Post colonial vs postmodern (1 Viewer)

miss_salty

Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2004
Messages
51
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
How are postcolonial texts distinctly disparate from postmodern texts? Considering that some postcolonial texts uses postmodern devices (such as blurring fact/fiction, self-reflexivity etc) to challenge imperialism and the dominant culture of western, are they not postmodernism? So is there a connection between postcolonialism and postmodernism?

Im just cofused.:(
 

Ziff

Active Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2003
Messages
2,366
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
Just off the top of my head... so correct me if I'm wrong:

Post-colonial texts are those written by cultures and people who were previously colonised by a foreign power. Generally, their aim is to reintroduce traditional values, ideas, thoughts etc into that country's literature. Usually, it's done through incorporating many of the myths and beliefs of the culture but also by meshing English with the native language to create something that is not at all like a traditional English text and often they have a very different stucture and way of writing. Often, they seek to reconcile the differences between the natives who have been dispossesed by their foreign colonisers and the colonisers so they can live together. It's not reactionary in any sense against the "invaders" but it tries to reestablish a sense of pride and "nationalism/patriotism" amongst the native cultures.

Postmodernism is a way of thought. Many of its ways of thinking can be traced back to early 20th century philosophers such as Nietschze and one of it's key beliefs is "there are no facts, only interpretations". Post-modernism also challenges everything. It doesn't believe there's a traditional anything, it challenges the notions of the modernist period (the modernist period was characterised by a belief in the "new" only and it also believed in grand narratives/metanarratives [an overriding view of the world or sketches of reality in narrative form e.g. Capitalism and Marxism which both espoused that they would emancipate humanity from all its problems] - postmodernism challenges all these). Postmodernism challenges all these but it also incorporates them e.g. postmodernism doesn't get rid of the belief in the "new" (as in advances in technology etc) but it meshs it with the old. So you have a mixture of traditional values and idea and the new. You can see this sort of thing coming through in post-colonialism where one of the key tenets of most of the texts is to reconcile the differences between the traditional way of life and the new way of life introduced by the foreign powers.

Most of these sort of things are intertwined with each other these days.
 
Last edited:

my_dirigible

New Member
Joined
Mar 30, 2004
Messages
21
Location
the inner city of Sydney
From my understanding of Postmodernism, if it uses postmodern tecniques it is postmodern (to me) when you consider the idea that (as the mighty smart Ziff put it) postmodernism rejects the idea of the 'new' and follows the idea that nothing is new anymore, everything has been done and anything that is "new" today is just a product/combination of the old. This is why you'll find with many postmodern art peices (lapses into wanky art-speak) there are references to traditional "high art" through appropriation.

So i would say that the writer your talking about is referencing the notion of post colonialism but exicuting it in a postmodernist manner.
 
Joined
Apr 3, 2004
Messages
7,986
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
In glitterfairy-speak, Post-colonial and Modernism says that "what has been written before is wrong, this is the real deal". Post-modernism says "nothing is the real deal, nothing is right or wrong, de-stabalise everything".

Childish, I know, but it works for me! :D

Best wishes!
 
Last edited:

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)

Top