Attempt a postcolonial analysis of South Asian literatures written in English.

A critique of postcolonialism from our point of view would involve a brief look at the implications for reading and teaching initiated by postcolonialism. Postcolonial literary analysis has effected radically revisionist readings of canonical classics like Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Instead of naturalizing the eternal beauties of the colonial canon, postcolonial pedagogical practice “addresses questions arising from the apparent discrepancy between the antagonistic worlds of the colonial text and the postcolonial classroom.” (Gandhi, 1998, 146)

This takes the form of consciousness – raising whereby the student is encouraged to read against the gram of earlier critical ideas like authorial intention and universal meanings. Further, an attempt is made to historicize the received curriculum, with a view to revealing “imperialism’s shaping hand in the formation of English studies”. (Vishwana*, 1989, 167)