From the introduction to Joyce, Race and Empire ... Cheng interprets Joyce's anti-imperialist bent in suggesting there is, in the entire Joyce ouvre, a "systematic intent" towards representations of the need for de-clonisation. In alligning this approach with post-colinial criticism, Cheng uses the adjective "sensitive", in writing that Joyce's representations are "sensitive to (and answer to) the sociopolitical writers ... Gramsci, Said and Fanon.
I'm always curious about the way writers are linked onto the caboose of criticism, and this phrase, "sensitive to", is a nice way to do it, and away chugs the train.
The venerable persoange who lent me the book suggests it is silly on Cheng's part to write: "a national, ethnic or cultural dentity (whether "Irish" or "Chinese" or whatever) is, to a large degree, itself a cultural construction that is not very easy to characterize."
Cheng presents historical racism in the race theorists of the late 19th century. Robert Knox of England, and also John Beddoe. Knox was scarily horrible, saying Jews "have not literature" (ahem, Bible much? That little thing called Psalms of David?) and equally as nasty to the Irish. "The race must be forced from the soil". Such pleasant stuff.
Later there is some discussion of hybridity and diversity in the racial roots of how Joyce saw himself and the Irish (Cheng 56) and linked this to Foucault who wrote about the "dispersed and related" manner in which history shows one order imposed on another culture. That there is always some of the Other in the Same. That the nationalist Irish approach to "Celticism" used the same essentialising of Englishness (leading down the 'noble savage' path, glorifying ancientness and singularity rather than mixedness.)
I'm always curious about the way writers are linked onto the caboose of criticism, and this phrase, "sensitive to", is a nice way to do it, and away chugs the train.
The venerable persoange who lent me the book suggests it is silly on Cheng's part to write: "a national, ethnic or cultural dentity (whether "Irish" or "Chinese" or whatever) is, to a large degree, itself a cultural construction that is not very easy to characterize."
Cheng presents historical racism in the race theorists of the late 19th century. Robert Knox of England, and also John Beddoe. Knox was scarily horrible, saying Jews "have not literature" (ahem, Bible much? That little thing called Psalms of David?) and equally as nasty to the Irish. "The race must be forced from the soil". Such pleasant stuff.
Later there is some discussion of hybridity and diversity in the racial roots of how Joyce saw himself and the Irish (Cheng 56) and linked this to Foucault who wrote about the "dispersed and related" manner in which history shows one order imposed on another culture. That there is always some of the Other in the Same. That the nationalist Irish approach to "Celticism" used the same essentialising of Englishness (leading down the 'noble savage' path, glorifying ancientness and singularity rather than mixedness.)
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ReplyDeleteOlga from http://revedoa@blogspot.com