Postcolonizing the Commonwealth: Studies in Literature and Culture

Introduction

Introduction Rowland Smith All but one of these essays originated as papers delivered in November 1997 at the ‘‘Commonwealth in Canada’’ conference held at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo , Ontario—one of the triennial conferences organized by the Canadian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (CACLALS). The only exception, the essay on recent Afrikaans writing by Sheila Roberts, was delivered at the regular, annual conference of CACLALS, held the following spring in Ottawa as part of the Canadian Congress of the Social Sciences and the Humanities. Its obvious linkage to themes and issues raised by the other authors in this volume led to its inclusion. It is saddening to report that one of the contributors, Jacqueline Bardolph of the University of Nice, a plenary speaker at the triennial conference, and one of the pioneers in the promotion and study of ‘‘new literatures’’ in France, died in 1999 while this volume was in press. One of the original aims of the ‘‘Commonwealth in Canada’’ conference (the title is the traditional one for CACLALS triennials) was to use plenary sessions to discuss varying approaches to what used to be called ‘‘Commonwealth Literature’’ in various countries. ‘‘Commonwealth in a Postcolonial World’’ was one subtitle thought of to describe this intention. What did in fact emerge, however, was a series of papers, not all of which are included in this volume, that varied significantly in the ways authors conceived of the topic. While there was no consistency of approach in the plenary sessions on how the field was studied in France/Europe, in Jamaica/the Caribbean, in South Africa, in Australia and in Canada, there emerged 1 during the conference itself a surprisingly insistent set of images, descriptive phrases and topics of investigation in both the plenary sessions and in the sessions devoted to discrete issues, texts and authors. The essays in this volume illustrate that set of implicitly shared concerns. Although written from varying perspectives, they return constantly to issues of difference and similarity, the re-examination of categories that appear to many to be too rigidly defined in current postcolonial practices and to concepts of sharing: experience, ideas of home and even the use of land. The authors in this collection choose varied topics. To those unaccustomed to debate in ‘‘cultural studies’’ this range may seem arbitrary. What do cowboy songs, Iranian feminists, fetal alcohol syndrome, the ascent of Everest, Natal women settlers and Afrikaans exile-poets have in common with discussions of the development of syllabus and teaching practice in French or Caribbean universities? The answer is that all these topics concern the representation of attitude, value and belief in fiction, ‘‘life-writing’’ such as journals, teaching and public events (including the public reaction to public events). Commonwealth literature of necessity dealt with the writing of areas colonized by a major European power. Postcolonial theory attempts to explain the common elements in writing from the margins of a world colonized physically and imaginatively from a metropolitan centre. This collection discusses the development of academic practice in dealing with this kind of writing and uses current events to illustrate ways in which the habits of a basically Western academic practice such as ‘‘postcolonial studies’’ can inform political events at ‘‘home’’ and abroad. And in the representation of Empire and colonization, the abiding myths (Cowboys and Indians, the ‘‘Conquest’’ of Everest, Islamic fundamentalists, drunken natives) have their own status and uses. The authors in this volume range freely over all these topics. Senior scholars such as the late Jacqueline Bardolph of Nice and Edward Baugh of the University of the West Indies at Mona describe the history of their involvement with the teaching and promotion of the ‘‘new’’ literatures in university systems with strongly conservative, or at least normative, concepts of syllabus and canon at the time when they began to introduce the new authors and texts. Established scholars from ‘‘settler’’ cultures, such as Alan Lawson of the University of Queensland and Stephen Slemon of the University of Alberta, use their essays as starting points to discuss the future of a scholarly area in which they have played leading, pioneering roles. 2 Postcolonizing the Commonwealth: Studies in Literature and Culture There is an age difference between these two groups of scholars. Edward Baugh and Jacqueline Bardolph were among the first to teach writing known as Commonwealth literature in their respective countries . It was the work of devotees of their generation...