What is Colonialism?

It's easy to confuse orientalism and colonialism (and imperialism), so I thought that I would complement my entry on orientalism with an entry on colonialism. 

By the way, the picture above is a still from the 1984 film A Passage to India, an adaptation of the British writer EM Forster's novel.  This novel is set during the time when India was a British colony struggling to become independent.  In the scene pictured above, the Englishwoman Adela Quested (the sometime fiancee of colonial civil servant Ronnie Heaslop) is traveling to the Malabar Caves.  She is riding with Dr. Aziz; later she will falsely claim that he tried to rape her in the cave.  This will result in a trial and Dr. Aziz's humilation.  Ironically, Adela was initially very sympathetic towards India and its people.  For more information about this movie and a clip from it, see this link:

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/37349/A-Passage-to-India/overview


To distinguish among the three terms...orientalism, imperialism, and colonialism....

Orientalism (that is, the meaning that literary critic Edward Said has popularized) is more about how Westerners interpret the East.  In other words, orientalism is the belief that Westerners are better able to interpret the East and Easterners and that Easterners cannot interpret or represent themselves on their own.  Orientalism leads to Westerners' interpreting the Other to suit themselves. 


Imperialism and colonialism, on the other hand, are political and economic terms.  The former, imperialism, refers to one country's political, economic, and sometimes cultural domination over another.  Colonialism, the latter, refers to the practice of settling a country as the British settled in America (before we became independent), India, or their territories in Africa.  However, the British were not the only colonizers.  The Romans, the French, and the Spanish, to name three nationalities, colonized various regions.  For more information about this distinction, see this link to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/colonialism/

This timeline from the University of Iowa will give you a broad overview of how many nations were involved in colonialism:

http://www.uiowa.edu/~c016003d/Resources/Imperialismtimeline.htm

Or you may prefer these statistics from Mt. Holyoke:

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pol116/colonies.htm

Otherwise, the timelines can be fairly overwhelming.  Below is one professor's timelines that cover the British Raj and India's struggle for independence:

http://web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/hum210/tml/indiatml/indiatml3.htm

http://web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/hum210/tml/indiatml/indiatml4.htm

Here is the BBC's timeline for Africa.  Note that it begins in prehistoric times.
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1624_story_of_africa/page96.shtml

Below is the Metropolitan Museum of Art's timeline on the Guinea Coast, an area that includes some of Nigeria.  It covers arts and culture as well as politics and economics, but it seems to be the most detailed and authoritative timeline that I've seen:

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/10/sfg/ht10sfg.htm

Finally, here is a timeline on the Congo that covers both the colonial era and independence:

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/hhanson/241/congotimeline.html

The BBC's timeline is more detailed:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1072684.stm

Even if we focus on the settings of Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart, ignoring every other former colony, there is still much to investigate on this topic.  I will conclude by making one more distinction.  First published in 1898 (in serialized form), Heart of Darkness is a colonial novel since Conrad wrote it at a time when Belgium still occupied the Congo and Britain had a considerable empire.  Conrad himself lived in the Congo for a very short period.  Things Fall Apart, on the other hand, is a post-colonial novel even though Achebe wrote it in 1958, just *before* Nigeria became independent.  Achebe is from the colony that became Nigeria, and even though the novel is set in the 1890s, he depicts Okonkwo from the perspective of a member of his ethnic group (Igbo).

For more information about post-colonialism, see this link:

http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Intro.html

As this article's author states and the example of Things Fall Apart demonstrates, we use the term post-colonial a little more loosely than one would imagine.  However, it is still a useful term, and a distinction between Conrad's perspective and Achebe's must be made and maintained.

Study Guide for the Midterm (part 1)

These are the works that will be on the midterm:

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Lady Mary Wortley Montague's Turkish Embassy Letters (to Alexander Pope, Miss Sarah Chiswell, and the Countess of Mar [Lady Mary's sister])

excerpts from Evliya Celebi's Book of Travels (the whole is ten volumes)

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (We also discussed his "An Image of Africa" and Caryl Phillips' interview.)

Oroonoko by Aphra Behn

Candide by Voltaire

excerpts from Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

excerpts from Olaudah Equiano's The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

"Stale Mates" by Zhang Ailing or Eileen Chang

Raise the Red Lantern, dir. Zhang Yimou

excerpts from Xueqin Cao 's The Story of the Stone/Dream of the Red Chamber


The exam will be in two parts.  The first is the subjective exam (60 pts.).  This will be a take home essay.  The second is the objective exam (40 pts.).  I will ask you to fill in the blanks, answer multiple choice questions, and give short answers.   For the most part, the questions will be cover what we discuss in class.  I may ask you to list three to five things that you learned from reading this blog. 

Topics discussed for each work:

Heart of Darkness (1899, 1902)-- between 19th & 20th century, imperialism, history of Congo/DR Congo, frame narrative, Marlow as narrator, Marlow as hero/Kurtz as hero, hero's journey, Marlow & women, Marlow & Africans, Marlow & Europeans who are not English, is Marlow Conrad?/is Conrad Marlow?, Apocalypse Now, An Image of Africa (Achebe's response), Conrad's decision to write in English

Turkish Embassy Letters (written 1716-1718, published 1763) -- Lady Mary's sense of audience, her perspective on the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, orientalism, her correspondents, her visit with the wife of the Grand Vizier and then with the wife of the Kabya "the difference between an old devote and a young beauty," letters published *after* Lady Mary's death & even then they were edited, genre of lifewriting



Book of Travels -- ten volume work, Celebi traveled throughout the Ottoman Empire (Turkey, Albania, today's Iraq, Egypt), in the section we read he visits the site of a famous battle and advises the Caliph on how to preserve a ???'s gravesite from desecration, how does Celebi portray the land & people?

Things Fall Apart (1958) -- one of the first modern African novels but not the first (Amos Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard was published in 1946.), Achebe's depiction of 19th c. Igbo/Ibo society, Okonkwo-'s conflict with his son Nwoye and its outcome, impact of Christianity & British rule, Okonkwo & his wives, the society's attitude towards war, is Okonkwo at odds with his own village (Umofia)?, his conflict with his father, proverbs, what does Umofia value?, Okonkwo's relationship with Ikemefuna, what falls apart in the novel?, is Okonkwo a hero?  Is he a tragic hero?, roles of tradition & ritual, is Okonkwo flexible?  is his village?  why is flexibility important and how does it affect the outcome?, feel free to refer to "An Image of Africa" and interviews with Achebe

What is Orientalism?

Orientalism is an important concept to keep in mind as we start EN 202 because the West's political & cultural power makes it easy to see non-Western literature as exotic and less important than Western literature.  Since this semester we are reading Lady Mary Wortley Montague's letters from the Ottoman Empire *and* excerpts from Evliya Celebi's The Book of Travels, this concept is especially important since Edward Said's book focuses on this part of the world more than it focuses on Africa.  So I thought I would put up some links about it while I have a little more time. 

Nowadays when we talk about Orientalism in literary studies we are referring to Edward Said's definition of this term: Orientalism as a method of defining the Middle East (and the rest of Asia) as an object of study by Westerners.  However, as Danielle Sered notes in a web page on Orientalism, this term was used long before Said.  Then its meaning was a lot less controversial.

 http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Orientalism.html

Prof. Allen Carey-Webb's page at the University of Western Michigan provides more detailed information about the concept of Orientalism, the reception of Said's ideas, and Said himself.

http://www.wmich.edu/dialogues/texts/orientalism.htm

Interestingly, his students have also written about some of the works that we'll be reading.  Here is Michael Omo's page on Heart of Darkness: 

http://www.wmich.edu/dialogues/texts/heartofdarkness.html

Theresa Johnson wrote about Things Fall Apart:

http://www.wmich.edu/dialogues/texts/thingsfallapart.html

OK, I'm starting to go off track, but here is Vicki L. Whisler's page on Oroonoko:

http://www.wmich.edu/dialogues/texts/oroonoko.html

Said does mention Heart of Darkness and other works by Conrad, but his emphasis is on the Middle East as it has been scrutinized and defined by Westerners.  Nevertheless, because Said has helped us realize how politicized literature and literary studies are and his book is a key text in post-colonial studies, he has affected how we read Heart of Darkness et al.  We cannot read it as naively as we might have before Said published Orientalism (1978). 

Of course, neither should we read Orientalism naively.  FYI, here are some reviews by critics of Said:

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/enough-said-3743

The print on this article is small, but this site is more accessible than Salon is nowadays:

http://www.ictal.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1328

 

How do you interpret the way that the authors of these web sites use the term Orientalist or Oriental?

http://www.orientalist-art.org.uk/

http://www.orientalistart.net/index.html

http://www.arabartgallery.com/orient1.htm

Here is a painting by Kamil Aslanger, a contemporary Turkish artist who calls himself an Orientalist artist.  I tried to go to his website, but it is entirely in Turkish!  It looks and sounds beautiful, though.

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, and Home and Exile (Part 2)

In this entry, I will focus on Things Fall Apart, the novel that we will be reading from after we finish Heart of Darkness. 

By the way, here is an advertisement for the 1987 TV miniseries version of the novel.  I found the image at www.africanmoviesdirect.com.  Here is a link to the You Tube channel where you may watch scenes from this miniseries.  It looks like the screenwriters have made changes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7FS95IcRNU

Hmmm ....the "irrepressible" Okonkwo. 

As you read Things Fall Apart, how would you describe Okonkwo?  In your opinion, how does the third-person narrator seem to feel about him?

If you've read Ed Pilkington's Guardian article (see part 1), you may know that Achebe originally conceived of Things Fall Apart as a multigenerational novel.  Instead, in his final version, the novel focuses on Okonkwo, a seemingly prosperous and powerful Igbo farmer.  He is not at odds with his society....or is he?  His violent temper concerns the other men in his village, and the novel takes place at the end of the 19th century as the British consolidate their rule over what is now known as Nigeria and Protestant missionaries convert the villagers to Christianity.

Here is a current map of Africa to give you an idea of where Nigeria is.

Below is a close-up map of Nigeria, fyi.

Here is a link to the BBC's profile of Nigeria:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/country_profiles/1064557.stm

This timeline from the BBC will come in handy as well.  As we can see, Things Fall Apart takes place as the British are consolidating their rule.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/1067695.stm

This Wikipedia page contains specific information about the ethnic makeup of Nigeria:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Nigeria

Because of the tensions that I mention below, the information is specific but not necessarily accurate.

Here is an article about the tribal tensions that still exist in Nigeria:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/census-stirs-old-rivalries-between-nigerias-tribes-470671.html

In fact, in the 1960s, shortly after the country became independent, members of the Igbo seceded and formed the nation of Biafra.  Civil war broke out, and by 1970, Biafra was rejoined to Nigeria.

I would also like to post information about the Igbo, the ethnicity to which Achebe and the African characters in his novel belong:

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/oldworld/africa/igbo.html

http://www.uiowa.edu/~africart/toc/people/Igbo.html

http://www.geocities.com/athens/acropolis/3629/igbo.html

http://www.umunne.org/

And here is a link to a page on food in Nigeria!

http://www.foodbycountry.com/Kazakhstan-to-South-Africa/Nigeria.html

This site is by someone from the Yoruba group:

http://motherlandnigeria.com/food.html

I'd also like to post a link to the "virtual village" of Umuofia that I mentioned in part 1:

http://homepages.wmich.edu/~acareywe/umuofia/umuofiateachers.html

Finally, I will close with a few pictures.  First is a picture from Maine!  The curator of an African museum in Portland, Oscar Mokeme is teaching his son how to perform a song from the Igbo tradition.  (My husband and I have been to Mr. Mokeme's museum.)

Below is a picture that tells us what the egwugwu in Things Fall Apart may have looked like.  The picture is from a class site at Augusta State University.

Here is a reconstruction of an Igbo family compound.  It is part of an exhibit at Liverpool's International Slavery Museum.

I wanted to post this picture from www.everyculture.com as well to give you a picture of someone living in the huts. 

 

However, most Nigerians live in the city, so I thought I would end with this picture of a market in Lagos, the former capital.

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, and Home and Exile (part 1)

While I am champing at the bit for the semester to begin, I thought that I'd add an entry on the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, his first novel Things Fall Apart, and his 2000 book, Home and Exile, a trio of essays that began as the author's lectures at Harvard.  In fact, I feel a little guilty with all the Conrad entries I've posted so far. 

The first picture above is of Achebe and from the Guardian's blogs.  The second is one of the many editions of Things Fall Apart.  It appears to be an older edition and is from a Chinese web site.  As I've done with  Heart of Darkness, I could probably devote an entire entry to covers of Things Fall Apart.  So much has changed since 1958 when that novel was first published.  In fact, Achebe's homeland, Nigeria, would still be ruled by the British for another two years. 

Also, Multiply is a good place to repost some links that I have up at WebCT.  The first is to Achebe's "An Image of Africa," an essay that began as a lecture given at the University of Massachusetts in 1975:

http://kirbyk.net/hod/image.of.africa.html

In this essay, the author fiercely criticizes Conrad for relying on racist stereotypes of Africa and Africans as well as working to perpetuate these stereotypes in his Heart of Darkness.  Furthermore, Achebe maintains that, for the most part, Conrad refuses to let Africans speak in his novella.  Then, he notes that when they are allowed to, their few words confirm European prejudice.

Indeed, the picture below is an 17th-century engraving of a procession through Benin City, the capital of the Edo kingdom in what is now Nigeria.

Below is a picture of a bronze bowl dating from the ninth or tenth century CE.  (The bowl is from the Igbo, another group or, as Achebe states, "nation," in Nigeria.)

British author Caryl Phillips interviewed Achebe in 2003.  Here, in this article from the Guardian, Achebe expands on his criticism of Conrad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/feb/22/classics.chinuaachebe

More recently, Ed Pilkington interviewed Achebe.  In this article also published in the guardian, the author recalls his original plan for Things Fall Apart.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/jul/10/chinuaachebe

Pilkington's article also gives you a better sense of Achebe's life.  For a more organized outline, see the BBC's biography:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/profile/chinua-achebe.shtml

This website's biography is more detailed and more recent:

http://chinua-achebe.com/index.htm

I know I am going to have to add another entry or two, so I will conclude with some pictures from Nigeria:

First is a picture of Achebe's birthplace, Ogidi:

Below is a picture from an Igbo woman's wedding.  The bride is wearing orange!

 

I am not sure when this picture dates from, but it is from a "virtual village" built to help American students understand Things Fall Apart a little better.

Also, if you go to Staunton, VA, you'll be able to see a replica of an Igbo village:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/05/igbo-village-re-created-for-museum/