How can the question of authority, the power and presence of the English, be posed in the interstices of a double inscription? I have no wish to replace an idealist myth—the metaphoric English book—with a historicist one—the colonialist project of English civility. Such a reductive reading would deny what is obvious, that the representation of colonial authority depends less on a universal symbol of English identity than on its productivity as a sign of difference. Yet in my use of (...) “English” there is a “transparency” of reference that registers a certain obvious presence: the Bible translated into Hindi, propagated by Dutch or native catechists, is still the English book; a Polish émigré, deeply influenced by Gustave Flaubert, writing about Africa, produces an English classic. What is there about such a process of visibility and recognition that never fails to be an authoritative acknowledgement without ceasing to be a “spacing between desire and fulfillment, between perpetuation and its recollection … [a] medium [which] has nothing to do with a center” ?This question demands a departure from Derrida’s objectives in “The Double Session”; a turning away from the vicissitudes of interpretation in the mimetic act of reading to the question of the effects of power, the inscription of strategies of individuation and domination in those “dividing practices” which construct the colonial space—a departure from Derrida which is also a return to those moments in his essay when he acknowledges the problematic of “presence” as a certain quality of discursive transparency which he describes as “the production of mere reality-effects” or “the effect of content” or as the problematic relation between the “medium of writing and the determination of each textual unit.” In the rich ruses and rebukes with which he shows up the “false appearance of the present,” Derrida fails to decipher the specific and determinate system of address that is signified by the “effect of content” . It is precisely such a strategy of address—the immediate presence of the English—that engages the questions of authority that I want to raise. When the ocular metaphors of presence refer to the process by which content is fixed as an “effect of the present,” we encounter not plenitude but the structured gaze of power whose objective is authority, whose “subjects” are historical. Homi K. Bhabha is lecturer in English literature and literary theory at the University of Sussex. He is working at present on Power and Spectacle: Colonial Discourse and the English Novel and is commissioning and editing a collection of essays entitled Nation and Narration: Post-structuralism and the Culture of National Identity. He is also writing the introduction to the new English edition of Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks. (shrink)

With the Hegel Lecture 2010, held by Homi K. Bhabha, the Dahlem Humanities Center is launching the Open Access publication of the series. In his talk, Bhabha evokes the spirit of Hegel in an attempt to understand contemporary issues of ethical witness, historical memory and the rights and representations of minorities in the cultural sphere. Who is our neighbour today? What does hospitality mean for our times? Why is the recognition of others such an agonizing encounter with (...) the alterity of the self? The lecture examplifies how the “Third Space” - one of the key theories of Postcolonialism - helps us to establish a new understanding of cosmopolitanism and hospitality in a globalized world, based on the right of difference in equality. (shrink)

This is a tribute to Ulrich Beck and a rumination on his legacy in work on cosmopolitanism, translation, anxiety, and memory. Historical transitions and symbolic transmissions open up urgent questions about the connection between the structure of collective memory and the system of cosmopolitical thought. Public memory is embedded in an affective matrix of anxiety which is capable of creating the conciliatory conditions of political virtue and of fueling the terror of political passion. The vicious and sudden turn of cosmopolitan (...) memory from reconciliation to revenge is less surprising if anxiety is seen as the translational moment that mediates relations between remembering and forgetting. Anxiety forces the discourse of cosmopolitan memory to confront its own alterity, negotiating a knife-edge balance between sympathy and antipathy. The ethics of cosmopolitanism is an anxious ethics of the past that refuses to die, confronting a future that will not wait to be born. (shrink)

In this paper, I tried to bring two domains of thought together, namely postcolonial theory and feminist theory, by doing a comparative analysis of the concept of mimicry in the works of Homi K. Bhabha and Luce Irigaray.

In times of crisis, when democracies are under threat, our lessons of justice and equality are best learnt from those who are marginalized or oppressed. There could be hope for democracy if responses to the attacks of September 11, for example, were characterized not by blind revenge but by democratic solidarity. To think of democracy in terms of non-realized ideals does not adequately challenge the failures of its promises. ‘Not to respond’ is often a strategic necessity for democratic discourse, which (...) recognizes failure as part of its evolutionist and utopian narrative. The internal dialectic of the unrealized finds in the negative instance of failure a strange moral coherence. Thus it is proposed to consider democracy as something de-realized rather than unrealized. The term ‘de-realized’ places the democratic experience at a distance, in a context not of its making, in order to de-familiarize it and to block its natural or normative reference. The idea is to see the potential of democracy in translation or in an extraterritorial sense. Democracy’s potential lies not in its failure but in its frailty. (shrink)

In the name of hybridity and of « cultural difference », contrasted here from « cultural diversity », the author proposes a critique of the relativist liberalism which currently justifies the « multiculturalist » policies favoured in the UK, showing how such policies are linked with an ethnocentered form of universalism.

Bhabha, Georges Didi-Huberman, David Morgan and Lee Siegel, as well as a series of focused contributions by Yve-Alain Bois, Wendy Doniger, Kenneth Frampton, Martin E. Marty, John Hallmark Neff, Annemarie Schimmel, and Helen Tworkov consider how rapture resonate's both in a cultural context and within the experience of a single human being.

Il saggio evoca lo spirito di Hegel, nel tentativo di comprendere le problematiche contemporanee legate alla testimonianza etica, alla memoria storica, ai diritti e alle rappresentazioni delle minoranze all'interno della sfera culturale. Chi č oggi il nostro vicino? Cosa significa ospitalitÀ di questi tempi? Perché il riconoscimento degli altri diviene spesso un incontro straziante con l'alteritÀ del sé? L'articolo esemplifica come il ‘Terzo Spazio' - uno dei concetti chiave del postcolonialismo - puň aiutarci a costruire una nuova concezione di ospitalitÀ (...) all'interno di un mondo globalizzato e cosmopolita, una concezione che poggia sul diritto alla differenza nell'uguaglianza. (shrink)

This article deals with some earlier applications of psychology for the analysis of the colonial condition offered by three thinkers—Octave Mannoni, Frantz Fanon and recent applications of Freudian psychoanalytical theory in the poststructuralist approach of Homi K. Bhaba. An attempt is made to compare their standpoints and reflect more broadly on what their implications mean for the future of psychoanalysis’ place in postcolonial critique. Also to answer a vital question in the theoretical project of postcolonial (...) studies: Is psychoanalysis a universally applicable theory for psychic disruption in the colonial context? What are differences in the application of psychological theory for studies of colonial discourse? The conclusion of the paper is: Despite the problematic inheritance of racializing thinking psychoanalysis has proved to be an important and reoccurring methodology in colonial critique and postcolonial theory. Nevertheless, it is necessary to recognize that psychoanalysis itself is a colonial discipline and must become an object of colonial discourse analysis. (shrink)

Source: Author: Shima Peimanfard, Mohsen Hanif This essay sets out to study the function of hybridity and mimicry in Jean Rhy’s acclaimed novel Wide Sargasso Sea drawing on Homi K. Bhabha’s theoretical framework in this regard. In this novel, Antoinette emerges as the “Other” who aims to prove herself to the “Centre”. Undergoing extreme sufferings, the heroine wistfully ponders mimicry as an impulse to break out of her mare’s nest and to establish herself within one culture. (...) Indeed, unlike what Bhabha believes mimicry cannot upset the total authority of the “Centre”. Meanwhile, Antoinette used it as a result of her longings for the position of the “Centre” which she is unable to attain because of her hybrid existence. Countering Homi K. Bhabha’s central argument, this essay contends that Antoinette’s mimicry of Englishness fails to fend off the norms of the superior power, but partakes in celebrating the very ideals that Bhabah’s theory is trying to keep at bay. ]]>. (shrink)

Restless Ideas is a lively new textbook of contemporary social theory that speaks directly to the anxious age in which we live today. In addition to providing a highly readable guided tour of major social theories from the mid-20th to the early 21st century, this book is full of dynamic examples that show how these theories may be used to deepen our understanding of current events and of our own life experiences. The emergence of demagogic political leaders like Donald (...) Trump in the USA, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey; the rise of religious fundamentalism, terrorism, and political populism; the digital echo-chamber of social media; and the underlying causes of Brexit are only some of the many current social issues that can be framed through contemporary social theories. Similarly, the politics of sexual, racial and ethnic minorities can be analyzed through the prism of theoretical perspectives such as queer theory, standpoint and intersectional theory, postcolonial theory and critical race theory, while the ongoing struggles for gender equality and gender justice can usefully be examined through the generational perspectives of feminist theories. This book sets the stage with a critical discussion of the loaded history of the social theory canon and makes the argument that there has never been a better time than the present to broaden our understanding of our shared global heritage of social theory, to include some of the formerly excluded classics of past social thinkers, and to open the doors to current social thinkers theorizing from the margins. The book traces the modern roots of contemporary social theory back to the works of the early structural functionalists, systems theorists, conflict theorists, symbolic interactionists, ethnomethodologists and sociobiologists, building on and at times inverting the canon with the critical advancements to social theory. Later chapters focus on the current influence of structuration theory, third wave critical theory, postmodernism and poststructuralism, critical race theory, postcolonialism, liquid and late modernity theories, and globalization theories. These perspectives include the works of contemporary social theorists such as Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu, Juliet Mitchell, Dorothy Smith, Judith Butler, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard, Gayatri Spivak, Homi K. Bhabha, Zygmunt Bauman, Slavoj Zizek, Alain Badiou, Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, Nancy Fraser, Manuel Castells and Ulrich Beck. The underlying premise - and the promise - of this book is that social theory has the power to provide us with the skills for more informed observation, analysis, and empathic understanding of social behavior and social interaction. In a word: the value of social theory may be seen in how it can enhance social literacy - by deepening our understanding of the world around us, and by empowering us to become practical theorists in our own lives. (shrink)

The essay takes up the issue of postcolonial representation in terms of a critique of European modernism that has been symptomatic of much postcolonial theoretical debates in the recent years. It tries to enumerate the epistemic changes within the paradigm of postcolonial theoretical writing that began tentatively with the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1978 and has taken a curious postmodern turn in recent years with the writings of Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha. The (...) essay primarily focuses on Bhabha’s concepts of ambivalence and mimicry and his politics of theoretical anarchism that take the representation debate to a newer height vis-à-vis modes of religious nationalism and Freudian psychoanalysis. It is interesting to see how Bhabha locates these within a postmodern paradigm. (shrink)

Nietzsche stands alone among the great nineteenth-century philosophers of history to have been trained and employed as an historian. As a classical philologist, he was trained not only in Ancient languages, but also in the methods of critical hermeneutics, textual genealogy, and cultural theory. Despite this there has been comparatively little scholarly attention paid to Nietzsche's most pointed reflection on history: _On the Uses and Disadvantage of History for Life _, the second of his _Untimely Meditations_. In (...) this monograph, Anthony K. Jensen demonstrates how ‘timely’ this work of Nietzsche’s is, revealing a text that offers insight into the most important aspects of Nietzsche’s then-contemporary philosophy of history, including teleological theories, Hegelianism, Positivism, romantic historiography, classical philology, and the role of history in education and politics. Using a straightforward and conversational approach, Jensen contextualizes the figures and movements that serve as Nietzsche’s interlocutors, and situates this text within Nietzsche’s larger philosophical project. Through an examination of Nietzsche's views, the author argues for the contemporary philosophical relevance of _On the Uses and Disadvantage of History for Life_, and advances the scholarly discussion of this oft-overlooked but nevertheless essential text. (shrink)

With his _An Interpretation of Nietzsche’s "On the Uses and Disadvantage of History for Life_", Anthony K. Jensen shows how 'timely' Nietzsche’s second "Untimely Meditation" really is. This comprehensive and insightful study contextualizes and analyzes a wide range of Nietzsche’s earlier thoughts about history: teleology, typology, psychology, memory, classical philology, Hegelianism, and the role historiography plays in modern culture. _On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life_ is shown to be a ‘timely’ work, too, insofar as (...) it weaves together a number of Nietzsche's most important influences and thematic directions at that time: ancient culture, science, epistemology, and the thought of Schopenhauer and Burckhardt. Rather than dismiss it as a mere ‘early’ work, Jensen shows how the text resonates in Nietzsche’s later perspectivism, his theory of subjectivity, and Eternal Recurrence. And by using careful philological analysis of the text’s composition history, Jensen is in position to fully elucidate and evaluate Nietzsche’s arguments in their proper contexts. As such Jensen’s _Interpretation_ should restore Nietzsche’s second "Untimely Meditation" to a prominent place among 19 th Century philosophies of history. (shrink)

The recent resurgence of extreme-right movements and the nationalist turn of many governments across the world have reignited the relevance of discussions within educational philosophy about the teaching of national identity in schools. However, the conceptualisation of national identity in previous iterations of these debates have been largely Western and Eurocentric, making the past theoretical literature about these questions less relevant for post-colonial settings. In this paper, I imagine a new approach for teaching national identity in post- colonial (...) contexts, founded on postcolonial conceptions of identity and in particular, the concept of hybridity. I first develop a postcolonial account of national identity by drawing on Homi Bhabha’s thinking about cultural identity, drawing on his concepts of liminality, splitting, and ambivalence. Then, building on Bhabha’s notion of hybridity, I propose a distinction between national identity portrayals as either fixed or malleable. Finally, I demonstrate the implications of such a conceptual distinction on the way that national identity is taught in post-colonial schools; by way of an example, I envision a concrete approach to teaching national identity that views national identity as malleable rather than fixed, set in a hypothetical postcolonial school in the Philippines. By beginning from postcolonial assumptions about national identity, I hope to indicate new directions that the debates about the teaching of national identity in schools might proceed. (shrink)

Although most colonisations have been invasions of territory by neighbouring peoples with similar appearances, languages, and customs, postcolonial theory is dominated by cases of inter-civilizational imperialism between the West and the non-West. This article argues that a new theoretical framework is needed to describe intra-civilizational colonial encounters because the psychological conflicts of the intra-civilizational colonial sphere and their political ramifications function differently to those described in postcolonial theory. Drawing on Nobel Prize nominee Richard E. (...) Kim’s memoir of growing up in Korea during the Japanese Occupation, this article explicates the primary differences between the two forms of colonialism with reference to Homi Bhabha’s theories of hybridity and mimicry. It argues that without a visible racial difference between coloniser and colonised, hybridity and mimicry are imperial strategies of assimilation rather than native strategies of resistance and that the growth of cultural nationalism is a logical response. (shrink)

The recent resurgence of extreme-right movements and the nationalist turn of many governments across the world have reignited the relevance of discussions within educational philosophy about the teaching of national identity in schools. However, the conceptualisation of national identity in previous iterations of these debates have been largely Western and Eurocentric, making the past theoretical literature about these questions less relevant for post-colonial settings. In this paper, I imagine a new approach for teaching national identity in post-colonial contexts, (...) founded on postcolonial conceptions of identity and in particular, the concept of hybridity. I first develop a postcolonial account of national identity by drawing on Homi Bhabha’s thinking about cultural identity, drawing on his concepts of liminality, splitting, and ambivalence. Then, building on Bhabha's notion of hybridity, I propose a distinction between national identity portrayals as either fixed or malleable. Finally, I demonstrate the implications of such a conceptual distinction on the way that national identity is taught in post-colonial schools; by way of an example, I envision a concrete approach to teaching national identity that views national identity as malleable rather than fixed, set in a hypothetical postcolonial school in the Philippines. By beginning from postcolonial assumptions about national identity, I hope to indicate new directions that the debates about the teaching of national identity in schools might proceed. (shrink)

Industries of production and scientific research rely on the use of nonhuman animals and plants, remaking environments, populations, and even genetic information to suit human designs. This issue of _Social Text_ considers the radical implications of questioning the exceptional status of humans among the planet’s species. Responding to growing interest in animal studies and posthumanism, the contributors draw on racial, feminist, queer, postcolonial, and disability theories to probe the diversity of human relationships with other forms of biosocial life. (...) “Interspecies” queries the politics of traditional species taxonomy and examines the ways humans use the material characteristics of other species to pursue their economic, political, and social aims. This collection goes beyond companionate species to examine less charismatic life forms: viruses, vermin, transgenic pigs, and commodified plants. Bringing together prominent scholars and artists from a range of fields, the issue examines the histories of species collection and display. In the context of current public health challenges, including the swine flu epidemic and the scarcity of donor organs, the contributors explore the limits of transgressing species boundaries that arise when human bodies contain other species, such as viruses or transplanted organs from genetically customized pigs. “Interspecies” analyzes the use of nonhuman species in the biopolitics of warfare and torture and examines how interspecies relationships shape conditions of colonialism, imprisonment, and violence. The issue also complicates romanticized narratives of human/nonhuman animal dynamics without resorting to oversimplified portrayals of human exploitation of animal and plant life. _Julie Livingston _is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University. _Jasbir Puar _is Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University. She is the author of _Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times_. _Contributors: _Neel Ahuja, Suzanne Anker, Ed Cohen, James Delbourgo, Sarah Franklin, Carla Freccero, Alphonso Lingis, Julie Livingston, Chakanetsa Clapperton Mavhunga, Jasbir Puar, Kingsley Rothwell, Lesley Sharp. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Political Theory provides an entry point into this burgeoning field by both synthesizing and challenging the terms that motivate it. The handbook demonstrates how mainstream political theory can and must be enriched through attention to genuinely global, rather than parochially Euro-American, contributions to political thinking. Entries emphasize exploration of substantive questions about political life-ranging from domination to political economy to the politics of knowledge-in a range of global contexts, with attention to whether and (...) how those questions may be shared, contested, or reformulated across differences of time, space, and experience. They connect comparative political theory to cognate disciplines including postcolonial theory, area studies, and comparative politics. Creative organizational tools such as tags and keywords aid in navigation of the handbook to help readers trace disruptions, thematic connections, contrasts, and geographic affinities across entries. (shrink)

This paper aims to reexamine Nietzsche’s early interpretation of Heraclitus in an attempt to resolve some longstanding scholarly misconceptions. Rather than articulate similarities or delineate the lines of influence, this study engages Nietzsche’s interpretation itself in its historical setting, for the first time acknowledging the contextual framework in which he was working. This framework necessarily combines Nietzsche’s reading in philology, post-Kantian scientific naturalism, and of the romantic worldviews of Schopenhauer and Wagner. What emerges is not the acceptance (...) of the metaphysical-flux doctrine so much as a natal form of his physiognomic theory ofperspectivism, a naturalistic and anti-teleological conception of flux, and a theory of justice as cosmodicy. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s break from Schopenhauer is usually regarded as coextensive with his movement toward ontological naturalism, the view that all there is is limited by the scope of what is naturally observable. Moral norms like good and evil are accordingly ruled out as “things,” but naturalized as human, all-too-human constructions, just as much as are God and the soul, just as much as would Schopenhauer’s non–naturally observable one world Will. While I think that basic picture is correct, I also think (...) that scholars have regarded the problem with insufficient attention to the historical context of that transition, especially when it comes to naturalistic explanations of choice and agency. The move away from a.. (shrink)

Taking the Heideggerian critical ontology of technology as its base, this volume looks at postcolonial modernization and development in the global south as the worldwide expansion of the western metaphysical understanding of reality. We live today in an increasingly globalizing technological society that Martin Heidegger described in the middle of the last century as 'the planetary imperialism of technologically organized man.' Consequent upon this cultural-intellectual globalization, the ahistorical, violent, individualistic, calculative and capitalistic logic of the metaphysics of technology is (...) permeating the life-world, even of the world's poorest peoples, in ways they could neither choose nor control. This volume questions the political ethics and justice of post-war development discourse in the light of the egalitarian aims of modern societies, cultural freedom of communities and nations, and the ecological limits of the planet. The final chapters discuss the alternative proposal of development as various conceptions of good life and equitable human flourishing amidst equally flourishing non-human life and non-living beings. This unique volume is the first book-length treatment of the ontology of modernization and development in the global south from a Heideggerian stance. (shrink)

Linguistic choices have different attributions beyond their literal meaning according to their contexts. This paper looks at the variations in the discourses seen in the written colonial agreements and treaties during the Malabar conquest. The study employs the archived documents of various discourses during this period as a part of power shifting from the local elites to the colonial power. It explores how power is intertwined in the linguistic choices of different communication files. The study employs a hybrid (...) methodology of forensic linguistics and legal history. The analysis progresses in two phases: i) the linguistic attributions of power in the communications between the local elites and the colonial authorities and ii) the comparative analysis of variations in the linguistic choices by the colonial authorities correlating their varying power positions over the given period. It explores the dynamics of the linguistic choices of the local elites initially as a powerful entity in communication with the colonial authorities. The analysis shows a variation in the linguistic choices of the colonial authorities that suggests how they are used to reflect the power positions on a scale from weaker to powerful along the timeline. The paper argues that the linguistic choices of the colonial communication files aided them in projecting their power to society and assisted as one of the tools for reiterating their power position in various contexts. (shrink)

Research on ethical norms has grown in recent years, but imprecise language has made it unclear when these norms prescribe “what ought to be” and when they merely describe behaviors or perceptions (“what is”). Studies of ethical norms, moreover, tend not to investigate whether participants were influenced by the prescriptive aspect of the norm; the studies primarily demonstrate, rather, that people will mimic the behaviors or perceptions of others, which provides evidence for the already well-substantiated social proof (...) class='Hi'>theory. In this review article, we delineate three streams of norms research in business ethics: behavioral, perceptual, and prescriptive. We argue that by properly categorizing norms, and designing studies to investigate when prescriptions, more than mere mimicry, improve ethical outcomes in organizations, researchers can enhance managers’ efforts to promote ethical outcomes in organizations. (shrink)

Populist-nationalist ideologies pose a threat to women’s rights. This article examines to what extent national institutionalisation of international frameworks promoting women’s rights can weather the misogynistic political climate accompanying the global rise of populist nationalism. The post-2016 situation in the Philippines offers a testing ground for this problem due to the co-existence of President Duterte’s hypermasculinist national leadership with a strong history of institutionalisation of the UN’s Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. Drawing from an analysis of WPS policy (...) and institutions in the Philippines between 2009 and 2019 and from field research and interviews with government agencies, local civil society organisations and international partners, this article argues that the WPS agenda will likely survive in the hostile environment. But it also finds that institutionalisation alone does not guarantee successful implementation. While the WPS agenda may ostensibly remain a national priority under populist-nationalist regimes, its progression has been halted. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Nietzsche's texts invite perplexing questions about the justification and objectivity of his ethical views. According to the interpretation suggested here, Nietzsche does not advance a substantive normative ethics, but proposes, based on his ontological idea of will to power, an instrumentalist theory of value. He is not a realist about value—according to him, nothing is intrinsically valuable. However, things, actions, beliefs, and values can be evaluated with reference to their capacities in serving our fundamental quest for (...) power. The central advantage of this interpretation against competing readings is that it attempts to make sense of how an “objective” evaluation fits together with antirealism or nihilism about value, including how the “ethics” of will to power is to be understood alongside the metaphysical and ethical doctrine of eternal recurrence. (shrink)

In this book, Nicolas Laos studies the meaning of the terms "world" and "order," the moral dimensions of each world order model, and wider issues of meaning and interpretation generated by humanity's attempt to live in a meaningful world and to find the logos of the beings and things in the world. The aim of this book is to propose a unified theory of world order (i.e., a theory that combines philosophy, theology, and political theory). In (...) this context, the author provides a thought-provoking (re)interpretation of classical philosophy (placing particular emphasis on Platonism), an in-depth inquiry into medieval philosophy and spirituality (placing particular emphasis on the cultural differences between the Greek East and the Latino-Frankish West), and an intellectually challenging review and evaluation of modern Western philosophy (including Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Husserl, and Heidegger) and of Nietzsche's and the postmodernists' revolt against modernity. He then elucidates the philosophical foundations and "pedigree" of each of the three basic political theories of modernity (i.e., Liberalism, Communism, and Fascism), and he studies the basic theoretical debates in International Relations, Geopolitics, and Noopolitics. Finally, Laos proposes a new, "fourth," political theory which he calls "metaphysical republicanism.". (shrink)

fusion theory challenges efforts to see theory as inhibiting by presenting an approach that is innovative, eclectic, and subtle in order to draw out competing and constellating ideas and opinions. This collected volume of essays examines fusion theory and demonstrates how the theory can be applied to the reading of various works of Indian English novelists.

Zusammenfassung Foucaults diskurstheoretischer Ansatz hat die Auffassungen von Aufklärung und Humanismus, von Wissenschaft und Rationalität, von Wahrheit und Ethos den Prozeduren des einen Diskurses unterworfen. Das hat für kräftige Debatten über das Verhältnis von Normativität und Historizität gesorgt. Der Beitrag zeigt, inwieweit Foucaults Ansatz auf der Basis sowie als Konsequenz der kritischen Philosophie Kants erarbeitet worden ist. Diskurstheorie beruht als Aufklärungsprojekt nicht auf normativen Voraussetzungen einer vermeintlich historisch greifbaren und im Kern einheitlichen Aufklärung, sondern verortet sich im „Zeitalter der Kritik“, (...) in dem bei der Suche nach Erkenntnis immer nach den Grenzen von Erkenntnis und von Erfahrung gefragt wird: Rationale Deutungsansprüche werden streng in ihren historischen Kontexten betrachtet. Aus dieser Perspektive wird das Verhältnis Kant-Swedenborg-Oetinger betrachtet. Dabei wird deutlich, dass weiterführende Überlegungen aus den postcolonial studies, insbesondere Homi K. Bhabhas, zu noch schärferen Einsichten in die diskursiven Aushandlungsprozeduren und rezeptionellen Verhältnisse zwischen vermeintlich radikal gegensätzlichen Lehren und Personen gelangen. Auf das Verhältnis von Historiographie und Geschichtsphilosophie fällt im Sinne von Aufklärung als eines ethischen Projekts neues Licht. -/- Foucault’s discourse theory re-examines concepts such as the Enlightenment and humanism, science and rationality, truth and ethos, by subjecting them to the procedures of the one discourse. This has given rise to vigorous debates about the relationship between normativity and historicity. This article explores the extent to which Foucault’s discourse theory has been developed on the basis of, and as a consequence of, Kant’s critical philosophy. As an Enlightenment Project, discourse theory is founded not on normative requirements of an enlightenment that is purportedly historically tangible and uniform at its core. Rather, it is located in the “Age of Critique,” whereby the search for knowledge is also concerned with determining the bounds of knowledge and experience: Viewing various claims to rational interpretation strictly within their historical contexts, this article analyses the relationship between Kant, Swedenborg, and Oetinger. The postcolonial perspective, developed especially by Homi K. Bhabha, yields sharper insights into the links between theories and persons commonly deemed as radically opposed through an examination of the discursive negotiation processes and the respective histories of reception. The article also sheds new light on the relationship between historiography and the philosophy of history in the sense of Enlightenment as an ethical project. (shrink)

This volume focuses on African indigenous women legends and their potential to serve as midwives for gender empowerment and for contributing towards African feminist theories. It considers the intersection of gender and spirituality in subverting patriarchy, colonialism, anthropocentricism, capitalism as well elevating African women to the social space of speaking as empowered subjects with public influence. The chapters examine historical, cultural, and religious African women legends who became champions of liberation and their approach to social justice. The authors suggest that (...) the stories of resistance featured hold great potential for building justice-loving Earth Communities. The book will be of interest to scholars of religion, gender studies, Indigenous studies, African studies, African-Indigenous Knowledges and postcolonial studies. (shrink)

The framing problematic of this dissertation is the political and epistemological relationship between metropolitan theory and post-colonial narrative. By providing multiple determinations to that problematic, I seek to situate the inventions of post-colonial identity. Using "detour" both as a privileged figure of contemporary theory and as the lived socio-historical experience of post-colonials, I examine the theoretical and political consequences using the former to translate the latter. Placing my own discourse at the limits of theory, I (...) show that the predicament in which contemporary theory finds itself is a result of the reduction of narrative to theory . ;I stage the negotiation between metropolitan theory and post-colonial narratives as an allegory of the post-colonial predicament. Finally, through a critique of certain post-colonial theorists , I plot the limits of the post-colonial space in the First World. I conclude that to invent the post-colonial space as a signifying space, we need to develop a poetics of retour which will be as complex and as ambiguous as the poetics of detour that the post-colonials have been living, narrating, and theorizing. ;Chapter I sets the theoretical context for posing the problem of post-colonial self-fashioning. In Chapter II, I sketch the trajectory of post-colonial detour through a close reading of V. S. Naipaul's The Mimic Men. In Chapter III, I interrogate Homi Bhabha's theory of cultural hybridity as a version of the poetics of detour. In Chapter IV, I offer a characterization of the predicament of theory. In the final chapter, I discuss the uses of theory by post-colonial intellectuals and offer a critique of their politics of cultural description and self-description. I argue that post-colonial theorists have evaded the question of inventing the post-colonial space as a signifying space by rewriting the narrative of their detour as a narrative of diplacement, as immigritude. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Location of CultureJuniper EllisThe Location of Culture, by Homi K. Bhabha; 285 pp. New York: Routledge, 1994, $49.95.This book assembles several of Homi Bhabha’s most significant essays, allowing for an examination of his contribution to contemporary literary theory. As a self-described postcolonial critic, often compared with Edward Said or Gayatri Spivak, Bhabha is perhaps most well-known for his theory (...) of cultural hybridity, which he develops in “Signs Taken For Wonders” and several other essays included in this collection. Bhabha argues that hybridity results from various forms of colonization, which lead to cultural collisions and interchanges. In the attempt to assert colonial power in order to create anglicized subjects, “[t]he trace of what is disavowed is not repressed but repeated as something different—a mutation, a hybrid” (p. 111). This hybrid trace contradicts both the attempt to fix and control indigenous cultures and the illusion of cultural isolation or purity. His project thus adapts poststructuralist challenges to stable or fixed identities, attempting to “rename” postmodernism from a postcolonial perspective (p. 175), and allowing sustained attention to the ways in which race, gender, community, and nationality converge. One of his major contributions to theories of cultural production and identity is that he examines these various intersections closely, and avoids simply listing them or elevating one aspect of his analysis over others.Eight of the twelve chapters in this volume have been published previously, though some contain significant revisions. Throughout, Bhabha provides a nonteleological series of readings from the Enlightenment to the present. He draws most often upon psychoanalytic approaches, with particular attention to Frantz Fanon, in his focus upon documents from British missionaries and colonial administrators in India, and upon such writers as Salman Rushdie, Nadine Gordimer, Toni Morrison, Joseph Conrad, and E. M. Forster. Paraphrasing his arguments risks simplifying them, and also requires translating some of his frequent neologisms. Though Bhabha’s narrative is at times opaque, at their best these terms convey a new framework for describing cultures and their productions. Bhabha emphasizes what he describes as culture’s “in-between,” for instance, the interstitial spaces within and among individuals and cultures, which do not maintain a single position but form identities in an on-going process.One of Bhabha’s significant stances is his defense of the ways theory may be transformative. Rather than viewing theory as only an élite Occidental production or as apolitical, in Chapter One, “The Commitment to Theory,” he suggests that politics work with and through theory and that theory and politics cannot be separated. He endeavors to establish a “committed theoretical perspective,” accounting for postcolonial positions, while evading “the politics of polarities” that deny hybrid cultures and histories (p. 21, 39). The entire collection expands upon these claims, and three essays in particular—“Sly [End Page 196] Civility,” “Signs Taken for Wonders,” and “Articulating the Archaic”—develop the most extended discussions of agency on the part of the colonized, suggesting that culture’s “in-between” can be employed in ways that reveal contradictions within narratives that would uphold a linear, progressive model of Western history and civilization.In this way, his discussion of contact between cultures revises the narrative of progress or modernity, associated particularly with the Enlightenment. Bhabha reads the atrocities that were knowingly committed and sanctioned in the colonies as the “contramodernity” that belies traditional arguments about increasing civility and development of modernity. “The Postcolonial and the Postmodern” and “By Bread Alone,” in particular, confront teleological versions of history with a recognition of the colonial involvement and complicity of modernity.His argument can be extended to evaluate divergent movements within modernity and postmodernity and to revise the major models of both by revealing their stakes in colonial practices. Bhabha’s work suggests that the process of making modernity and the past is continual and partial, and that political action (which would include writing theory, in his argument), can be effective if not total. The pleasure of his work, as well as its difficulty, lies in his refusal to simplify cultures or endorse easy assumptions.Juniper EllisVanderbilt UniversityCopyright © 1995 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

Homi Bhabha, a postcolonial scholar influenced by the work of Franz Fanon and Edward Said, indicates that identities stimulate a need to negotiate in spaces that result in the remaking of boundaries. There is a call to expose the limitations of the East and the West in an effort to acknowledge the space in-between that interconnects the past traditions and history, with the present and the future. This study applies Homi Bhabha’s theory of hybridity (...) to determine whether the term liturgical is appropriate to describe Kuchipudi Indian classical Hindu dance. Presented are the elements of Kuchipudi dance and liturgical dance, and then contemplative dance is discussed as an appropriate medium in the space of hybridity between Kuchipudi dance and liturgical dance. (shrink)

Studies of epistemic communities and collaborative research in the social sciences have deepened the understanding of how science works, and more specifically how the social dimensions of scientific practice both enable and impede social scientists in realizing their epistemic goals. Two types of studies of epistemic communities are distinguished: general theories of epistemic communities aim to construct accounts of theoretical change applicable to all social scientific specialties, whereas historical studies emphasize the contingencies that affect specific social scientific (...) disciplines, subfields, or institutions. Although collaborative research plays a less pronounced role in the social sciences than in the natural sciences, collaboration has enabled social scientists to investigate topics that would otherwise be difficult to investigate. (shrink)

Postcolonial theory, particularly in its poststructuralist variant, presents important challenges to sociology's self-image, and open debate on these attempts to `unsettle' the modernist, Westernized disciplines is both conceptually and politically interesting. However, the postcolonial unsettling of sociology has to be actively extracted and reconstructed from the key texts of postcolonial theory - it is not transparently available as such - and this is the first main goal of the article. Particular attention is paid to the (...) framings of these issues by Stuart Hall, Homi Bhahba and Robert Young. Second, the article offers the elements of a counter-critique, pointing out where the anti-sociological impulses of postcolonialism are exaggerated or unfounded, and also indicating serious internal problems for postcolonial theory when it is pitched as a direct and superior alternative to the modernist sociological `imaginary'. The continuing centrality (and difficulty) of questions on the nature of and purpose of explanatory social theory and postcolonial cultural studies are discussed. (shrink)

_Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism_ fundamentally rethinks the nature of the transgressive theories and practices of the Buddhist Tantric traditions, challenging the notion that the Tantras were "marginal" or primitive and situating them instead--both ideologically and institutionally--within larger trends in mainstream Buddhist and Indian culture. Critically surveying prior scholarship, Wedemeyer exposes the fallacies of attributing Tantric transgression to either the passions of lusty monks, primitive tribal rites, or slavish imitation of Saiva traditions. Through comparative analysis of modern historical narratives--that depict (...) Tantrism as a degenerate form of Buddhism, a primal religious undercurrent, or medieval ritualism--he likewise demonstrates these to be stock patterns in the European historical imagination. Through close analysis of primary sources, Wedemeyer reveals the lived world of Tantric Buddhism as largely continuous with the Indian religious mainstream and deploys contemporary methods of semiotic and structural analysis to make sense of its seemingly repellent and immoral injunctions. Innovative, semiological readings of the influential _Guhyasamaja Tantra_ underscore the text's overriding concern with purity, pollution, and transcendent insight--issues shared by all Indic religions--and a large-scale, quantitative study of Tantric literature shows its radical antinomianism to be a highly managed ritual observance restricted to a sacerdotal elite. These insights into Tantric scripture and ritual clarify the continuities between South Asian Tantrism and broader currents in Indian religion, illustrating how thoroughly these "radical" communities were integrated into the intellectual, institutional, and social structures of South Asian Buddhism. (shrink)

_Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism_ fundamentally rethinks the nature of the transgressive theories and practices of the Buddhist Tantric traditions, challenging the notion that the Tantras were "marginal" or primitive and situating them instead -- both ideologically and institutionally -- within larger trends in mainstream Buddhist and Indian culture. Critically surveying prior scholarship, Wedemeyer exposes the fallacies of attributing Tantric transgression to either the passions of lusty monks, primitive tribal rites, or slavish imitation of Saiva traditions. Through comparative analysis of (...) modern historical narratives -- that depict Tantrism as a degenerate form of Buddhism, a primal religious undercurrent, or medieval ritualism -- he likewise demonstrates these to be stock patterns in the European historical imagination. Through close analysis of primary sources, Wedemeyer reveals the lived world of Tantric Buddhism as largely continuous with the Indian religious mainstream and deploys contemporary methods of semiotic and structural analysis to make sense of its seemingly repellent and immoral injunctions. Innovative, semiological readings of the influential _Guhyasamaja Tantra_ underscore the text's overriding concern with purity, pollution, and transcendent insight -- issues shared by all Indic religions -- and a large-scale, quantitative study of Tantric literature shows its radical antinomianism to be a highly managed ritual observance restricted to a sacerdotal elite. These insights into Tantric scripture and ritual clarify the continuities between South Asian Tantrism and broader currents in Indian religion, illustrating how thoroughly these "radical" communities were integrated into the intellectual, institutional, and social structures of South Asian Buddhism. (shrink)