The Creolization of Theory

The Creolization of Theory

  • Autor: Lionnet, Françoise; Shih, Shu-mei; Balibar, Étienne; Chancé, Dominique; Cheah, Pheng; Ching, Leo; Hesse, Barnor; Donadey, Anne
  • Editor: Duke University Press
  • ISBN: 9780822348320
  • eISBN Pdf: 9780822393320
  • Lloc de publicació:  Durham , United States
  • Any de publicació digital: 2011
  • Mes: Maig
  • Pàgines: 320
  • DDC: 303.48/2089
  • Idioma: Anglés
Introducing this collection of essays, Françoise Lionnet and Shu-mei Shih argue that looking back—investigating the historical, intellectual, and political entanglements of contemporary academic disciplines—offers a way for scholars in the humanities to move critical debates forward. They describe how disciplines or methodologies that seem distinct today emerged from overlapping intellectual and political currents in the 1960s and early 1970s, in the era of decolonization, the U.S. civil rights movement, and antiwar activism. While both American ethnic studies programs and “French theory” originated in decolonial impulses, over time, French theory became depoliticized in the American academy. Meanwhile, ethnic studies, and later also postcolonial studies, developed politically and historically grounded critiques of inequality. Suggesting that the abstract universalisms of Euro-American theory may ultimately be the source of its demise, Lionnet and Shih advocate the creolization of theory: the development of a reciprocal, relational, and intersectional critical approach attentive to the legacies of colonialism. This use of creolization as a theoretical and analytical rubric is placed in critical context by Dominique Chancé, who provides a genealogy of the concept of creolization. In their essays, leading figures in their fields explore the intellectual, disciplinary, and ethical implications of the creolized theory elaborated by Lionnet and Shih. Édouard Glisssant links the extremes of globalization to those of colonialism and imperialism in an interview appearing for the first time in English in this volume. The Creolization of Theory is a bold intervention in debates about the role of theory in the humanities.

Contributors. Étienne Balibar, Dominique Chancé, Pheng Cheah, Leo Ching, Liz Constable, Anne Donadey, Fatima El-Tayeb, Julin Everett, Édouard Glissant, Barnor Hesse, Ping-hui Liao, Françoise Lionnet, Walter Mignolo, Andrea Schwieger Hiepko, Shu-mei Shih

  • Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction - The Creolization of Theory - Shu-mei Shih and Françoise Lionnet
  • Part I | Creolizing Methodologies
    • One - Symptomatically Black: A Creolization of the Political - Barnor Hesse
    • Two - Postslavery and Postcolonial Representations: Comparative Approaches - Anne Donadey
    • Three - Crises of Money - Pheng Cheah
    • Four - Material Histories of Transcolonial Loss: Creolizing Psychoanalytic Theories of Melancholia? - Liz Constable
    • Five - From Multicultural to Creole Subjects: David Henry Hwang’s Collaborative Works with Philip Glass - Ping-huiLiao
  • Part 2 | Epistemological Locations
    • Six - I Am Where I Think: Remapping the Order of Knowing - Walter Mignolo
    • Seven - Taiwan in Modernity/Coloniality: Orphan of Asia and the Colonial Difference - Leo Ching
    • Eight - Toward a Diasporic Citizen? From Internationalism to Cosmopolitics - Étienne Balibar
    • Nine - “The Forces of Creolization”: Colorblindness and Visible Minorities in the New Europe - Fatima El-Tayeb
  • Part 3 | Appendix
    • A - Europe and the Antilles: An Interview with Édouard Glissant - Andrea Schwieger Hiepko, Translated by Julin Everett
    • B - Creolization: Definition and Critique - Dominique Chancé, Translated by Julin Everett
  • References
  • Contributors
  • Index