The Literary Theory: Nervous Habitations: Reading Post-Colonial Theory Through Literature
By Dr. Ruchi Mundeja
“The status of the ‘native’ is a nervous condition introduced and maintained by the settler among colonised people with their consent.”
Jean-Paul Sarte
On 15th January, 2022, Jabberwock resumed its Literary Theory series with a session titled “Nervous Habitations: Reading Post-Colonial Theory Through Literature” which was conducted by Dr. Ruchi Mundeja.
Dr. Mundeja elected to address the broad subject through sections of periodisation, language and colonial education, gender and material repository. As the subject was introduced through a discussion on theory, she spoke of how a “poor” theory is one that excludes lived experiences. For this primary reason, she calls for a blurring between the lines of post-colonial theory and literature.
Dr. Mundeja made the audience note the biologised language which pervades colonial and postcolonial literature with imagery and metaphors aligning processes like ingestion, regurgitation, etc. A careful observation of the same makes her state, albeit hesitantly because of its simplistic segregation, that ingestion and purging correlate with the colonial and postcolonial.
She warns against strict temporal definitions and markers for what constitutes the “post-colonial” as such periodisation is not entirely accurate. The sentiments for a post-colonial era take root much before the end of colonial rule and the effects of colonialism linger long after being dismantled. In the very term, as critics note, the “colonial” remains privileged due to being the primary referent for the entire discourse. Furthermore, apart from its dubious spatiality is the suggestion of a problematic temporality. Ella Shohat states, “The lack of historical specificity in the “post” leads to a collapsing of diverse chronologies.” Speaking of the models and ramifications of such blurred temporalities and de-chronologization of the term in the reinvention of high modernism, Dr. Mundeja brings up Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dullaway. She observes that even in the expression of Woolf’s pungent scepticism towards the national imperialist narratives and cosmopolitan consciousness, the interest in the colonial is minimal and metaphorical at best and the critique is turned inwards.
Language and, by extension, colonial education are strong complications in the lived and inherited experiences of colonialism. The navigation through the same has been done in different ways. In one place, there is the contestatory, cultural nationalism of a writer like Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o which eschews English and embraces the native language entirely. While Carribean writers and Achebe argue for the creolisation of English, a kind of cross-fertilisation by integrating into the English the native cultural and linguistic patterns and poetic lexicon. John Agard’s “Listen Mr. Oxford Don” contains combative elements in this discourse. When Things Fall Apart speaks of proverbs, it is a nod to the rich linguistic tradition of a people. Michelle Cliff talks of “the red empire of geography classes.” “The Sun never sets on the British empire” exudes a rosy, exalted image and aura of the British empire but the matter-of-fact manner of detailing their quests fills her with fire; the “red” she imagines is of the blood on the atlases.
The relationship between women and nation-building has remained an uncomfortable one. It is easy to observe the wish to foreground their subjectivity in their narratives which is self-consciously at odds with conventional narratives which have confined women to a supine position, as stable, load-bearers of tradition. Dr. Mundeja also brought up the New Zealand poet Robin Hyde, whose personal, affective writings were part of the 1930s literary resurgence of writers in New Zealand trying to establish a corpus of New Zealand Literature. However, these were marginalised because their representations were considered to be too miniaturised to fit the male, robust, vital, nationalist idea of poetics.
A counter-narrative to gendered and colonial exclusionary mechanisms was taken up by material repositories such as bookshops and presses whose very names thwarted the maleness of the canon such The Second Shelf, Sisterwrite, Zubaan Books, etc.
The lecture concluded with a question-answer session before a grateful audience expressed their appreciation for Dr. Mundeja’s talk.
Dr. Mundeja’s areas of interest and specialisation include Modernist Literatures, Post-Colonial Studies and Women’s Writing. She is currently an Associate Professor at Lakshmibai College, University of Delhi.
Jean-Paul Sarte
On 15th January, 2022, Jabberwock resumed its Literary Theory series with a session titled “Nervous Habitations: Reading Post-Colonial Theory Through Literature” which was conducted by Dr. Ruchi Mundeja.
Dr. Mundeja elected to address the broad subject through sections of periodisation, language and colonial education, gender and material repository. As the subject was introduced through a discussion on theory, she spoke of how a “poor” theory is one that excludes lived experiences. For this primary reason, she calls for a blurring between the lines of post-colonial theory and literature.
Dr. Mundeja made the audience note the biologised language which pervades colonial and postcolonial literature with imagery and metaphors aligning processes like ingestion, regurgitation, etc. A careful observation of the same makes her state, albeit hesitantly because of its simplistic segregation, that ingestion and purging correlate with the colonial and postcolonial.
She warns against strict temporal definitions and markers for what constitutes the “post-colonial” as such periodisation is not entirely accurate. The sentiments for a post-colonial era take root much before the end of colonial rule and the effects of colonialism linger long after being dismantled. In the very term, as critics note, the “colonial” remains privileged due to being the primary referent for the entire discourse. Furthermore, apart from its dubious spatiality is the suggestion of a problematic temporality. Ella Shohat states, “The lack of historical specificity in the “post” leads to a collapsing of diverse chronologies.” Speaking of the models and ramifications of such blurred temporalities and de-chronologization of the term in the reinvention of high modernism, Dr. Mundeja brings up Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dullaway. She observes that even in the expression of Woolf’s pungent scepticism towards the national imperialist narratives and cosmopolitan consciousness, the interest in the colonial is minimal and metaphorical at best and the critique is turned inwards.
Language and, by extension, colonial education are strong complications in the lived and inherited experiences of colonialism. The navigation through the same has been done in different ways. In one place, there is the contestatory, cultural nationalism of a writer like Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o which eschews English and embraces the native language entirely. While Carribean writers and Achebe argue for the creolisation of English, a kind of cross-fertilisation by integrating into the English the native cultural and linguistic patterns and poetic lexicon. John Agard’s “Listen Mr. Oxford Don” contains combative elements in this discourse. When Things Fall Apart speaks of proverbs, it is a nod to the rich linguistic tradition of a people. Michelle Cliff talks of “the red empire of geography classes.” “The Sun never sets on the British empire” exudes a rosy, exalted image and aura of the British empire but the matter-of-fact manner of detailing their quests fills her with fire; the “red” she imagines is of the blood on the atlases.
The relationship between women and nation-building has remained an uncomfortable one. It is easy to observe the wish to foreground their subjectivity in their narratives which is self-consciously at odds with conventional narratives which have confined women to a supine position, as stable, load-bearers of tradition. Dr. Mundeja also brought up the New Zealand poet Robin Hyde, whose personal, affective writings were part of the 1930s literary resurgence of writers in New Zealand trying to establish a corpus of New Zealand Literature. However, these were marginalised because their representations were considered to be too miniaturised to fit the male, robust, vital, nationalist idea of poetics.
A counter-narrative to gendered and colonial exclusionary mechanisms was taken up by material repositories such as bookshops and presses whose very names thwarted the maleness of the canon such The Second Shelf, Sisterwrite, Zubaan Books, etc.
The lecture concluded with a question-answer session before a grateful audience expressed their appreciation for Dr. Mundeja’s talk.
Dr. Mundeja’s areas of interest and specialisation include Modernist Literatures, Post-Colonial Studies and Women’s Writing. She is currently an Associate Professor at Lakshmibai College, University of Delhi.
Written by Nooria Fatima