Applying Postcolonial Theory and Queer Gender Theory NOTE

Applying Postcolonial Theory and Queer Gender Theory NOTE: The ideas/concepts you want to know are in bold in this presentation—many slides don’t have any, but will help you understand the bolder terms

These sets of theories are like the previous two: they’re both the result of many writers and thinkers working for many years analyzing certain systems that exist in our current world In contrast with Marxism and Feminism, these two sets of ideas mostly exist starting from around the 1950 -60 s, and their most important sources are in the 1980 -90 s

The Facts Behind Postcolonial Theory Like its name says, postcolonial theory is mostly about describing the world after (post) the start of the colonial era. As most of you know, most of the world was colonized by European countries during the period between 1500 -1900, and they propagated the idea that the West and Europe had superior knowledge beliefs, moral, etc The map on the next page captures the colonial th situation in the late 19 century and gives a good sense of colonial control, but note this comes after many places had gained

Early Colonies: Plantations, slaves, forced labor While certain governments and empires have always controlled other areas and imposed their religion, language, and culture, this European type of ‘colonization’ was mostly about using these lands to make money in the global trade and capitalist system; so the colonizer would generally go to the lands and set up plantation systems— clearing land for cash crops and forcing people (slaves, indentured servants, poor people from their own lands, etc) to work on them so they would be profitable

Later Colonies: As the industrial revolution developed in the early 1800 s, the plantation system became less useful and valuable, and colonies focused more on a) extracting raw materials from colonies like iron and diamonds, and b) using the colonies’ cheap labor to make things like textiles and ships Note that slavery was outlawed in many colonies during this period--the USA was one of the last places to abolish it after the Civil War in 1865 The new sorts of colonies were less about forcibly controlling the local population and more about ‘managing’ them so that they were productive and useful for the home country

Managing the Colonies via Institutions Hence during this period, colonizing often involves institutions like schools, military, courts of law, etc; the people being colonized were allowed to run as much as they could by themselves but only in colonizer systems: British schools, French military, German courts, etc Yet that also meant that most of the colonized area wasn’t controlled by the colonizer—if they weren’t going to school or in the military etc people continued their previous lives

The largest idea of postcolonial theory is the 'Other' or 'othering. ' This basically describes how, within a colonial setting, groups would start to treat each other as fundamentally different. There was an Us and a Them, and the Other side was not to be trusted. This was especially important in the colonial setting, since this period of colonialism was underpinned by the idea that the 'civilized' colonists were doing a favor to the 'savage' colonized people by giving them their institutions of schools, Christian religion, factories, etc. Colonists would erase previous cultures and traditions by saying they were savage, unrefined,

These next two ideas of postcolonial theory are about the psychology of people who were living with this institutional/cultural colonialism: Unhome-ing describes how many colonial subjects were stuck between different worlds: at school they spoke the colonizer’s language and learned their history, religion, etc—but then they would go home to a different set of traditions and ideas. They were stuck between cultures and were acutely aware that they didn’t feel like they had a ‘home’ that they were fully comfortable in. (This idea still applies to many immigrants. ) Mimicry is the idea that the colonized subject

The last idea is the subaltern, which describes people who are colonized but aren’t part of the colonizer’s institutions: they don’t go to school, work in institutions, don’t speak the colonizer’s language, etc. The word literally means the ‘Other’ (alter in Latin) who is ‘beneath’ or ‘lower’ (‘sub’). These people are important since the colonizer by definition can’t know what’s going on with them or what they’re thinking about. We still use this word to describe people who have no institutional power or access to it: e. g. slaves in the earlier US, women who currently work in farming villages in the world, many kinds of the poor people in the US who have no power

Queer Gender Theory Feminist theory focuses on the two-gender system and how in many cultures it’s patriarchal and gives men more power while subtly (and sometimes no subtly) making women accept or be content with having less power. Queer theory however starts with the idea that the two-gender system itself isn’t the only way to think about gender. Its main critiques are based on two ideas: a) that sexuality is much broader than one gender being attracted to the other gender (as LGB people show); and b) that many cultures have more than two genders or

Gender as Social System These theorists begin with the basic and now common idea that biological ‘sex’ (biological reproductive organs themselves) is different from cultural ‘gender’ (the various habits, traditions, etc that people do as a result of their gender) So they look at everything that we do in society as part of our cultural gender system, from the clothes we wear to the ways we are taught to handle conflict, think about work, etc. As Simone de Beauvoir says: 'One is not born but rather becomes a woman. . . it is civilization as a whole that through (a million different practices)

Critiquing the two-gender system Judith Lorber (1994): “Western societies have only two genders, 'man' and 'woman' that people can identify with and belong to. Some societies have three genders—men, women, and berdahces, hijras, xaniths, or many other names. These are generally biological males who behave, dress, work, and are treated in most respects as social women; they are therefore not men, nor are they female women. There also African and American Indian societies that have a gender status called manly hearted women—biological females who work marry, and parent as men; their social status is 'female men. ' They do not have to behave

Basic Concepts of Queer Gender Theory Heterosexism and homophobia: the idea that our culture benefits people who fit clearly into one gender category (male or female) and who identify as being only attracted to the other gender. As the name says, homophobia—or transphobia—describes the way that homosexuals or transgender people challenge this simple system and make people uncomfortable or fearful about not having a simple and clear system. Queer gender practice: the idea that, since gender is just cultural practice without biological

Two more specific ideas that often appear in literature: Homosociality: this is an important concept that observes that women are often used as means for initiating, securing, or sustaining male relationships. At its most obvious, think of women who are sold between tribes or groups into marriage in order to create alliances or establish trade groups, etc. However, queer theorists have pointed out this occurs far more often in our society, and that women and sexuality are often used so that men can feel closer or more tied to one another (think of the men in Battle Royal bonding over their abuse of

How to use these to read stories: These concepts are supposed to help you think about the social and cultural world and the different systems in it, but the point for literary criticism is always to use them to ask questions about texts and lets you look closely at them. The last part of the first selection from the Tyson book—the pdf on Marxism/economic theory—shows you how to do this. The basic idea is to look at all the relevant facts and see what together they say about a question. We call this doing a ‘reading’: giving your own take on a story’s portrayal of the world.