“Can the Subaltern Speak?” Colonial Education & the Cultural Identities

Outline Colonial Education Cultural Identities: (Post)colonial intellectuals; the subaltern. Examples of the interrelations between the two: “Columbus in Chain” “Good Advice is Rarer than Ruby” “My Man Bonvanne”

Colonial Education An example of Cultural imperialism (knowledge is power) . Colonial Education = Cultural Assimilation. In this case, assimilation “involves those who are colonized being forced to conform to the cultures and traditions of the colonizers.” ‘cultural domination works by consent and often precedes conquest by force“ (Gauri Viswanathan 85). Source: http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Education.html

Presumptions & Goals of Colonial Education: an example Thomas B. Macaulay Went to India when the rule of East India was being superseded by that of the British crown. in favor of the liberty of the press and of the equality of Europeans and Indians before the law. who established India’s educational system. source

Presumptions & Goals of Colonial Education: an example Racist Presumptions: e.g. “a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia” Can we use the same standard to evaluate all kinds of literature? Goal: "We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.“ Thus come the post/colonial intellectuals. (Thomas B. Macaulay) (source)

Colonial Education: Consequences Hierarchy of according to the people’s languages and knowledge ; Loss (or lack of interest in) of local culture and history; Identity: Silence, Lack of identity; assimilated or hybrid identities. “postcolonial/third-world intellectual” : in an awkward position The “subaltern” – Can they speak?

Cultural Identities: example 1 postcolonial/third-world intellectual: sell-out/ nativist Assimilationist separatist Imposition of colonial value standards Trying to localize c. culture, use its power, to serve one’s own people. Critical Adaptation, appropriation (pc writers writing in English) Celebrating one’s own culture/power. (e.g. Black Power mov.) One language Hybridity; dual language/identity

postcolonial/third-world intellectual: examples -- some of the postcolonial theorists; some of your teachers; -- Buddha Bless America by 吳念真 The translators -- 阿盛 (a retired teacher) in between the U.S. (envy), Japan(hatred) and KMT (sly civility). Clips 17, 18, 19 -- the US. army’s translator Clip 23.

Cultural Identities: example 2 “the subaltern” (textbook 210-14) The subaltern: (definition p. 212) The subordinated, the colonized. “In, in the context of colonial production, the subaltern has no history and cannot speak, the subaltern as female is even more deeply in shadow.” (textbook 212)

“Cannot speak” can mean: 1) = cannot be heard or understood. -- does not have the master’s language to speak; (in the chaos outside History, outside the différence of language ) -- is not in a speaking position; 2) -- have no resisting consciousness. Once they start to resist, they are no longer “the subaltern.”

Spivak’s attempts in Context Spivak: Stops over-simplistic representation of the colonized. Discuss women’s position as doubly victimized. (e.g. Sati) Politics of difference. (textbook 214) Debates in postcolonialism: High theories vs. literature of the people; anti-humanism vs. revised views of humanism; (e.g. “strategic use of positivist essentialism”) total difference (sameness) vs. difference + sameness.

The Subaltern: Examples Buddha Bless America by 吳念真 阿盛 and his brother’s quest:clip 22; The kids: appropriation clips: 20, 21, 24 Ms. Havana, My Van Bonvanne, Ms. Hazel – can they really be heard? Or only heard through a postcolonial intellectual?

“Good Advice is Rarer than Ruby” What position does Muhammad Ali take in relation to Ms. Rehana and the other applicants? What knowledge does he hold? Use of power: His speech about the questions; his ”connection” with ‘a man working in the Consulate.” yelling about the curse of “our people.” His attraction to Ms. Rehana. How do Ms. Rehana and the people around (the bettlenut woman) respond to him?

“My Man Bonvanne” Toni Cade Bambara –committed to social work but self-critical of her own work. (e.g. the role of Ms. Moore in “The Lesson” & the young activists in My Man Bonvanne.”) Afro-American literature as minorities literature. Postcolonial because the Afro-Americans suffer from internal colonization Slavery, caused by capitalism as well as colonialism. examples of internal colonies: racial ghetto and reservation areas for the aborigines.

“My Man Bonvanne” Mrs. Hazel Peoples and Bonvanne: Another blind person. How is Bonvanne treated differently from Maurice in “The Blind Man”? How does Hazel relate to him? How does Hazel interpret the phrase “Old folks is the nation” differently from her kids?

“My Man Bonvanne” Mrs. Hazel Peoples and her “kids,” Task, Elo, Jo Lee: How do her children criticize her? And how do they look at her relation with Bonvanne? Where do we get a sense of the kids’ sense of their cultural identities? (e.g. their attitudes toward ‘generation gap’)