Marxism, Postcolonial Theory, and the Future of Critique: Critical Engagements with Benita Parry PDF
Preview Marxism, Postcolonial Theory, and the Future of Critique: Critical Engagements with Benita Parry
Marxism, Postcolonial Theory and the Future of Critique Using the aesthetic and political concerns of Parry’s oeuvre as a touch- stone, this book explores new directions for postcolonial studies, Marx- ist literary criticism, and world literature in the contemporary moment, seeking to re-imagine the field, and alongside it, new possibilities for left critique. It is the first volume of essays focusing on the field- defining intellectual legacy of the literary scholar Benita Parry. As a leading critic of the post-structuralist turn within postcolonial studies, Parry has not only brought Marxism and postcolonial theory into a produc- tive, albeit tense, dialogue, but has reinvigorated the field by bringing critical questions of resistance and struggle to bear on aesthetic forms. The book’s aim is two-fold: first, to evaluate Parry’s formative influence within postcolonial studies and its interface with Marxist literary crit- icism, and second, to explore new terrains of scholarship opened up by Parry’s work. It provides a critical overview of Parry’s key interventions, such as her contributions to colonial discourse theory; her debate with Spivak on subaltern consciousness and representation; her critique of post- apartheid reconciliation and neoliberalism in South Africa; her ma- terialist critique of writers such as Kipling, Conrad, and Salih; her work on liberation theory, resistance, and radical agency; as well as more recent work on the aesthetics of “peripheral modernity.” The volume contains cutting-edge work on peripheral aesthetics, the world-literary system, critiques of global capitalism and capitalist modernity, and the resurgence of Marxism, communism, and liberation theory by a range of established and new scholars who represent a dissident and new school of thought within postcolonial studies more generally. It concludes with the first-ever detailed interview with Benita Parry about her activism, political commitments, and her life and work as a scholar. Sharae Deckard is Lecturer in World Literature at University College Dublin. She is the author of Paradise Discourse, Imperialism and Glo- balization (Routledge 2010) and co-author (with the Warwick Research Collective) of Combined and Uneven Development: Towards a New Theory of World-Literature (Liverpool UP 2015). She has edited spe- cial issues of Ariel, The Journal of World-Systems Research, Green Letters, and The Journal of Postcolonial Writing. Her research centres on world-ecology and world-systems approaches to postcolonial and world literature. Rashmi Varma teaches postcolonial and world literature and transna- tional feminist theory in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. She is the author of The Postcolonial City and Its Subjects (2012) and the forthcoming Modern Tribal: Representing Indigeneity in Postcolonial India. She is a found- ing editorial collective member of the journal Feminist Dissent. Most recently, she has co-edited (with Subir Sinha) a symposium on Marxism and postcolonial theory for the journal Critical Sociology. Routledge Research In Postcolonial Literatures Edited in collaboration with the Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, University of Kent at Canterbury, this series presents a wide range of research into postcolonial literatures by specialists in the field. Volumes will concentrate on writers and writing originating in previously (or presently) colonized areas, and will include material from non-anglophone as well as anglophone colonies and literatures. Series editors: Donna Landry and Caroline Rooney 57 Zoë Wicomb & the Translocal Writing Scotland & South Africa Edited by Kai Easton and Derek Attridge 58 Olive Schreiner and African Modernism Allegory, Empire and Postcolonial Writing Jade Munslow Ong 59 Narrating Postcolonial Arab Nations Egypt, Algeria, Lebanon, Palestine Lindsey Moore 60 Critical Branding Postcolonial Studies and the Market Caroline Koegler 61 Anglo-American Imperialism and the Pacific Discourses of Encounter Edited by Michelle Keown, Andrew Taylor and Mandy Treagus 62 Popular Postcolonialisms Discourses of Empire and Popular Culture Edited by Nadia Atia and Kate Houlden 63 Marxism, Postcolonial Theory and the Future of Critique Critical Engagements with Benita Parry Edited by Sharae Deckard and Rashmi Varma Foreword by Neil Lazarus For a full list of titles in this series, please visit: https://www.routledge. com Marxism, Postcolonial Theory and the Future of Critique Critical Engagements with Benita Parry Edited by Sharae Deckard and Rashmi Varma FoREWoRD By NEIL LAzARUS First published 2019 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New york, Ny 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, oxon oX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Taylor & Francis The right of the editors to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data CIP data has been applied for. ISBN: 978-1-138-18611-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-64403-5 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra Contents Acknowledgements ix Foreword xi NEIL LAzARUS Against the Grain: An Introduction to Benita Parry’s Intellectual Itinerary 1 SHARAE DECKARD AND RASHMI VARMA PART I Aesthetics 19 1 Against Modernism 21 TIMoTHy BRENNAN 2 “I remember, I remember so as not to forget!” Orhan Pamuk’s Melancholic Agency and the Splenetic Périples of Mediterranean Writing 37 NoRBERT BUGEJA 3 “Broken Histories”: The Tribal and the Modern in Arun Joshi’s The Strange Case of Billy Biswas 61 RASHMI VARMA 4 Peripheral Irrealisms: Water-Spirits, World-Ecology, and Neoliberalism 78 MICHAEL NIBLETT 5 “Not even a sci-fi writer”: Peripheral Genres, the World- System Novel, and Junot Díaz 96 SHARAE DECKARD viii Contents PART II Politics 115 6 Towards a Pre-History of National Liberation Struggle 117 PETER HALLWARD 7 Disaffection, Sedition, and Resistance: Aurobindo Ghose and Revolutionary Thought 141 KEYA GANGULY 8 Revolutionary Nationalism and Global Horizons: The Ghadar Party on Ireland and China 165 PRANAV JANI 9 The Limits of African Nationalism: From Anti-Apartheid Resistance to Postcolonial Critique 191 DAVID JOHNSON 10 Maverick Marxism? Eclipsed Enlightenments, Horizons of Solidarity, and Utopian Realism 213 CAROLINE ROONEY PART III Interlocutions 235 11 “It could be otherwise, it should be otherwise”: A Conversation with Benita Parry 237 SHARAE DECKARD AND RASHmI VARmA 12 “Intellectual Life: A Duty to Dissent” 261 BENITA PARRY 13 Benita Parry’s Position 264 TImOTHY BRENNAN Notes on Contributors 275 Bibliography of Benita Parry’s Works 279 Index 283 Acknowledgements We would like to thank the reviewers for important feedback on our book proposal, as well as the editorial team at Routledge and series ed- itors Donna Landry and Caroline Rooney for their support of this col- lection in the first instance. Thanks are also due to Divya Rao for patiently transcribing Benita’s interview for publication, to Kaitlyn Picard for editorial assistance, and to Lucy Potter for indexing. We are grateful to all our contributors for their patience and commit- ment to this project. This book comes out of our long association with Benita as a col- league, teacher, mentor, comrade, and friend. It is deeply imbued with memories of long and intense conversations nourished by the warm hospitality of Bill and Benita Parry in their beautiful home in Marton, Warwickshire. We also wish to thank Rachel, David, Sasha and Jessie— Benita’s beloved family—for being a continuous source of love and sup- port for Benita in Wales, where her home continues to provide joy and intellectual comradeship to her many friends. Finally, we would like to thank all of Benita’s colleagues, friends, stu- dents, mentees, and interlocutors, too many to be included in a single volume and too numerous to be named individually, who are an im- portant part of her intellectual and personal journey. We hope that this collection of essays is only the beginning of our expression of solidarity and critique, which for Benita, always go hand in hand.
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