Hazel relate to him?
How does Hazel interpret the phrase
“Old folks is the nation” differently
from her kids?
“My Man Bonvanne”
Mrs. Hazel Peoples and her “kids,”
Task, Elo, Jo Lee:
How do her children criticize her? And
how do they look at her relation with
Bonvanne?
Where do we get a sense of the kids’
sense of their cultural identities?
(e.g. their attitudes toward
‘generation gap’)