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Though the intersection of postcolonial theory and media studies might seem an obvious one due to their common focus on representation, the role of institutions and the transnational dimension, a critical assessment of their relationship and potential is to some extent under-theorized and long overdue. This has to do with the disciplinary entrenchment of the two fields: postcolonial theory originally emerged from comparative literary studies and initially focused strongly on textual criticism, whereas media studies developed more in connection with media objects, such as film and television, and focused on issues of production, reception and distribution. However, both fields can be considered relatively young with respect to more traditional disciplines. They emerged as a contestation of .

"Cultural theory has often been criticized for covert Eurocentric and universalist tendencies. Its concepts and ideas are implicitly applicable to everyone, ironing over any individuality or cultural difference. Postcolonial theory has challenged these limitations of cultural theory, and Postcolonial Theory and Autobiography addresses the central challenge posed by its autobiographical turn." "Despite the fact that autobiography is frequently dismissed for its Western, masculine bias, David Huddart argues for its continued relevance as a central explanatory category in understanding postcolonial theory and its relation to subjectivity. Focusing on the influence of post-structuralist theory on postcolonial theory and vice versa, this study suggests that autobiography constitutes a general philosophical resistance to universal concepts and theories." "Offering a fresh perspective on familiar critical figures like Edward W. Said and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, by putting them in the context of readings of the work of Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, and Alain Badiou, this book relates the theory of autobiography to expressions of new universalisms that, together with postcolonial theory, rethink and extend norms of experience, investigation, and knowledge."--Jacket

Colonialism and its aftermath prompt a form of cultural studies that seeks to address questions of identity politics and justice that are the ongoing legacy of empires. Postcolonial theory has its origins in resistance movements, principally at the local, and frequently at nonmetropolitan, levels. Among its early thinkers, three seem of special importance: Antonio Gramsci, Paulo Freire, and Frantz Fanon. Antonio Gram sci ( 1891- 193 7) was a founder of the Communist Party in Italy. In his Prison Notebooks (1971 ), he wrote insightfully about the proletariat, designated by him as subalterns; his thoughts regarding the responsibilities of public intellectuals inspired many, and his notion of hegemony and resistance proved influential. Paulo Freire ( 192 1- 97) was a Brazilian with a special interest in education. His Pedagogy of the Oppressed ( 1970) seeks to restore subjectivity to objectified, oppressed classes in society. Frantz Fanon ( 1925- 6 l) was a psychiatrist of Caribbean descent who participated in the Algerian independence movement. His two books, The Wretched of the Earth ( 1963) and Black Skin, White Masks ( 1967) inspired many anticolonial struggles and investigations of racism's many manifestations.

Rather than agreeing to any one meaning or referent, most critics these days speak of 'post-colonialisms' to refer principally to 'historical, social and economic material conditions' and at other times to 'historically-situated imaginative products' and 'aesthetic practices: representations, discourses and values' (McLeod 2000: 254). Arising from subaltern studies, its theorists embrace hybridity, indict alterity, analyze colonial discourse, and employ strategic essentialism to promote identity politics. Under its influence, a strain of self-interrogation has for decades run as an undercurrent through much of anthropology and archaeology. Topics including looting, repatriation, stewardship, and the transformation of disciplinary identity are now persistent tropes in the field. Indigenous archaeology, emergent cosmopolitanisms, building up knowledge from below—these now occupy ongoing archaeological work. Limiting its applicability, though, are charges against its homogenization of colonial experience, its perpetuation of academic imperialism, and its relative neglect, until recently, of regions such as Latin America.

Leading scholars bring together eighteenth-century studies and postcolonial theory to analyze the role and reputation of Enlightenment in the context of early European colonial ambitions and postcolonial interrogations of Western imperial projects and aspirations.

Focusing on the contributions of Frantz Fanon's writing to the construction of a theory of the postcolonial subject, this book engages post-structuralist discussions on subjectivity and explores the most important readings and discussions of Fanon's work. Problems such as historicity, contingency, and the positions of the subject in postcolonial contexts receive special attention together with phenomenological approaches to Fanonian writing. The central idea is to give Fanon a privileged place in social, political, and cultural analysis. The objectives of the book are to insert Fanon's texts in contemporary critical theory on modernity and coloniality and to incorporate Fanon in the epistemological and conceptual context of the academy. This innovative work allows us to understand Fanon's writing as key to linking the experiences and critical developments between the global south and the global north.

Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory maps the convergences and differences between these two seemingly opposed bodies of thought. It explores the different waves of postcolonial thought, elaborates the postcolonial critique of social theory, and charts different strategies for crafting a postcolonial social science.

'Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory' maps the convergences and differences between these two seemingly opposed bodies of thought. It explores the different waves of postcolonial thought, elaborates the postcolonial critique of social theory, and charts different strategies for crafting a postcolonial social science.

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.