Postcolonial studies between the European wars: an intellectual history  

Timothy Brennan  

 

Ricardo gave a summary of the thinker’s work and opened the floor for discussion. 

 
 
Brennan is really interested in showing continuity in historical events and shaping, rather than an idea of history where there is a rupture. Reading of the text is spread out and can be perhaps understood in three essential parts 

1. Postcolonial studies as a ‘form of theory’. 

2. Interwar Marxism and Anti-colonial Liberation 

3. Discusses various cases of art and their interactions with non-western forms and influences.  

The troubled lineage of postcolonial theory 

Postcolonial studies as a ‘form of theory’: We discussed about the problems of postcolonial studies in academia and university systems and its troubled history. 

 
“Over time, this array of meanings amounted to a virtual ethics of poststructuralism, freely applied to diverse situations and investigative contexts with a rigorous conformity.” (186) 
 
We also stated the two problem postcolonial studies faces. One is the work happening through the lineage of philosophical borrowings from poststructuralism- which aims to end western dominance by bringing attention to differences (race, gender, power struggles etc) and other is the articulation of non-western conceptions, making space for them, marking anti-colonial leanings. The former, we discussed could be seen has separating postcolonial studies from its project of exposing Western dominance and giving voice to non-western forms of knowledge production. 
 
We then discussed about the former structure- where postcolonialism works with the poststructuralist frameworks, the impact and consequences of such a frame. We briefly discussed about how Derrida, Levinas (radically perhaps) criticize western metaphysics in their work but nonetheless still re-assert their Jewish origins through their work. Which is to say that Derrida and Levinas criticize eurocentrism but in a euro-centric way. Expanding on the above, we notice Nietzche’s genealogy too is ultimately concerned with defending eurocentrism.  

“What writers like Emmanuel Levinas or Jacques Derrida left out of their parochial fixations on the Graeco-German West constructed by Romanticism (the object tirelessly exposed in their writing) is much less pertinent than their vigorous prolongment of European superi­ority in the guise of an anti-Eurocentric critique that has rarely been called by its rightful name (Bernasconi 1998, Critchley 1995)” (187) 

The drive of to broaden postcolonial theory (postwar) is brought into the picture as a suggestion. Originality of discussion is a theme, a way of working many postcolonial scholars pick up. 

 

Interwar Marxism and Anti-colonial Liberation 

Brennan singles out 1880 to 1939 as time that ‘angry colonial’ were taking up arms and drawing the attention to theorists working on race, modernity and city etc.  

Two forces stand out particularly- cross cultural contacts and political unease with colonial system. 

We discussed about the impact of Russian revolution that Brenna in his article is trying to invoke and how he connects it to the beginnings of an anti-colonial feeling. (196) We found that the focus on third internationalists and the interpretation of Marxism in this localized forms and expressions to be really fascinating (193). 
 
Discusses various cases of art and their interactions with non-western forms and influences 

Brennan discusses various cases of art where non-western art forms touches on western arts and shapes its formation. Walter Benjamin, Bataille’s examples are discussed. However, we also note that these art formations or influences of non-western forms can be also read as sites of appropriation, as a modality of consumption (by the colonizer’s gaze, and because of their economic capacity to co-opt, take, appropriate creative forms to theirs) 
 
The conclusion ends with an appeal to Bataille’s concept of economy and the limits of Marxism. We also notified how he made naïve references to non-western cultures in his writing and can be seen as perhaps a rather amateur thinker, but it is also this amateurishness that has a certain appeal, an influence on the way he writes and thinks without in-depth analytical analysis of theories in an academic way, one can say. 

 

 

 
Other Points 

In our discussion we first talked about the question of how we can begin to think of history of the anti-colonial movement/sentiment. We also grappled with the question of history in relation to anti-colonial origins in different places. 

Secondly, we discussed historical materialism and its linkage to anti-colonial sentiment. We noticed that Brennan has been perhaps deliberately critical of few things in his writing than others. Which is to say that the writings on some pieces has not evoked the same sentimentality. For example, it seems like there is a special emphasis in his work on Russian Revolution and its linkage (almost as an originary point for anti-colonial sentiment).  

Around this we had various views, and we were troubled about the politics of purity (which is to negate any post structural thoughts and influences) but also, we wondered about the conceptual (Eurocentric) frames that perhaps never get questioned. How do we reconcile these issues and think of history and postcolonial frameworks? 

Some of us didn’t see Brennan’s reading to be accurate which was that postcolonial thinking does not deal or acknowledge the debt of Marxism. Brennan almost points out to it in in a way that shows that Marxism is heavily repressed whereas it was noted that in the works of Said, Leela Gandhi, Spivak, they have time and again acknowledged the Marxist understandings and leanings (in their various work). 

We also discussed that this kind of a rupture-less historical knitting and the stakes of it. The narrative of Russian revolution as the sole beginning of anti-colonial sentiment might hold problem that we began our discussion early on, who does the work of decolonizing and perhaps may raise ethical epistemic question in due course. We also reflected on the question of ‘theory of postcolonialism’ and said that it is impossible to perhaps have a unified pregiven singular origin or theory of colonialism and post coloniality for a given place, because it manifests itself quite differently in different geo-political spaces, cultures, etc.