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Now available in paperback, Shakespeare and Postcolonial Theory is an up-to-date guide to contemporary debates in postcolonial studies and how these shape our understanding of Shakespeare's politics and poetics. Taking a historical perspective, it covers early modern discourses of colonialism, 'race', gender and globalization, through to contemporary intercultural appropriations and global adaptations of Shakespeare. Showing how the dialogue between Shakespeare criticism and postcolonial studies has evolved, this book offers a critical vocabulary that connects contemporary and early modern cultural struggles. Shakespeare and Postcolonial Theory also provides guides to further reading and online resources which make this an essential resource for students and scholars of Shakespeare.
First published in 2002. This collection of new essays explores the multiple possibilities for the study of Shakespeare in an emerging post-colonial period. Post-Colonial Shakespeares examines the extent to which our assumption about such key terms as ‘colonization’, ‘race’ and ‘nation’ derive from early modern English culture. It also looks at how such terms are themselves affected by what were established subsequently as ‘colonial’ forms of knowledge. The volume features original work by some of the leading critics within the field of Shakespearean studies. It is the most authoritative collection on this topic to date and represents an exciting step forward for post-colonial studies
Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 2, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, course: Oberseminar Theories of American Studies, language: English, abstract: Postcolonial theory results from a network of political and cultural tensions between colonizers and colonized. This approach will de-construct Eurocentrism showing that European values and standards are not universal. Highlighting that the same historical event can be interpreted in radically different ways depending on perspective, norms and values, accepted values will be destabilized and marked as constructs. Further, this paper will question the reasons given for colonialism and deconstructs them in order to reveal the economic or political interests they are based on. I will critically examine the representations of Caliban’s culture in Western discourse. In The Tempest, cultural ideology provides the ideological network for the colonial endeavours which could be theorized as bringing progress to an archaic world. A striking example for the strategy deconstructing “othering” is revealed in Chapter 1 where Caliban is presented as a completely inhuman being revealing strong racism. Therefore, Shakespeare implicitly legitimizes the colonial endeavor, because people like Caliban deprived of full humanity can be regarded as people without history, culture and they have therefore no logical claim to sovereignty. Shakespeare also produces a symptomatic reading of western discourse by psychoanalyzing to reveal western fear of the “other”.
Now available in paperback, Shakespeare and Postcolonial Theory is an up-to-date guide to contemporary debates in postcolonial studies and how these shape our understanding of Shakespeare's politics and poetics. Taking a historical perspective, it covers early modern discourses of colonialism, 'race', gender and globalization, through to contemporary intercultural appropriations and global adaptations of Shakespeare. Showing how the dialogue between Shakespeare criticism and postcolonial studies has evolved, this book offers a critical vocabulary that connects contemporary and early modern cultural struggles. Shakespeare and Postcolonial Theory also provides guides to further reading and online resources which make this an essential resource for students and scholars of Shakespeare.
OXFORD SHAKESPEARE TOPICS General Editors: Peter Holland and Stanley Wells Oxford Shakespeare Topics provide students and teachers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship. Each book is written by an authority in its field, and combines accessible style with original discussion of its subject. How is it that the British literary critic Terry Eagleton can say that 'it is difficult to read Shakespeare without feeling that he was almost certainly familiar with the writings of Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Wittgenstein and Derrida', or that the Slovenian psychoanalytic theorist Slavoj Žižek can observe that 'Shakespeare without doubt had read Lacan'? Shakespeare and Literary Theory argues that literary theory is less an external set of ideas anachronistically imposed on Shakespeare's texts than a mode - or several modes - of critical reflection inspired by, and emerging from, his writing. These modes together constitute what we might call 'Shakespearian theory': theory that is not just about Shakespeare but also derives its energy from Shakespeare. To name just a few examples: Karl Marx was an avid reader of Shakespeare and used Timon of Athens to illustrate aspects of his economic theory; psychoanalytic theorists from Sigmund Freud to Jacques Lacan have explained some of their most axiomatic positions with reference to Hamlet; Michel Foucault's early theoretical writing on dreams and madness returns repeatedly to Macbeth; Jacques Derrida's deconstructive philosophy is articulated in dialogue with Shakespeare's plays, including Romeo and Juliet; French feminism's best-known essay is Hélène Cixous's meditation on Antony and Cleopatra; certain strands of queer theory derive their impetus from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's reading of the Sonnets; Gilles Deleuze alights on Richard III as an exemplary instance of his theory of the war machine; and postcolonial theory owes a large debt to Aimé Césaire's revision of The Tempest. By reading what theoretical movements from formalism and structuralism to cultural materialism and actor-network theory have had to say about and in concert with Shakespeare, we can begin to get a sense of how much the DNA of contemporary literary theory contains a startling abundance of chromosomes - concepts, preoccupations, ways of using language - that are of Shakespearian provenance.
The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race shows teachers and students how and why Shakespeare and race are inseparable. Moving well beyond Othello, the collection invites the reader to understand racialized discourses, rhetoric, and performances in all of Shakespeare's plays, including the comedies and histories. Race is presented through an intersectional approach with chapters that focus on the concepts of sexuality, lineage, nationality, and globalization. The collection helps students to grapple with the unique role performance plays in constructions of race by Shakespeare (and in Shakespearean performances), considering both historical and contemporary actors and directors. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race will be the first book that truly frames Shakespeare studies and early modern race studies for a non-specialist, student audience.
Repositioning Shakespeare offers an original assessment of a broad range of texts and cultural events that appropriate Shakespeare. Examining these materials within the context of 'the nation' in a postcolonial era, Thomas Cartelli considers: * essays by Walt Whitman * the nineteenth-century play, 'Jack Cade' * novels by Aphra Behn, Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, Michelle Cliff, Tayeb Salih, Nadine Gordimer and Robert Stone * the 1849 Astor Place Riot Cartelli places particular emphasis on redefining the 'postcolonial' in order to find a place for America. In doing so, Repositioning Shakespeare makes a considerable contribution to the continuing debate about the uses we make of Shakespeare.
This collection of new essays explores the multiple possibilities for the study of Shakespeare in an emerging post-colonial period. Post-Colonial Shakespeares examines the extent to which our assumption about such key terms as 'colonization', 'race' and 'nation' derive from early modern English culture. It also looks at how such terms are themselves affected by what were established subsequently as 'colonial' forms of knowledge.
Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Hamburg, language: English, abstract: It is a fact that Shakespeare’s plays are an essential part of the Elizabethan period and hence deal with topics characteristic of this time. This is also true of The Tempest, which was probably written in 1610 – 1611, for it is concerned with the theme of colonization and exploration of the New World, the newly discovered Americas. The Elizabethan period is known as the Age of Exploration. Thus, The Tempest not only deals with the effects of colonization and civilization on the natives but some critics also tend to read this play as a metaphor of colonialism, since every character is concerned with how he would govern the island if he was the ruler. However, The Tempest can be regarded as a play whose plot is completely original and also very personal. The critic Richard Dutton even claims that there is a “theory that Prospero in The Tempest represents Shakespeare himself”. Critics have taken this play very seriously and have pointed out its complexity. Hence, Stanley Wells says that “The Tempest (...) is a supremely poetic drama (...) because it speaks (...) on many levels, universally relevant (...) and (...) universally effective”. Why is The Tempest regarded as so original and unique? Well, one might find an answer to this question by taking a closer look at its background, its sources, its structure and at its main characters. For this reason, I will deal with the sources of The Tempest in more detail in the following chapter. In a next step, the dramatic structure of the play will be analyzed. Since this play is mainly about colonizers and the colonized, it is also of vital importance to analyze the prominent character Caliban and the European characters’ attitude to him, in this context. It will be argued that Caliban becomes a victim of colonization.
This book works within the frameworks of post-colonial studies and cultural studies in order to theorise, and then to illustrate, the possibilities for cultural creation in the context of oppression. It re-works the concept of hybridity, and the philosophies of liberalism and humanism, in order to suggest that these important and much-contested terrains within critical theory have specific potential in a South African context. This book applies these theoretical points to a specific trajectory of writing in English in the region, which it finds embodied in the writing of Solomon Plaatje, Peter Abrahams, Es'kia Mphahlele, Bloke Modisane, and Can Themba. By seeking to unlock the complex and sometimes contradictory ways in which Shakespeare is useful to these writers, the book addresses the traditional imbalance of knowledges in Shakespeare Studies by conceptualizing the presence of Shakespeare in these texts as indicative of an act of cultural appropriation and political resistance. Ultimately, the book makes a contribution to post-colonial and cultural studies' engagements with how culture works, how resistance is inscribed, and what role theory can play in the neo-colonial world.