Postcolonialism Cross-Examined

Taking a strikingly interdisciplinary and global approach, Postcolonialism Cross-Examined reflects on the current status of postcolonial studies and attempts to break through traditional boundaries, creating a truly comparative and genuinely global phenomenon. Drawing together the field of mainstream postcolonial studies with post-Soviet postcolonial studies and studies of the late Ottoman Empire, the contributors in this volume question many of the concepts and assumptions we have become accustomed to in postcolonial studies, creating a fresh new version of the field. The volume calls the merits of the field into question, investigating how postcolonial studies may have perpetuated and normalized colonialism as an issue exclusive to Western colonial and imperial powers. The volume is the first to open a dialogue between three different areas of postcolonial scholarship that previously developed independently from one another: - the wide field of postcolonial studies working on European colonialism - the growing field of post-Soviet postcolonial/post-imperial studies - the still fledgling field of post-Ottoman postcolonial/post-imperial studies, supported by sideways glances at the multidirectional conditions of interaction in East Africa and the East and West Indies Postcolonialism Cross-Examined looks at topics such as humanism, nationalism, multiculturalism, nostalgia, and the Anthropocene in order to piece together a new, broader vision for postcolonial studies in the twenty-first century. By including territories other than those covered by the postcolonial mainstream, the book strives to reframe the "postcolonial" as a genuinely global phenomenon and develop multidirectional postcolonial perspectives.

Monika Albrecht is Professor of literary and cultural studies (apl. Prof.) at the University of Vechta, Germany.

Introduction: Postcolonialism Cross-Examined: Multidirectional Perspectives on Imperial and Colonial Pasts and the Neo-colonial Present Monika Albrecht Part 1: Post-Colonial Complexities 1. Humanism, Embodied Knowledge, and Postcolonial Theory John Noyes 2. Postcolonial Studies, Creolizations, and Migrations Françoise Lionnet 3. The Pre-Postcolonial and its Enduring Relevance: Afro-Asian Variations in Edwar al-Kharrat's Texts Hala Halim Part 2: Case Studies in Light of Unchanged Asymmetries 4. Accommodating "Syrien im Krieg": Matrices of Colonialism 1914-1917 Florian Krobb 5. Postcolonial Asymmetry: Coping with the Consequences of Genocide between Namibia and Germany" Reinhart Kößler 6. Postcolonial Theory as Post-Colonial Nationalism Dirk Uffelman 7. Colonial Lifestyle and Nostalgia: The Ottoman Belle Époque and the Project of Modernization in Greek Literature and Heritage TV Series Yannis G.S. Papadopoulos 8. The Postcolonial Condition, the Decolonial Option, and the Postsocialist Intervention Madina Tlostanova Part 3: Towards a Multidirectional Approach to the Postcolonial 9. Unthinking Postcolonialism? On the Necessity for a Reset Instead of a Step Forward Monika Albrecht 10. From Cuzco to Constantinople: Rethinking Postcolonialism Gregory Jusdanis 11. Afrasian Prisms of Postcolonial Memory: German Colonialism in East Africa and the Indian Ocean Universe in Contemporary Anglophone and German Literature Dirk Göttsche 12. The Colonizer's Day Off: Colonial Subjectivities in the Soviet-Era Baltics Epp Annus 13. Latvian Multiculturalism and Postcolonialism Benedikts Kalnacs Part 4: Yet Another Major Challenge 14. Narratives of the Anthropocene: from the Perspective of Postcolonial Ecocriticism and Environmental Humanities Gabriele Dürbeck