Colonial Discourse/ Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader

Equally suitable for undergraduates and specialists in the humanities, this collection provides an in-depth introduction to debates within post-colonial theory and criticism. The readings are drawn from a diverse selection of Third World and Western thinkers, both historical and contemporary. "Post-colonialism" is taken by the editors to include Third World and diasporic experience; like "colonialism," it is understood to contain a complex set of cultural, ethnographic, political, and economic processes and conflicts.

This volume explores such issues as the nature of colonized cultures and anti-colonial resistance; subaltern historiography; constructions of Western subjectivity, knowledge, and gender; the formation of post-colonial intellectuals; the metropolitan institutionalization of post-colonialism; neo-colonialism; and the nature of minority and post-colonial identity and discourse. One section is devoted to the application of theoretical formulations to cultural criticism, and contains a number of textual analyses. A general introduction to the volume as well as introductions to each section provide historical, theoretical, and poltical contexts for the readings. The book concludes with an extensive bibliography.

Columbia University Press

Provides an in-depth introduction to debates within post-colonial theory and criticism. The many contributors include Frantz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Homi Bhabha, Edward Said, Anthony Giddens, Anne McClintock, Stuart Hall, Paul Gilroy, and bell hooks.

Booknews

A wide-ranging collection of texts, written between the 1950s and 1992, approaching post-colonialism from the perspective of cultural theory, and suggesting the full scope of the debates in the post- colonial area. The volume is divided into six sections: theorizing colonized cultures and anti-colonial resistance; theorizing the West; theorizing gender; theorizing post-coloniality--intellectuals and institutions; theorizing post-coloniality--discourse and identity; and reading from theory. Includes a substantial bibliography. Paper edition (unseen), $17.50. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Patrick Williams is currently Senior Lecturer in the Department of Literature and Languages at Nottingham Trent University. Laura Chrisman is a Lecturer in English in the School of African and Asian Studies at the University of Sussex.