Promising "Post-Colonialism": Deleuze-Guattari's "Minor Literature" and the Poetry of Arthur Yap

Irving Goh (The National University of Singapore)

[This essay has subsequently appeared in issue 22 of Genre, the California State University Literary Journal.]

"Post-colonialism": Promise, Justice/ Just Is

If the name, the term, "post-colonialism," just ever implied at the heart of it a life, a condition, something, better than "colonialism," it is because it has as its structurality something promising, something of a promise. "Post-colonialism" was -- and if it still is -- the promise of releasing lines of desires of heterogeneous voices blocked by the violent law of physical and/ or symbolic "colonialism." In other words, the rupture of "post-colonialism" articulates, gives presence to, some sort of justice. In Deleuze and Guattari's philosophy, "Justice is desire": "everything, everyone, is part of justice . . . everyone is an auxiliary of justice . . . not because of the transcendence of the law but because of the immanence of desire" (Kafka, 49-40). The lines of immanent desire, justice, in "post-colonial" spaces, were therefore blocked by the law of "colonialism." "Post-colonialism" then is the (re)opening to a relation to the world the justice of the just is, which is the immanent freedom that insists, inheres, subtends, in the freedom of the fact of existence, of life, of immanence, of "post-colonial" spaces. And this immanence is the reserve that always remains -- remains free -- in spite of "colonialism," and in spite of "post-colonialism." It is that interval between what has gone on with existence and "colonialism," between "colonialism" and "post-colonialism," and between "post-colonialism" and existence hic et nunc. It is like the syncope between "post" and "colonialism" in "post-colonialism." The question of "post-colonialism" then, to give justice to the justness of this term, is to sustain that systole of the force of its promise, to ensure the continual genesis of the thinking, the articulation of such freedom. One might say, following Derrida, that it is a question of mainténant justice, in which the promise of the mainténant is the responsibility of the iterability of writing. The point I would like to make here, which is also the main thrust of my argument, is that the promise of "post-colonialism" in "post-colonial" spaces needs more than mere écriture. It needs a writing that writes that immanent interval and that resonates of that interval. In other words, the promise of "post-colonialism," and its attendant mainténant justice, needs a writing -- a writing Deleuze and Guattari might just call "minor literature."

In this paper I will speak of the "post-colonial" space of Singapore, a "post-colonial" space that is close to (my) heart. I will speak of Singapore because the voice or the language of precisely that immanent interval, which is something close to the heart of this space, which consequently also means the freedom of that interval, is in the face of repression if not the beginning of its erasure today. In this "post-colonial" space therefore, I suggest that there should be a greater intensity in the insistence of writing this immanent interval with the language of that interval, just so to prevent the blockage of the horizon of that mainténant justice by any force that threatens it.

Singapore: Blocked Assemblage

If we ever want to speak about a "strange creature" of Southeast Asian "postcoloniality" or "post-colonialism," we might as well be speaking of the "post-colonial" space of Singapore; and as Ismail S. Talib points out "To talk of postcoloniality or the postcolonial condition in Southeast Asia is to talk of a strange creature" (p. 59). This is because in this contemporaneous time when western philosophies are extending pity to the world, as the occidental culture of information technology envelopes every locality of the globe, the "city/state" of Singapore is embracing this telematic force. It welcomes it as if it is a "de jure" fact of contemporary existence. A space "not of a once-colonised country per se" (Phillips, p. 180), it has the architectonics of that force -- a force not difficult to deconstruct as an elliptical form of "colonialism" as we know it from the last millennium -- so grounded in place. In terms of living out that almost inextricable post-industrial and post-modern condition of information culture, what in essence is "progress" in occidental terms, we might say Singapore is doing almost absurdly well. One critic has even written Singapore as "virtually a First World country in a Third World region" (p. 64). All these amount to saying that the "post-colonial" space of Singapore has transplanted (back) the diastolic, the regulating, striating pulsation, of "colonialism" as the heart, the technological, economic, and political law of "post-colonial" Singapore.

What remains then of the articulation of the promise of "post-colonialism" of this locality in the practical reasoning of the "city/ state"? One cannot say with full certainty today, as we have said in the beginning, that it remains with that immanent interval we have talked about. This is because the force of power in this "post-colonial" space is slowly eradicating the language and hence the voice(s) of that interval. Consequently, this movement of the force of power threatens to close the possibility of the promise of "post-colonialism," the possibility of the articulation of its promise.

In this space of immigrant if not nomadic history and culture, a multiracial and multicultural space in other words, the language of this space i.e. Singapore English, has always been an assemblage. It is an assemblage where the linguistic forces of the diverse racial groups enter into a relation. In this assemblage, there is no pure absolute ("standard") English, Malay, Tamil, or Chinese language. It is always a between-ness, a différance so to speak, a free moving spacing not only between the vernacular Singapore Colloquial English and the more formal acrolectal use of English, but also between the multiracial linguistic lines in Singapore. This fact of freedom of différance, différance of freedom, just is the justice of the desire of giving voice to the fact of the freedom of plural existences in relation in this heterogeneous "post-colonial" space. And this constantly deterritorializing linguistic assemblage, this "exotic weed," which resists any monolithic arborescent structure, a rhizome in other words, can be said to be the creative expression or articulation of the freedom of the immanent interval. More justly, perhaps, we should say that the différance of Singapore English has the mappings of what Deleuze and Guattari call "minor language." For if according to Deleuze and Guattari, a "minor language" subtends within a "major language" like a standard language such as standard English, we could say that Singapore English is the "minor language" in relation to standard English. As assemblage and différance, Singapore English is a stammering of standard English, affecting it with "a high coefficient of deterritorialization" in terms of phonology, syntax, and lexicology, continuously "plac[ing] [standard English] in a state of continuous variation."

But this "just is"/ justice is coming up against a wall of an instituting "law." There is a gradual appropriation of this freedom to articulate this linguistic assemblage, a capture of this assemblage. Since late 1999, there has been a disciplining, a policing, and then a call for the transmutation of Singapore English by the authorities, by the forces of power. There is a denunciation, if not the attempt to obliterate the spectrum of Singapore English that so inheres at the heart of the lived experience in Singapore i.e. Singapore Colloquial English. The teleologic end of this transmutation is the endeavor to attain a more-than-standard "Standard English," "Good English," "Proper English." In place of what is natural i.e. Singapore English in its différance, it seeks something that is more than natural. It is also a paradoxical "telos" as it attempts at a somewhat regression to the language variety of the now-defunct colonial and imperial Great Britain, a "Queen's English" as one observer comments sardonically ("Double standards in language?" Straits Times 23.25.99). According to Alfian Sa'at, it bespeaks of a desire of the forces of power for a return to a more originary "colonialism" today: "The Singlish hoo-ha smacked of a colonial [my italics] mentality which would appropriate the American slang of Hollywood movies, but not homegrown expressions" (cited in "Hijacked by debate on Singlish." Straits Times 7.09.99). It desires a more originary "colonialism" because, and if we want to accept the claim that English "was 'a precious gift' from the British" (Pakir, p. 92), that English has been shown to be not a pure "Standard English," never a pure "Queen's English" (see Gupta). It is a "telos" that is anachronistic too, since there is not so much of a "standard" English today. In the field of linguistics, where language diversity and variety are celebrated today, there is in fact the deconstruction of terms like "standard," "good," "proper," in relation to English. (And hence why I say the goal of this desire is "more-than-standard.") And to add to this sense of anachronistic reversion, this disciplining of the linguistic assemblage comes at a time when Singapore English has gained international recognition. According to The South China Morning Post, HK, "The Oxford English Dictionary has finally given its blessing to some Singaporean slang. Rather embarrassingly, this comes days before Singapore launches a campaign aimed at wiping out 'Singlish.'" (14.04.00). On the contrary, it is the "campaign" that is the real embarrassment.

Institutionalized as a public campaign and proselytized as "PROSE" -- of Promotion of Standard English-- at the local tertiary institution, this desire for a more originary "colonialism" is but one of several steps in raising, in feeding the growth or re-birth of the specter of "colonialism." There is a blatantly strong economic motivation behind the campaign for "standard English." The force of authority believes that "standard English" is the key to "the Republic's aim to be a First World economy" ("Buck up," Straits Times. 30.04.00). It believes that with "standard English," it will gain access to that occidental, neo-colonial, "globalitarian" law of information-technology economics mentioned earlier: "Go global with proper English" ("Out: Phua Chu Kang." Straits Times. 23.08.99). From the perspective of the force of authority, Singapore English must ultimately and necessarily "serve [my emphasis] a worldwide or transnational technocracy" (Deleuze and Guattari, Kafka, p. 24). It will therefore discipline the différance of Singapore English. With a "ruthless shrinking," it seeks to sublate Singapore English in its endless spectrum of différance into mere "standard English." In "Singapore Soil," John Phillips argues that such constant resorting to arguments of economics creates "A ruthless shrinking" that "reduces Singapore to the anxiety of a kind of perpetual adolescence, a permanent awareness of the future's danger, a permanent state of shock at the random finitude of existence" (179). And it will appropriate the opinions of the immanent interval: "They want to speak better English, not Singlish" ("Singlish 'a handicap we do not wish on S'poreans." Straits Times. 15.08.99.) It will hinge the risk of its economic enterprise and goal on that interval:

Poor English [i.e. non-standard English used in the interval of common everyday experience] will hurt the Republic's aim to be a First World Economy. [my emphasis]

This hinge is but another way of laying blame on the other. And "culpability is never anything but the superficial movement whereby [the force of authority] confines[s] you in order to prevent you from engaging in a real movement" (Kafka, p. 45). In any case, this is the new founding law of this "post-colonial" space: the use of "Standard English" as a "political correctness." It is the desire-justice of the force of authority, a "desire that imposes submission, propagates it; a desire that judges and condemns" (Kafka, p. 4).

To reinstate that justice of the immanent interval, to tear open the artificial suture that closes the thought of freedom of the interval, to reinvigorate the force of the promise of "post-colonialism," there is therefore the imperative to precisely just write that interval. Which amounts to say to inscribe the front-guard -- the avant-garde -- against any reactive force that threatens to delimit its horizon; a front-guard that will also write "a desedimentation of the superstructures of law that both hide and reflect the economic and political interests of the dominant forces of society" (Derrida, "Force of Law," p. 13.). Which also amounts to say to write, according to Deleuze and Guattari, the "minor literature" of this "post-colonial" space. And true to its own avant-gardist paradoxical fashion -- the avant-garde is always the "new" that is already there -- this avant-garde "minor literature" has in fact been written. It is inscribed in the poetry of Arthur Yap.

Arthur Yap, "Minor Literature," and the avant-garde

Let us take a recent poem by Arthur Yap to illustrate the notion of avant-garde, in the sense of a counter-force, a counter-aesthetics to that prescribed by the dominating cultural and/ or political force. In "The Correctness of Flavour," written at a time very likely to be contemporaneous to that when the voice of authority or power called for the more-than-standard "Standard English." There is no shying away from the use of Singapore Colloquial English. Instead, there is precisely the use of that spectrum of Singapore English to expose the "law" that denies Singapore Colloquial English as dubious. In that poem, that voice of "law" is introjected in or by the mother-figure:

waiting for the lime sherbert to arrive,
mother turned around to her vacuous child:
boy, you heard what i said earlier?
nowadays, they emphasise english.

boy rolled his squinty eyes to the ceiling.
waitress returned, flustered, and started
on her own emphases:
lime sherbert today don't have.
mango got. strawberry also don't have.

mother, upset and acutely strident:
today DOESN'T have.
today DOES NOT have. ["The Correctness of Flavour." Straits Times: Life! Books. 12 February 2001.]

Here, "mother," the voice of authority, is shown to have not quite a "proper" sense of the "law" she talks about. In other words, she advocates something she herself has no full knowledge of. This apparently parallels my earlier point about the force of authority not being well versed in the linguistic trend or sensibility of the present time. She repeats the linguistic status quo dictated by the force of power ("nowadays, they emphasis english") but what she says -- "today DOESN'T have./ today DOES NOT have" -- betrays her grasp of what she repeats. The child figure, the "boy," on the other hand, takes up the line of force that possesses no power, which is the opposite of the authority of voice. In response to his mother's dictation, he but "rolled his squinty eyes to the ceiling," a gesture not difficult to perceive as an act of silent defiance: "boy's squint refused to concede acceptance." Toward the desire, the taste for "english" ("standard English" that is), the "boy" is "beyond any mitigation of flavour," like his indifference for sherbert-flavour, uttered in non-standard English of course: "mango can. anything can./ any anything also can." To the "boy," the mere fact of Singapore English just is, just as "waitress" uses it, despite "nowadays, they emphasise english." It is his reality, his truth, which is also the truth and reality of how "waitress" and "mother" speak naturally. What "they" and/ or "mother" dictate makes no sense to him. To the "boy," such "immediate realia/ "hold[s] no truth." This "impasse in an icecream café," the impasse between "mother" and "waitress," between "mother" and the apathetic "boy," is also the impasse of such a literature in the face of the "political correctness," or the correctness of the linguistic flavor dictated by the force of authority. We shall return to this notion of impasse later. Let us get back for now instead to the sense of avant-garde, in the sense of a new already-there, which just might make more forcefully the critical point about writing the immanent interval, with its immanent language. This brings us to Yap's poems written before "The Correctness of Flavour."

In poems like "group dynamics II" and "2 mothers in a h d b playground," written in Singapore English like "The Correctness of Flavour," Yap uses the English language in a way that it becomes more like a "minor language." In both poems, Yap deterritorializes the "major language" of "standard English" by bringing into relation his own command of syntax and the vernacular of the milieu of the space. I cite some lines of "2 mothers":

ah beng is so smart,
already he can watch tv & know the whole story.
your kim cheong is also quite smart,
what boy is he in the exam?
this playground is not too bad, but i'm always
so worried, car here, car there.

. . .

sure, sure. cheong's father buys him
vitamins but he keeps it inside his mouth
& later gives it to the cat.
i scold like mad but what for?
if i don't see it, how can i scold? [the space of city trees, pp. 101-2]

One might say that the representation of Singapore English in its différance here is not exactly or totally true to reality. But the force of expression of the poem is not mere literary re-presentation in the sense of reproducing reality. What happens instead is a cataclysmic vitalization of that différance, sending "the vitality of [the] form of speech" of the milieu into a further genesis through a becoming (Yap, "Vernacular," p. 71)

The expressive and creative force of the poem somewhat arrange Singapore English into another assemblage, where there is the liberating "becoming-imperceptible" of both the voice of the enunciation i.e. the narrator, and the voice(s) of the milieu. It brings the narrator, the two mothers, or the milieu, into a relation, a relation without any sense of that equivocal Western "subject." In this assemblage of pure, mere, relation then,

The message doesn't refer back to an enunciating subject who would be its cause, no more than to a subject of the statement . . . who would be its effect. [Deleuze and Guattari, Kafka, p. 18]

The point to make here then is that such a writing, in a way of "minor literature" with a "minor language," is that it (re)affirms the fact of the freedom of immanence and the sense of relation immanent to that immanence. This is what happens too in "group dynamics II" and in a poem like "still-life VI." Everything, everybody, is always in the process of a becoming, always deterritorializing, always entering into another assemblage of relation: Compare "still-life I": "if she sits out in the garden, she¼s a pile of leaves/ with a face" (109). Here, there is the becoming-leaves of the woman ("she¼s a pile of leaves") and the becoming-human of the leaves ("a pile of leaves/ with a face." Such a writing of "minor literature" therefore, is always "an arrangement/ with different settings" (city trees, p. 109): "there are only collective assemblages of enunciation" (Deleuze and Guattari, Kafka, p. 19.)

But perhaps more than anything, a greater critical significance of the "minor literature" of assemblage(s) like Yap's, is that it is of pure sound. It is of a sound that evokes the sense of the "post-colonial" space. And if sense -- of space or anything -- is always a movement, a deterritorialization, any sense of space can be written with as great proximity only with a "pure sonorous material" (Kafka, p. 19) like "2 mothers." One might say then, of poems like "2 mothers," "group dynamics II," and "I think (a book of changes)," "nothing remains but intensities" (Kafka, p. 19) intensities of immanence and its relation, of the sound of heterogeneous voices of this immanence, of the sound or song of the territory. And in fact, one could go on to say, the aesthetic distinction of "2 mothers" is the sound of it; its "performativity" is its sound. (Was it not T. S. Eliot who once said, "The music of poetry . . . must be a music latent in the common speech of its time" (112), which is the cacophony of man and space reterritorialized as sound?) On this note of aesthetic distinction, one should also add here that the avant-garde poetry of this "post-colonial" space does not need any idiosyncratic radicalization of lexicons, syntax, or word-spacings. The aesthetic and literary creativity with the "minor language" of Singapore English, and its sound, just is the avant-garde of this space. It needs "no typographical cleverness, no lexical agility, no blending or creation of words, no syntactical boldness" (Thousand Plateaus, p. 22). Those are, in fact, projections of occidental culture's "anxiety of influence." "Minor literature" is free from such uneasiness. In "minor literature," there are "no possibilities for an individuated enunciation that would belong to this or that 'master'" (Kafka, p. 17).

Another critical point one can make about creating a sound immanent of the life, the experience, of the space, is that it gives that notion of freedom a vector of extension, of flight that continues its genesis. According to Deleuze and Guattari, there is a somewhat liberating sense of sound's deterritorializing quality: "sound doesn't act like a formal element; rather it leads to an active disorganization of expression and, by reaction, of content itself" (Kafka, p. 28). The "active disorganization" is nothing nihilistic except just "in order to liberate [my italics] pure contents that mix expressions in a single intense matter" (Kafka, p. 28). "Go always farther in the direction of deterritorialization" as Deleuze and Guattari say (Kafka, p. 19).

Sound, or the music of poetry, of "minor literature" in the language of the immanent interval -- this "disarticulation" of the false justice by the force of authority leads us back to the notion of the avant-garde impasse (Kafka, p. 86). A poetry of the sound of "minor language" is in some way "in-operative," to use Jean-Luc Nancy's term. It is "inoperative," to the force of authority or power, because such a poetry refuses, resists, signification. It just will not include itself in the dominating culture that calls for the writing of the "grand narrative" of this "post-colonial" space, of its history of "independence," of its "nationhood." The poetry of Arthur Yap does not concern itself with the labor of writing the (fiction of) history of Singapore. Beyond signification, Yap's poetry seems more likely "[t]o make the sequences vibrate, to open the word onto unexpected internal intensities -- in short, an asignifying intensive utilization of language" (Kafka, p. 22). It is therefore "in-operative" in the sense that it is a "work" only of art, operative only in the sense of an intense rupture of communicating a community that the force of authority seemingly denigrates. Yap does not need to work with the striating notion of language needing to be significant, to be of signification. As he writes:

words have sometimes a way of stilling themselves
& then, no, we have a way of stilling words
in a way to still ourselves:
a choice of being still
& quiet to be still. ["words," the space of city trees, p. 92.]

There is always "a way" to deterritorialize signification ("stilling"), just to write that mainténant justice ("still ourselves") of the "just is" of the interval of existence, of immanence ("being still"), in spite of "colonialism," in spite of "post-colonialism" ("quiet to be still"). In writing in the mode of "minor literature" ("we have a way of stilling words"), there is always the possibility, the potential, the promise, to move toward, to articulate, the freedom ("a choice") of immanence.

He will therefore not undermine the fact of freedom of existence, in the service of signification (of history). As Yap writes in the same poem, "words need people to fill their blanks." And, "& i should never whip the commonplace/ for the meaning of its opposite," as he writes in "commonplace" (space of city trees, p. 57). Yap's poetry is not a poetry of history, as the dominant cultural and/ or political force would like the literature of this "post-colonial" space to be, but a poetry of geography, of the geography of the people of this "post-colonial" space. A poetry that inscribes an assemblage of relation always in its becoming necessarily writes the rhizomatics of the community, the people of the space. Such a poetry is a "good" impasse then, if we take into account Deleuze-Guattari's words: "an impasse is good if it forms part of the rhizome" (Kafka, p. 4).

In a way, Yap's poetry does not need to be over-conscious or over-determinedly siginifying of a sense of national identity. As an "assemblage . . . of collective enunciation," as "minor literature," Yap's poetry is already in a sense a national consciousness, since "national consciousness, uncertain or oppressed, necessarily exists by means of [minor] literature," according to Deleuze and Guattari's concept of "minor literature" (Kafka, p. 18, 19) It is as such that "everything in [Yap's poetry] is political" -- "political" because it affirms community, articulating the sense of existence's immanent relation; "political" because it affirms the "political correctnesses" of all existents, and their voices, of the "post-colonial" space, which is in fact the promise of "post-colonialism" (Deleuze, Negotiations, p. 87).

Conclusion: Just Promise

Deleuze once said, "If you don't constitute a surface on which things can be inscribed, what's not hidden will remain invisible." "What's not hidden" in this "post-colonial" space is the fact of freedom of going on with life, that immanent interval, and freely speaking the linguistic assemblage that is close to if not at the heart of this space. The (eternal) return of "colonialism" today, both from without and within in the case of Singapore, threatens to make "what's not hidden" become "invisible." This paper therefore has been an attempt to open up "a surface" to give presence to a sense of justice to "what's not hidden," to keep alive the force of freedom, of a mainténant justice of immanence "post-colonialism" just so promises.

But that does not mean that writing in such a way, inscribing this "surface," will absolutely get to the heart of things, of the promise of "post-colonialism," of the (immanent) freedom of immanence in "post-colonial" Singapore. There is always in immanence something that remains, something of a reserve, even in its own presencing. And that is why it is the interval: immanent interval and the interval of immanence. This interval is always in the middle, going onwards, going elsewhere, pushing its own force of genesis at the same time. One does not fulfil the promise of "post-colonialism" therefore. One is not able to fulfil such a promise. One should in fact never fulfil that promise, just in order to keep open the thinking, and the act, of freedom always at a limitless horizon. To just keep writing that "minor literature": that itself is keeping the promise of "post-colonialism" without fulfilling it. It is the act of "just promise." In Deleuze and Guattari's Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature, it is also written, "justice is more like a sound . . . that never stops taking flight." And, "He will find justice only be moving . . . following his desire. He will take control of the machine of expression . . . he will write without stop" [50-51]. "He will take control of the machine of expression" only with a writing that subtends with the "minor language" of the immanent interval, just as Arthur Yap's poetry just is.

Colonialism

The legitimacy of colonialism has been a longstanding concern for political and moral philosophers in the Western tradition. At least since the Crusades and the conquest of the Americas, political theorists have struggled with the difficulty of reconciling ideas about justice and natural law with the practice of European sovereignty over non-Western peoples. In the nineteenth century, the tension between liberal thought and colonial practice became particularly acute, as dominion of Europe over the rest of the world reached its zenith. Ironically, in the same period when most political philosophers began to defend the principles of universalism and equality, the same individuals still defended the legitimacy of colonialism and imperialism. One way of reconciling those apparently opposed principles was the argument known as the “civilizing mission,” which suggested that a temporary period of political dependence or tutelage was necessary in order for “uncivilized” societies to advance to the point where they were capable of sustaining liberal institutions and self-government.

The goal of this entry is to analyze the relationship between Western political theory and the project of colonialism. After providing a more thorough discussion of the concept of colonialism, the third and forth sections of the entry will address the question of how European thinkers justified, legitimize, and challenged political domination. The fifth section briefly discusses the Marxist tradition, including Marx's own defense of British colonialism in India and Lenin's anti-imperialist writings. The final section provides an introduction to contemporary “post-colonial theory.” This approach has been particularly influential in literary studies because it draws attention to the diverse ways that postcolonial subjectivities are constituted and resisted through discursive practices. The goal of the entry is to provide an overview of the vast and complex literature that explores the theoretical issues emerging out of the experience of European colonization.

• 1. Definition and Outline
• 2. Natural Law and the Age of Discovery
• 3. Liberalism and Empire
• 4. Marxism and Leninism
• 5. Post-colonial Theory
• Bibliography
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Definition

Colonialism is not a modern phenomenon. World history is full of examples of one society gradually expanding by incorporating adjacent territory and settling its people on newly conquered territory. The ancient Greeks set up colonies as did the Romans, the Moors, and the Ottomans, to name just a few of the most notorious examples. Colonialism, then, is not restricted to a specific time or place. Nevertheless, in the sixteenth century, colonialism changed decisively because of technological developments in navigation that began to connect more remote parts of the world. Fast sailing ships made it possible to reach distant ports while sustaining closer ties between the center and colonies. Thus, the modern European colonial project emerged when it became possible to move large numbers of people across the ocean and to maintain political sovereignty in spite of geographical dispersion. This entry uses the term colonialism to describe the process of European settlement and political control over the rest of the world, including Americas, Australia, and parts of Africa and Asia.

The difficulty of defining colonialism stems from the fact that the term is often used as a synonym for imperialism. Both colonialism and imperialism were forms of conquest that were expected to benefit Europe economically and strategically. The term colonialism is frequently used to describe the settlement of places such as North America, Australia, New Zealand, Algeria, and Brazil that were controlled by a large population of permanent European residents. The term imperialism often describes cases in which a foreign government administers a territory without significant settlement; typical examples include the scramble for Africa in the late nineteenth century and the American domination of the Philippines and Puerto Rico. The distinction between the two, however, is not entirely consistent in the literature. Some scholars distinguish between colonies for settlement and colonies for economic exploitation. Others use the term colonialism to describe dependencies that are directly governed by a foreign nation and contrast this with imperialism, which involves indirect forms of domination.

The confusion about the meaning of the term imperialism reflects the way that the concept has changed over time. Although the English word imperialism was not commonly used before the nineteenth century, Elizabethans already described the United Kingdom as “the British Empire.” As Britain began to acquire overseas dependencies, the concept of empire was employed more frequently. Thus, the traditional understanding of imperialism was a system of military domination and sovereignty over territories. The day to day work of government might be exercised indirectly through local assemblies or indigenous rulers who paid tribute but sovereignty rested with the British. The shift away from this traditional understanding of empire was influenced by the Leninist analysis of imperialism as a system oriented towards economic exploitation. According to Lenin, imperialism was the necessary and inevitable result of the logic of accumulation in late capitalism. Thus, for Lenin and subsequent Marxists, imperialism described a historical stage of capitalism rather than a trans-historical practice of political and military domination. The lasting impact of the Marxist approach is apparent in contemporary debates about American imperialism, a term which usually means American economic hegemony, regardless of whether such power is exercised directly or indirectly (Young 2001).

Given the difficulty of consistently distinguishing between the two terms, this entry will use colonialism as a broad concept that refers to the project of European political domination from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries that ended with the national liberation movements of the 1960s. Post-colonialism will be used to describe the political and theoretical struggles of societies that experienced the transition from political dependence to sovereignty. This entry will use imperialism as a broad term that refers to economic, military, political domination that is achieved without significant permanent European settlement.

2. Natural Law and the Age of Discovery

The Spanish conquest of the Americas sparked a theological, political, and ethical debate about the legitimacy of using military force in order to acquire control over foreign lands. This debate took place within the framework of a religious discourse that legitimized military conquest as a way to facilitate the conversion and salvation of indigenous peoples. The idea of a “civilizing mission” was by no means the invention of the British in the nineteenth century. The Spanish conquistadores and colonists explicitly justified their activities in the Americas in terms of a religious mission to bring Christianity to the native peoples. The Crusades provided the initial impetus for developing a legal doctrine that rationalized the conquest and possession of infidel lands. Whereas the Crusades were initially framed as defensive wars to reclaim Christian lands that had been conquered by non-Christians, the resulting theoretical innovations played an important role in subsequent attempts to justify the conquest of the Americas. The core claim was that the “Petrine mandate” to care for the souls of Christ's human flock required Papal jurisdiction over temporal as well as spiritual matters, and this control extended to non-believers as well as believers.

Even the spread of Christianity, however, did not provide an unproblematic justification for the project of overseas conquest. The Spanish conquest of the Americas was taking place during a period of reform when humanist scholars within the Church were increasingly influenced by the natural law theories of theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas. According to Pope Innocent IV, war could not be waged against infidels and they could not be deprived of their property simply because of their non-belief. Under the influence of Thomism, Innocent IV concluded that force was legitimate only in cases where infidels violated natural law. Thus nonbelievers had legitimate dominion over themselves and their property, but this dominion was abrogated if they proved incapable of governing themselves according to principles that every reasonable being would recognize. The Spanish quickly concluded that the habits of the native Americans, from nakedness to unwillingness to labor to alleged cannibalism, clearly demonstrated their inability to recognize natural law. From this, they legitimized the widespread enslavement of the Indians as the only way of teaching them civilization and introducing them to Christianity.

Many of the Spanish missionaries sent to the New World, however, immediately noticed that the brutal exploitation of slave labor was widespread while any serious commitment to religious instruction was absent. Members of the Dominican order in particular noted the hypocrisy of enslaving the Indians because of their alleged barbarity while practicing a form of conquest, warfare, and slavery that reduced the indigenous population of Hispaniola from 250,000 to 15,000 in two decades of Spanish rule. Given the genocidal result of Spanish “civilization,” they began to question vocally the idea of a civilizing mission. Bartolomé de Las Casas and Franciscus de Victoria were two of the most influential critics of Spanish colonial practice. Victoria gave a series of lectures on Indian rights that applied Thomistic humanism to the practice of Spanish rule. He argued that all human beings share the capacity for rationality and have natural rights that stem from this capacity. From this premise, he deduced that the Papal decision to grant Spain title to the Americas was illegitimate. Unlike the position of Pope Innocent IV, Victoria argued that neither the Pope nor the Spaniards could subjugate the Indians in order to punish violations of natural law, such as fornication or adultery. He noted that the Pope has no right to make war on Christians and take their property simply because they are “fornicators or thieves.” If this were the case, then no European king's dominion would ever be safe. Furthermore, according to Victoria, the pope and Christian rulers acting on his mandate have even less right to enforce laws against unbelievers, because they are outside of the Christian community, which is the domain of Papal authority (Williams 1990).

Despite this strongly worded critique of the dominant modes of justifying Spanish conquest, Victoria concluded that the use of force in the New World was legitimate in cases when Indian communities violated the Law of Nations, a set of principles derivable from reason and therefore universally binding. At first it might sound contradictory that Victoria concluded that the Indians' supposed violation of the law of nature did not justify conquest but their violation of the Law of Nations, itself derived from natural law, did. Victoria emphasized that the Law of Nations is binding because “there exists clearly enough a consensus of the greater part of the whole world” (391) and because the principles benefit “the common good of all.” This distinction seems to rely on the assumption that other principles usually associated with natural law (such as the prohibitions on adultery and idolatry) only affect those who consent to the practices, whereas violations of the Law of Nations (e.g. prohibitions on peaceful travel and trade) have consequences for those who do not consent. Ultimately, Victoria's understanding of the Law of Nations led him to defend the practice of Spanish colonialism, even as he emphasized that the Spanish remedy of warfare should be limited to minimal measures required to attain the legitimate objectives of peaceful trade and missionary work. Within Victoria's critique of the legality and morality of Spanish colonialism was a rationalization for conquest, albeit a restrictive one.

3. Liberalism and Empire

The legitimacy of colonialism was also a topic of debate among French, German, and British philosophers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Enlightenment thinkers such as Kant, Smith and Diderot were critical of the barbarity of colonialism and challenged the idea that Europeans had the obligation to “civilize” the rest of the world. At first it might seem relatively obvious that Enlightenment thinkers would develop a critique of colonialism. The system of colonial domination, which involved some combination of slavery, quasi-feudal forced labor, or expropriation of property, is antithetical to the basic Enlightenment principle that each individual is capable of reason and self-government. The rise of anti-colonial political theory, however, required more than a universalistic ethic that recognized the shared humanity of all people. As suggested above, the universalism and humanism of Thomism proved to be a relatively weak basis for criticizing colonialism. Given the tension between the abstract universalism of natural law and the actual cultural practices of indigenous peoples, it was easy to interpret native difference as evidence for the violation of natural law. This in turn became a justification for exploitation.

Diderot was one of the most forceful critics of European colonization. In his Histoire des deux Indes, he challenged the view that indigenous people benefit from European civilization and argued that the European colonists are the uncivilized ones. He claimed that culture (“national character”) helps to inculcate morality and reinforces norms of respect, but these norms tend to dissipate when the individual is far from his country of origin. Colonial empires, he believed, frequently become the sites of extreme brutality because when the colonists were far away from legal institutions and informal sanctions, the habits of restraint fell away, exposing natural man's full instinct for violence (Muthu 2003).

In Book VIII of Histoire des deux Indes, Diderot also refutes the dominant justifications for European colonialism. Although he grants that it is legitimate to colonize an area that is not actually inhabited, he insists that foreign traders and explorers have no right of access to fully inhabited lands. This is important because the right to commerce (understood to encompass not only trade but also missionary work and exploration) was used as a justification for colonization by Spanish thinkers in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Emblematic of this approach was Victoria's conclusion that an indigenous people could not exclude peaceful traders and missionaries without violating the Law of Nations. If the native peoples resisted these incursions, the Spanish could legitimately wage war and conquer their territory. Diderot specifically challenged this view, noting that the European traders have proven themselves “dangerous as guests.” (Muthu 2003: 75)

Before enlightenment thinkers could articulate a compelling critique of colonialism, they had to recognize the importance of culture and the possibility of cultural pluralism. The claim that all individuals are equally worthy of dignity and respect was a necessary but not sufficient basis for anti-imperialist thought. They also had to recognize that the tendency to develop diverse institutions, narratives, and aesthetic practices was an essential human capacity. The French term moeurs or what today would be called culture captures the idea that the humanity of human beings is expressed in the distinctive practices that they adopt as solutions to the challenges of existence.

The work of enlightenment anti-imperialists such as Diderot and Kant reflects their struggle with the tension between universalistic concepts such as human rights and the realities of cultural pluralism. The paradox of enlightenment anti-imperialism is that human dignity is understood to be rooted in the universal human capacity for reason. Yet when people engage in cultural practices that are unfamiliar or disturbing to the European observer, they appear irrational and thus undeserving of recognition and respect. Diderot's solution was to identify particularity as the universal human trait. In other words, he emphasized that human beings all share similar desires to create workable rules of conduct that allow particular ways of life to flourish without themselves creating harsh injustices and cruelties. (Muthu 2003: 77) There are infinite varieties of solutions to the challenges posed by human existence. Societies all need to find a way to balance individual egoism and sociability and to overcome the adversities that stem from the physical environment. From this perspective, culture itself, rather than rationality, is the universal human capacity.

Unlike many other eighteenth and nineteenth century political philosophers, Diderot did not assume that non-Western societies were necessarily primitive (e.g. lacking political and social organization) nor did he assume that more complex forms of social organization were necessarily superior. One of the key issues that distinguished critics from proponents of colonialism and imperialism was their view of the relationship between culture, history and progress. Most of the influential philosophers writing in France and England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had assimilated some version of the developmental approach to history that was associated with the Scottish Enlightenment. While the Scots quite consciously took their lead from Montesquieu, they went on to develop a unique and profoundly influential eighteenth-century historical narrative known as the four-stages thesis. In that story, all societies were imagined as naturally moving from hunting, to herding, to farming, to commerce, a developmental process that simultaneously tracked a cultural arc from “savagery,” through “barbarism,” to “civilization.” This meant that for the Scots, “civilization” was not just a marker of material improvement, but also a normative judgment about the moral progress of society. The Scottish Enlightenment thinkers were central to the creation of an historical imaginary that described a civilizing process, one marked most significantly by increasing refinement in modes of social interaction, which they saw as tied to the advent of commercial society. This, in turn, produced a historical narrative, which celebrated the emergence of a shared Western civilization based on the emergence of wealth and commerce (Kohn and O'Neill 2006)

The language of civilization, savagery, and barbarism is pervasive in writers as diverse of Edmund Burke, Karl Marx, and John Stuart Mill. It would therefore be incorrect to conclude that a developmental theory of history is somehow particular to the liberal tradition; nevertheless, given that figures of the Scottish Enlightenment such as Ferguson and Smith were among its leading expositors, it is strongly associated with liberalism. Smith himself opposed imperialism for economic reasons. He felt that relations of dependence between metropole and periphery distorted self-regulating market mechanisms and worried that the cost of military domination would be burdensome for taxpayers (Pitts 2005). The idea that civilization is the culmination of a process of historical development, however, proved useful in justifying imperialism. According to Uday Mehta, liberal imperialism was the product of the interaction between universalism and developmental history (1999). A core doctrine of liberalism holds that all individuals share a capacity for reason and self-government. The theory of development history, however, modifies this universalism with the notion that these capacities only emerge at a certain stage of civilization. For example, according to John Stuart Mill (hereafter Mill), savages do not have the capacity for self-government because of their excessive love of freedom. Serfs, slaves, and peasants in barbarous societies, on the other hand, may be so schooled in obedience that their capacity for rationality is stifled. Only in commercial society are the material and cultural conditions ideal for individuals to realize and exercise their potential. The consequence of this logic is that civilized societies like Great Britain are acting in the interest of less-developed peoples by governing them. Imperialism, from this perspective, is not primarily a form of political domination and economic exploitation but rather a paternalistic practice of government that exports “civilization” (e.g. modernization) in order to foster the improvement and native peoples. Despotic government (and Mill doesn't hesitate to use this term) is a means to the end of improvement and ultimately self-government.

Of course, Mill, a life-long employee of the British East India Company, recognized that despotic government by a foreign people could lead to injustice and economic exploitation. These abuses, in turn, if unchecked, could undermine the legitimacy and efficacy of the imperial project. In Considerations on Representative Government (1861), Mill identified four reasons why foreign peoples were not suited to governing dependencies. First, metropolitan politicians were unlikely to have the knowledge of local conditions that was necessary for effectively solving problems of public policy. Second, given cultural, linguistic, and often religious difference, European colonists were unlikely to sympathize with the native peoples and more likely to act tyrannically. Third, even if the Englishmen abroad really tried to act fairly to native peoples, their natural tendency to sympathize with those similar to themselves (other foreign colonists or merchants) would likely lead to distorted judgment in cases of disputes. Finally, British colonists and merchants went abroad primarily to acquire wealth with no long term investment and little effort, which meant that their economic activity was likely to exploit rather than develop the country. These arguments also echoed points made in Edmund Burke's voluminous writings assailing the misgovernment in India, most notably Burke's famous Speech on Fox's East India Bill (1783).

For Mill, parliamentary oversight was no solution. First of all, it would politicize decisions, making imperial policy a result of the factional struggles of party politics rather than technocratic expertise. Furthermore, given that members of the House of Commons were accountable to their domestic electors, it would guarantee that imperial policy would be aimed exclusively at maximizing British self-interest rather than promoting good government and economic development in the dependencies. Mill's solution to the problem of imperial misgovernment was to eschew parliamentary oversight in favor of a specialized administrative corps. Members of this specialized body would have the training to acquire relevant knowledge of local conditions. Paid by the government, they would not personally benefit from economic exploitation and could fairly arbitrate conflicts between colonists and indigenous people. Mill, however, was not able to explain how to ensure good government in a situation in which those wielding political power were not accountable to the population. In this sense, Mill's writing is emblematic of the failure of liberal imperial thought.

Nineteenth century liberal thinkers held a range of views on the legitimacy of foreign domination and differed about what tactics should be used to achieve that goal. Alexis de Tocqueville, for example, made a case for colonialism that did not rely on the idea of a “civilizing mission.” Tocqueville recognized that colonialism probably did not bring good government to the native peoples, but this was irrelevant since his justification rested entirely on the benefit to France. Tocqueville insisted that French colonies in Algeria would increase France's stature vis-à-vis rivals like England; they would provide an outlet for excess population that was a cause of disorder in France; and imperial endeavors would incite a feeling of patriotism that would counterbalance the modern centrifugal forces of materialism and class conflict.

Tocqueville was actively engaged in advancing the project of French colonization of Algeria. Tocqueville's first analysis of French colonialism was published during his 1837 electoral campaign for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies. As a member of the Chamber of Deputies, Tocqueville argued in favor of expanding the French presence in Algeria. He traveled to Algeria in 1841 composing an “Essay on Algeria” that served as the basis for two parliamentary reports on the topic (Tocqueville 2001). Unlike the more naïve proponents of the “civilizing mission,” Tocqueville recognized that the brutal military occupation did little to introduce good government or advance civilization. In an apparent reversal of the four-stages theory of the Scottish Enlightenment, he acknowledged that “we are now fighting far more barbarously than the Arabs themselves” and “it is on their side that one meets with civilization.” (Tocqueville 2001: 70) This realization, however, was not the basis of a critique of French brutality. Instead, Tocqueville defended controversial tactics such as destroying crops, confiscating land, and seizing unarmed civilians. His texts, however, provide little in the way of philosophical justification and dismiss the entire just war tradition with a curt statement that “I believe that the right of war authorizes us to ravage the country.” (Tocqueville 2001: 70). Tocqueville's writing on Algeria, the French national interest is paramount and moral considerations are explicitly subordinate to political goals.

Tocqueville's analysis of Algeria reflects little anxiety about its legitimacy and much concern about the pragmatics of effective colonial governance. The stability of the regime, he felt, depended on the ability of the colonial administration to provide good government to the French settlers. Tocqueville emphasized that the excessive centralization of decision-making in Paris combined with the arbitrary practices of the local military leadership meant that French colonists had no security of property, let alone the political and civil rights that they were accustomed to France. Tocqueville was untroubled by the use of martial law against indigenous peoples, but felt that it was counterproductive when applied to the French. For Tocqueville, the success of the French endeavor in Algeria depended entirely on attracting large numbers of permanent French settlers. Given that it was proving impossible to win the allegiance of the indigenous people, France could not hold Algeria without creating a stable community of colonists. The natives were to be ruled through military domination and the French were to be enticed to settle through the promise of economic gain in an environment that reproduced, as much as possible, the cultural and political life of France. After a brief period of optimism about “amalgamation” of the races in his Second Letter on Algeria” (Tocqueville 2001: 25), Tocqueville understood the colonial world in terms of the permanent opposition of settler and native, an opposition structured to ensure the economic benefit of the former.

4. Marxism and Leninism

In recent years, scholars have devoted less attention to the debates on colonialism within the Marxist tradition. This reflects the waning influence of Marxism in the academy and in political circles more generally. Marxism, however, has been extremely influential on both post-colonial theory and anti-colonial independence movements around the world. Marxists have drawn attention to the material basis of European political expansion and developed concepts that help explain the persistence of economic exploitation after the end of direct political rule.

Although Marx never developed a theory of colonialism, his analysis of capitalism emphasized its inherent tendency to expand in search of new markets. In his classics works such as The Communist Manifesto, Grundrisse, and Capital, Marx predicted that the bourgeoisie would continue to create a global market and undermine any local or national barriers to its own expansion. Expansion is a necessary product of the core dynamic of capitalism: overproduction. Competition among producers drives them to cut wages, which in turn leads to a crisis of under-consumption. The only way to prevent economic collapse is to find new markets to absorb excess consumer goods. For a Marxist perspective, some form of imperialism is inevitable. By exporting population to resource rich foreign territories, a nation creates a market for industrial goods and a reliable source of natural resources. Alternately, weaker countries can face the choice of either voluntarily admitting foreign products that will undermine domestic industry or submitting to political domination, which will accomplish the same end.

In a series of newspaper articles published in the 1850s in the New York Daily Tribune, Marx specifically discussed the impact of British colonialism in India. His analysis was consistent with his general theory of political and economic change. He described India as an essentially feudal society experiencing the painful process of modernization. According to Marx, however, Indian “feudalism” was a distinctive form because, he believed (incorrectly) that agricultural land in India was owned communally. Marx used the concept of “Oriental despotism” to describe a specific type of class domination that used the mechanism of the state and taxation in order to extract resources from the peasantry. Oriental despotism emerged in India because agricultural productivity depended on large-scale public works that could only be financed by the state, particularly irrigation. This meant that the state could not be easily replaced by a more decentralized system of authority. In Western Europe, feudal property could be transformed gradually into privately owned, alienable property in land. In India, communal land ownership made this impossible, thereby blocking the development of commercial agriculture and free markets. Since “oriental despotism” inhibited the indigenous development of economic modernization, British domination became the agent of economic modernization.

Marx's analysis of colonialism as a progressive force bringing modernization to a backward feudal society sounds like a transparent rationalization for foreign domination. His endorsement of British domination, however, reflects the same ambivalence that he shows towards capitalism in Europe. In both cases, Marx recognized the immense suffering brought about during the transition from feudal to bourgeois society while insisting that the transition is both necessary and ultimately progressive. He argued that the penetration of foreign commerce is causing a social revolution in India. For Marx, this upheaval has both positive and negative ramifications. When peasants loose their traditional livelihoods, there is a great deal of human suffering, but he also pointed out that the traditional village communities were hardly idyllic; they were sites of caste oppression, slavery, misery, and cruelty. The first stage of this process is entirely negative, because it involves heavy burdens of taxation to support British rule and economic upheaval due to the glut of cheaply produced English cotton. Eventually, however, British merchants begin to realize that Indians cannot pay for imported cloth or administrators if they don't efficiently produce goods to trade, which provides an incentive for British investment in production and infrastructure. Even though Marx believed that British rule was motivated by greed and exercised through cruelty, he felt it was still unwittingly the agent of progress. Thus, Marx's discussion of British rule in India has three dimensions: an account of the progressive character of foreign rule, a critique of the human suffering involved, and a concluding argument that British rule must be temporary if the progressive potential it unleashed is to be realized.

Lenin developed his analysis of Western economic and political domination in his pamphlet Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917) (see Other Internet Resources). Unlike Marx, Lenin took a more explicitly critical view of imperialism. He noted that imperialism was a technique which allowed European countries to put off the inevitable domestic revolutionary crisis by exporting their own economic burdens onto weaker states. Lenin argued that late-nineteenth century imperialism was driven by the economic logic of late-capitalism. The falling rate of profit caused an economic crisis which could only be resolved through territorial expansion. Capitalist conglomerates were compelled to expand beyond their national borders in pursuit of new markets and resources. In a sense, this analysis is fully consistent with Marx, who saw European colonialism as continuous with the process of internal expansion within states and across Europe. From this perspective, colonialism and imperialism resulted from the same logic that drove the economic development and modernization of peripheral areas in Europe. But there was one difference. Since late capitalism was organized around national monopolies, the competition for markets took the form of military competition between states over territories that could be dominated for their exclusive economic benefit.

Marxist theorists including Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Kautsky, and Nikolai Bukharin also explored the issue of imperialism. Kautsky's position is especially important because his analysis introduced concepts that continue to play a prominent role in contemporary world systems theory and post-colonial studies. Kautsky challenged the assumption that imperialism would lead to the development of the areas subjected to economic exploitation. He suggested that imperialism was a relatively permanent relationship structuring the interactions between two types of countries. (Young 2001) Although imperialism initially took the form of military competition between capitalist countries, it would result in collusion between capitalist interests to maintain a stable system of exploitation of the non-developed world. The most influential contemporary proponent of this view is Immanuel Wallerstein, who is known for world-system theory. According to this theory, the world-system involves a relatively stable set of relations between core and peripheral states as a functional in internal division of labor that is structured to benefit the core states (Wallerstein 1974-1989).

5. Post-colonial Theory

From the perspective of world-system theory, the economic exploitation of the periphery does not necessarily require direct political or military domination. In a similar vein, contemporary literary theorists have drawn attention to practices of representation that reproduce a logic of subordination that endures even after former colonies gain independence. The field of postcolonial studies was established by Edward Said in his path-breaking book Orientalism. In Orientalism Said applied Michel Foucault's technique of discourse analysis to the production of knowledge about the Middle East. The term orientalism described a structured set of concepts, assumptions, and discursive practices that were used to produce, interpret, and evaluate knowledge about non-European peoples. Said's analysis made it possible for scholars to deconstruct literary and historical texts in order to understand how they reflected and reinforced the imperialist project. Unlike previous studies that focused on the economic or political logics of colonialism, Said drew attention to the relationship between knowledge and power. By foregrounding the cultural and epistemological work of imperialism, Said was able to undermine the ideological assumption of value-free knowledge and show that “knowing the Orient” was part of the project of dominating it. Thus, Orientalism can be seen as an attempt to extend the geographical and historical terrain of the poststructuralist critique of Western epistemology.

Said uses the term Orientalism in several different ways. First, Orientalism is a specific field of academic study about the Middle East and Asia, albeit one that Said conceives quite expansively as including history, sociology, literature, anthropology and especially philology. He also identifies it as a practice that helps define Europe by creating a stable depiction of its other, its constitutive outside. Orientalism is a way of characterizing Europe by drawing a contrasting image or idea, based on a series of binary oppositions (rational/irrational, mind/body, order/chaos) that manage and displace European anxieties. Finally, Said emphasizes that it is also a mode of exercising authority by organizing and classifying knowledge about the Orient. This discursive approach is distinct both from a vulgar materialist assumption that knowledge is simply a reflection of economic or political interests and from an idealist conviction that scholarship is disinterested and neutral. Following Foucault, Said's concept of discourse identifies a way in which knowledge is not used instrumentally in service of power but rather is itself a form of power.

The second quasi-canonical contribution to the field of post-colonial theory is Gayatri Spivak's “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Spivak works within Said's problematic of representation but extends it to the contemporary academy. By posing the question “Can the subaltern speak?” she asks whether the scholarly interest in non-Western cultures may unwittingly reproduce a new kind of orientalism, whereby academic theorists mine non-Western sources in order to speak authoritatively in their place. Even though the goal is to challenge the existing Eurocentrism of the academy, post-colonial studies is particularly vulnerable to the risks associated with any claim to speak authoritatively on behalf of the subaltern. Thus the field of post-colonial studies is haunted by its own impossibility. It was born out of the recognition that representation is inevitably implicated in power and domination yet struggles to reconfigure representation as an act of resistance. In order to do so, it introduces new strategies of reading and interpretation while recognizing the limitations of this endeavor.

The core problematic of post-colonial theory is an examination of the relationship between power and knowledge in the non-Western world. Some scholars have approached this topic through historical research rather than literary or discursive analysis. The most influential movement is the Subaltern Studies group, which was originally made up of South Asian historians who explored the contribution of non-elites to Indian politics and culture. The term subaltern suggests an interest in social class but more generally it is also a methodological orientation that opens up the study of logics of subordination. Whereas Said raised the broad issue of Orientalism, the Subaltern Studies group dismantled particular hegemonic narratives of Indian colonial history. According to Spivak, the Subaltern Studies group developed two important challenges to the narrative of Indian colonial history as a change from semi-feudalism to capitalist domination. First, they showed that the moment of change must be pluralized as a story of multiple confrontations involving domination and resistance rather than a simple great modes-of-production narrative. Second, these epochal shifts are marked by a multidimensional change in sign-system from the religious to the militant, crime to insurgency, bondsman to worker (Guha and Spivak 1988: 3)

The work of the Subaltern Studies group is emblematic of the way that post-colonial theory often inhabits the terrain between post-structuralism and Marxism, two traditions that have many differences as well as some commonalities. Despite the fact that many practitioners of the field are sympathetic to both traditions, other scholars highlight the incompatibility of the two. For example, Aijaz Ahmad has criticized post-colonialist theory from a Marxist perspective, arguing that its infatuation with issues of representation and discourse makes it blind to the material basis and systematic structure of power relations. The use of concepts such as hybridity easily degenerates into a kind of eclecticism that gestures at radical resistance while denying the theoretical basis of any theory of revolutionary change. Ahmad also argued that the influence of Said's Orientalism was due not to its originality but, on the contrary, to its conventionality. According to Ahmad, Orientalism benefited from its affinity with two problematic intellectual fashions: the reaction against Marxism that lead to the vogue for post-structuralism and the “Third-worldism” that provided academics with a veneer of radicalism. Said, for his part, also developed a sustained critique of Marxism. In Orientalism, Said argued that Marx's explicit defense of British colonialism was emblematic of his own implication in Orientalist discourse. Furthermore, for Said, Marx's position was not merely a personal failure but instead reflected a more general problem with totalizing theory that he felt tended to marginalize any signs of difference that undermined Marx's narrative of progress.

To conclude, it is worth noting that some scholars have begun to question the usefulness of the concept post-colonial theory. Like the idea of the Scottish four stages theory, a theory with which it would appear to have little in common, the very concept of post-colonialism seems to rely on a progressive understanding of history (McClintock 1992)). It suggests, perhaps unwittingly, that the core concepts of hybridity, alterity, particularly, and multiplicity may lead to a kind of methodological dogmatism or developmental logic. Moreover, the term “colonial” as a marker of this domain of inquiry is also problematic in so far as it suggests historically implausible commonalities across territories that experienced very different techniques of domination. Thus, the critical impulse behind post-colonial theory has turned on itself, drawing attention to the way that it may itself be marked by the utopian desire to transcend the trauma of colonialism (Gandhi 1998).

Bibliography

• Burke, Edmund. 2000. On Empire, Liberty and Reform: Speeches and Letters. ed. David Bromwich. New Haven: Yale University Press
• Gandhi, Leela. 1988. Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Guha, Ranajit and Spivak, Gayatri. 1988. Selected Subaltern Studies. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Kohn, Margaret and O'Neill, Daniel. 2006. "A Tale of Two Indias: Burke and Mill on Racism and Slavery in the West Indies." Political Theory 34: 192-228.
• Marx, Karl. 1972. On Colonialism: Articles from the New York Tribune and other writings. New York: International Publishers.
• McClintock, Anne. 1992, "The Angel of Progress: Pitfalls of the Term ‘Post-Colonialism," Social Text 31/32: 84-98.
• Mehta, Uday. 1999. Liberalism and Empire: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Liberal Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Mill, John Stuart. 1963 [1861]. "Considerations on Representative Government". Collected Works XIX: 371-577.
• Muthu, Sankar. 2003. Enlightenment Against Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Pagden, Anthony. 1990. Spanish Imperialism and Political Imagination. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
• Pitts, Jennifer. 2005. A Turn Toward Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
• Tocqueville, Alexis. 2001. Writings on Empire and Slavery. ed. and trans. Jennifer Pitts. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Said, Edward. 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage.
• Spivak, Gayatri. 1988. "Can the Subaltern Speak?" in C. Nelson and L. Grossberg, eds. Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press. pp. 271-313.
• Victoria, Franciscus de. 1917. On the Indians Lately Discovered. ed. E. Nys. Washington: Carnegie Institute.
• Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974-1989. The Modern World System, 3 vols. New York: Academic Press.
• Williams, Robert. 1990. The American Indian in Western Legal Thought. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Young, Robert. 2001. Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.

Other Internet Resources

• Lenin. V.I. 1999 [1917]. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism., Marxist Internet Archive.

Literature Key Figures (under construction)

Driss Charibi - One of the most prolific Francophone writers from Morocco, Driss Charaibi is also one who has stirred quite a bit of controversy following the publication of books such as Le Passé simple and Naissance à l'aube. These books offer a reading/writing of Moroccan history that diverges with the mainstream version(s), to say the least. His other publications include the following. Les Boucs (1955), Une Enquête au pays (1982), La Mère du printemps (l'Oum er-Bia)(1982) Mort au Canada (1983), La Civilisation, ma Mère!... (1984), D'Autres voix, Mohammedia, (1986), Naissance à l'aube (1986), Le Maroc des hauteurs (Photos) (1986), L'Inspecteur Ali (1991), and L'Homme du livre.

Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine came from an Amazigh family from southern Morocco. This south, especially the towns of Tafraout, Tiznit, and Agadir are always present in his writings. Khaïr-Eddine was famous for his unbridled sense of freedom, making him one of the most controversial figures of Moroccan literature in French. Along with Abdellatif Laâbi and Mustapha Nissabory, Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine launched the artistic journal Souffles in 1966. This publication sent a strong signal that Moroccan Francophone literature was there to stay, but on its own terms. It signaled the end of the era that put the ideological message in writing before artistic expression. Khaïr-Eddine's writings defy all conventions and put all artistic and political suppositions into question.

This was clear even in his first book Agadir (1967). Subsequent works confirmed the rebel in Khaïr-Eddine. He proclaimed himself a "linguistic guerilla" with the goal of claiming new ground for unrestrained artistic expression. His works include: Corps négatif suivi de Histoire d'un Bon Dieu (1968), Soleil Arachnide (1969), Moi l'Aigre(1970), Le Déterreur (1973), Ce Maroc! (1975), Une odeur de mantèque (1976), Une vie, un rêve, un peuple, toujours errant (1978), Résurrection des fleurs sauvages (1981), and Légende et vie d'Agoun'chich (1984).

Abdelkarim Ghellab (b. 1919) Ghellab?s received his education at the Al-Qarawiyyin University of Fes and Cairo University where he got his BA in Arabic Literature. When he returned to Morocco he worked in many different government administration, especially Foreign Affairs and education. He is the current editor in chief of rightwing opposition Independence Party (H?izb Al-Istiqlal). Of all the writers that Morocco has produced since the turn of the century, Ghellab is probably the oldest and the most influential. As a senior founding member of the Moroccan Writers? Union and as the editor of the A?alam daily newspaper and its literary supplement, Ghellab wields much influence on the country?s intellectual circles and the cultural life as a whole. His views on social and cultural issues, especially those of Arabization, modernism, and cultural diversity, are reminiscent of Salafi schools of thought.

Ghellab's writings cover a wide range of disciplines, especially fiction, literary criticism and politics. The four novels he published between 1965 and 1988 emphasize the bourgeois perspective from which Ghellab looks at recent Moroccan history. He is frequently criticized for over-emphasizing the role played by the urban bourgeois classes in the struggle for independence and glossing over the hardships that the poorer rural areas of Morocco underwent for the same cause. Dafanna Al-Mad?i ( We Burried the Past) (1968) and Lm?aallam Ali (Master Ali) (1971) are both set against the backdrop of French military presence in urban centers and how the educated elite of the cities organized anti-French resistance. These two novels offer good illustrations of Ghellab?s tendency to lapse into a type of revisionist history where the role of the urban elites is highlighted. Ghellab published two other novels: Saba?at ?abwab (Seven Doors) (1965) and Wa A?ada Azzawraqu ?ila Annaba?i (The Boat Returned to the Source) (1988). He also published several books on literary issues for example Maa?a Al-?adab wa Al-?udaba-? (On Literature and Literary Figures) (1974) and A?alam Shaa?ir Al-H?amra-? (The World of the Poet of the Red Town --Marrakech) (1981). His political books include: Tarikh Al-H?araka Al-Wataniya bilmaghrib (A History of the Nationalist Movement in Morocco) (1987), Fi Al-Fikr Assiyasi (On Political Thought) (1992) and Maa?rakatuna Al-A?arabiya fi Muwajahati Al-?istia?mar (Our Arab Struggle Against Colonialism) (1967).

Tahar Ben Jelloun is certainly one of the better known Maghrebi intellectuals, but he is also one of the more controversial. Some critics attack him for being "auto-exoticizing," claiming his fiction has little other purpose than titillating the occidental reader. In fact, Ben Jelloun, winner of the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 1987, is a writer of remarkable talent who alternates between realistic fiction and the fantastic, with the self-proclaimed aim of emphasizing the "irréalisme de l'écriture."Among his better known novels are Harrouda, Moha le fou, Moha le sage, L'enfant du sable, La Nuit Sacrée, and L'Homme rompu. He has also published poems, his first collection appearing in 1972 (Cicatrices du soleil) and his most recent in 1993 (La Remontée des cendres).He is the translator of Mohamed Choukri's novel Le pain nu (1990) from Arabic. Having studied Social Psychology in Paris, Ben Jelloun has also published an essay on the situation of North African immigrant workers in France called La plus haute des solitudes (1977). Books in French by Tahar Ben Jelloun---English Translations Abdelkébir Khatibi is probably one of the most influential Moroccan literary figures both as a novelist and critic. His work is informed by his Moroccan and Arabo-Islamic heritage as well as by Western philospohies such as deconstruction. Among his most discussed works are La Mémoire tatoué: autobiographie d'un décolonisé (1971), Le Lutteur de classe à la manière taoiste (1977), De la mille et troisième nuit (1980), Maghreb pluriel (1983), Amour bilingue (1983), Dédicace à l'année qui vient(1986), Figures de l'étranger dans la littérature francaise (1987), Par-dessus l'épaule (1988), Pardoxes Du sionisme (1990), and Un été à Stockholm (1990). Khatibi has also written a drama, Le Prophète voilé (1979).

Abdellatif Laâbi was a founding figure in postcolonial Moroccan Francophone literature. He is a prolific poet. The themes and issues that Laâbi deals engages critically in his writings have led him to a dramatic conflict with the Moroccan security which at one point resulted in an 8 year imprisonment in a facility reserved for dissident intellectuals. Laâbi's works include Race (1967), L'Arbre de fer fleurit (1974), Le Règne de la barbarie suivi de Poèmes oraux(1976), Histoire des sept crucifiés de l'espoir (1977), Chroniques de la citadelle d'exil (1978), Anthologie de la poesie palestinienne (1990), Pour les droits de l'homme: histoire(s), image(s), et parole(s) (1989), Discours de la colline arabe (1985), Je t'aime au rés de la mort (1988), L'Écorché vif: prosoèmes (1986), L'Oeil et la nuit: roman itinéraire (1969), Le Baptême chacaliste (1987), Le Chemins des ordalies (1987), Les Rides du lion (1989), Narration du déluge (1986), Saida et les voleurs de soleil (1986), Sous le bâillon, le poéme: écrits de prison, 1972-1980 (1981), and Tous les déchirements (1990).

Mohammed Aziz El-Hababi (1922-1993) El-Hababi?s did most of his schooling in France where he received a Ph. D. in literature. He was then appointed dean of the University of Rabat. He also Taught at the University of Algiers. El-Hababi was one of the founding members of the Moroccan Writers Union and became its first president in 1961. He was the editor in chief of two publications: Takamul Al-Maa?rifa and Dirasat Falasfya wa ?adabiyah. In Morocco El-Hababi is best known as leading figure in philosophy and literary theory. His main areas of investigation were Islamic philosophy and the contemporary trends in Western thought, especially ?personnalism? on which he wrote his Ph. D. thesis as well published many articles and books. Among his published works there are two novels: Jil Aththama? (The Generation of Thirst) (1967) and ?iksir Al-H?ayat (The Elixir of Life) (1974). He published two collections of poems: Bu?s wa Diyaa? (Misery and Light) (1962) and Yatim Tah?ta Assifr (Sub-Zero Orphan) (1988). El-Hababi?s most extensively published in French. The following are some of the most important titles he produced: De l?être à la personne: essai d?unpersonnalisme réaliste (1954), and Le Monde de demain: Le Tiers monde accuse (1980).

Mostafa Nissabory is another writer consider part of the post-colonial "new generation of Moroccan Francophone writers." Although not as prolific as Mohammed Khair-Eddine and Abdellatif Lâabi, he, too, played a major role in the experimental publications, beginning in 1964 with Poésie Toute. This was followed by Eaux vives (1965) and the artistic journal Souffles. Nissaboury's works include Plus haute mémoire (1968) and La mille et deuxième nuit (1975).

Khnata Bennouna is one of the few women writers who have managed to enter the almost exclusively male field of literary creation. Working mainly in short fiction, Khnata is regarded as a very political writer. Some of her readers even argue that her concern with political matters weighs down her writing and gives it a rather heavy didactic tone. Her novel Al-Ghad wa Al-Ghadab (Tomorrow and Wrath) (1981) uses techniques of autobiography writing along with ambiguity and other contemporary tropes to create a dense text that questions the existing social and political constructs. Besides being an overtly political writer, Khnata is also known for her resistance to a literary trend that encourages Moroccan writers to follow conventions set by Middle Eastern poets and novelists. In fact she resisted what viewed as an eastern "tutelage." Although resisting imitation of Arab writers, Khnata deals with many issues that are of acute urgency to that part of the world. Indeed her books frequently dealt the Palestinian both from a political point of view and a humanitarian one. Other works by Bennouna include Liyasqet Assamt (Down with Silence!) (1967), Annar wa Al-'ikhtiyar (Fire and Choice) (1969) which won the Morocco Literary Prize in 1971, Assawt wa Assurah (Sound and Image) (1975), Al-A'asifah (The Tempest) (1979), and Assamt Annatiq (Talking Silence) (1987). Bennouna currently works as a principle of a high-school in Casablanca.

Mohammed Berrada (b. 1938) English Translations Berrada's education makes him a good example of intellectual hybridity; he went to school in Morocco, Egypt and France. Although he wrote some fiction and poetry, the most significant bulk of his work is in literary criticism and translation. Berrada is well read in both the Arab and European literary traditions. His writing is very much influenced by modernist literary theories which emphasize ambiguity and dynamic narrative techniques which challenge the reader and create a new relationship between the reader and the text. It is relevant that he was the translator of such influential works of criticism such as Roland Barthes?s Le Degrée zero de l?écriture and Bakhtin?s Le Discoure romanesque as well as the works of fellow Moroccan philosophers and cultural critics: Mohammed Aziz Lehbabi and Abdelkebir Khatibi. He also wrote on critics who brought new and revolutionary insights into the literary criticism tradition of the Arab world. His book Mohammed Mandur wa Tanthir Annaqd Al-A?rabi (Mohammed Mandur and the Theorization of Arab Criticism) (1986) explores Mohammed Mandur?s critical approach to Arabic literature and the extent to which it has enriched the literary production among younger generations of Arab writers.

Berrada also collaborated with Mohammed Zniber and Algerian Francophone writer, Mouloud Mammeri, in the writing of Frantz Fanon ‘aw Maa’rakatu Ashshua’ub Al-Mutakhallifah (Frantz Fanon and the Struggle of Developping Countries) (1963). The publication of this book clearly indicated Berrada’s commitment to dealing with one of the most urgent issues that independent Morocco grappled with: decolonization. The works of Frantz Fanon are of tremendous importance to the development of a post-colonial tradition of literary criticism. The importance of this theme in Berrada’s work is accompanied with a departure from traditional narration to embrace a more polyphonic narrative technique. Indeed, Berrada’s fictional works, especially Lua’bat Annisyan (The Game of Forgetting)(1987), put the reader in a situation where he/she has to wade through the different voices in order to re-construct the story line. In fact, while reading the reader is actually negotiating his/her own subject position and re-narrating the events accordingly. Berrada’s other works include Salkh Al-Jild (Skinning) (1979), translations of Mohammed Aziz Lehbabi’s Mina Lmunghalaq ‘ila Lmunfatah’ (From the Closed to the Open), Tahar Ben Jelloun’s H’adith Al-Jamal (Talk of the Camel) (1971), Abdelkebir Khatibi’s Fi Lkitaba wa Ttajriba (On Writing and Experience) (1990), and Abdellatif Laâbi’s Qas’a-’id tah’t Al-Kimamah (Muzzled Poems) (1982). Berrada currently holds a teaching position at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts in Rabat.

Rabia' Mubarak (1940- ) Rabia' also belongs to the first generation of Morocco's contemporary writers. His contributions to national litearture include short stories, plays, novels, and even children's books. His background in psychology and education helped him has greatly influenced his writings as will become clear from the titles of some of his books.

The list of his publications is long but here are some of his most significant works. Dar wa Dukhkhan (A House and Smoke) (1975), Rih'alat Al-H'asad wa Al-H'ubb (Voyage of Harvest and Love) (1983), Attayyibun (The Good Ones) (1972), Rufqata Assilah'i wa Lqamar (In the Company of Weapons and the Moon) (1976), Arrih' Ashshatwiyya (The Winter Rain) (1977), Badru Zamanihi (Full Moon of His Time) (1984), and Burju Assua'ud (Tower of Fortunes) (1990). He also wrote at least a dozen children books and psychological studies on the process of socialization and cognitive aspects of childhood. Rabia' is currently a Professor in Mohammed V University of Rabat.

Mohammed Zefzaf (1945- ) Zefzaf is probably Morocco's most prolific fiction writer. His stories are usually set in an urban context, usually Casablanca, where characters are tossed and have to find their way around the twon and the people. he plays on problems of contact between the center as represented by the big towns and its educated residents and the rural margins with its poor and provenicial inhabitants. Zefzaf's novels, adacious works do not consider any topic to be outside literature's reach. Needless to say that this stance has earned quite a few crises with the local security forces.

Zefzaf'a fiction includes: H'iwar fi Laylin muta-'akhkhir (Conversation Late one Night) (1970), Al-Mar-'ah wa Lwardah (The Woman and the Rose) (1972), 'arsifah wa Judran (Pavements and Walls) (1974), Buyut Wate-'ah (Low Houses) (1977), Qubur fi Lama-' (Tombs in Water) (1978), Al-'aqwa (The Strongest) (1978), Al-'afa'a wa Lbah'r (The Viper and The Sea) (1979), Ashshajara Al-Muqaddasa (The Sacred Tree) (1980), Ghajarun fi Al-Ghaba (Gipsies in the Forest) (1982), Baydat Addik (The Rooster's Egg) (1984), Muh'awalat A'ysh (An Attempt to Live) (1985), Malik Al-Jin (The King of the Jins) (1988), Malak 'abyad (A White Angel) (1988), Aththaa'lab Allathi Yath-har wa Yakhtafi (The Fox that Appears and Disappears) (1989), Al-H'ayy Al-Khalfi (The Back Neighbourhood) (1992), and Al-A'arabah (The Cart) (1993). Zefzaf currently teaches in a high-school in Casablanca.

Abdelhak Serhane was born in 1950 and now teaches psychology at the Université Ibn Tofaïl in Kénitra. In 1993 he was awarded thePrix Français du Monde Arabe and is becoming a major voice in Moroccan literature. He came to public attention in 1983 with the publication of his first novel Messaouda. In this, Les enfants des rues étroits and Le Soleil des obscurs, Serhane explores the underside of traditional society, including the corruption, sexual perversion, hypocrisy and poverty that victimize everyone, but especially the young. In 1989 he published a book of poetry called L'Ivre Poème. A second volume, Chant d'ortie, appeared in 1993. In 1995 he published a work of non-fiction called L'amour circoncis, a comprehensive which lays open the erotic ideals, conventions and practices in Morocco, and in the process explains the identification of the individual in Moroccan society.

Edmond Amran Elmaleh--Born into a Jewish family in Safi Morocco, Edmond Amran Elmaleh is one of the writers of a new generation who has contributed to the continuation of a vibrant, diverse tradition of Francophone literature in Morocco. His books include the following titles: Parcours immobile (1980), Ailen ou la Nuit du récit (1983), Mille ans, un jour (1986), Jean Genet, Le Captif amoureux et autres essais (1988), Le Retour d'Abou El Haki (1990), and abner abounour (1995).

Leïla Abouzeïd (b.1950) (also spelled Layla Abu Zayd) Born in El Ksiba in the Middle Atlas mountains of Morocco, Leïla Abouzeïd studied English at the University of Texas, Austin and journalism at the World Press Institute in St. Paul Minnesota. In Morocco, she has worked in television and the media. She also served in the government in the seventies, and again in 1983 and 1991. Today she writes full time and has published short stories, memoirs and novels. She is best known for 'Am Al Fil, originally published in 1987 in Beirut. The novel is an exploration of the status of women in post-colonial Morocco.

Ahmed Lemsih (1950- ) Lemsih is the only Moroccan poet to choose writing poetry in Moroccan Arabic instead of Standard or Classical Arabic. His reputation as opposed suffered from that choice for a long time because other poets and the intellectual readership refused to take his venture seriously. Over the years he manged to publish a impressive amount of poetry written in a language that many judged unsuitable for such literary production. Lemsih's latest collectionn of poetry Shkun Trez Lma....??!? (Who embroidred the water??!?) (1994) caught the critics by surprised and stunned readers and reviewers by its poetic quality. Lemsih manages to find poetic rhythms and original metapphors in the most common forms of language. Although Lemsih published a large number of poems in Morocco's most prestigious literary journal, he only published two other collections of poetry: Riyyah'...Allati Sata-'ti (The Winds that will Come) (1976) and Fayadan Aththalj (Snow Flood) (1986). Apart from writing for Al-Ittih'ad Al-Ishtiraki, Lemsih holds a teaching position in a high-school in Rabat.

Jean Amrouche (1907-1962) is one of the pioneers of Algerian literature in French. He was born into a Catholic family in the Kabyle mountains. At a certain point the family was forced to emigrate to Tunisia where he was educated and began his career. As a high school teacher in Tunis, Albert Memmi was one of his students. During the Algerian Civil War he saw it as his duty to explain the French to Algerians and Algerians to France. He published his first book or poetry, Cendres in 1934. This, and his second volume, Étoile secrète are marked by themes of mysticism and exile. Amrouche was also concerned with the preservation of his Amazigh (Berber) cultural heritage. He collected songs from the Amazigh region of Kabylie in his 1939 book Chants berbères de Kabylie. Books by Jean Amrouche in French Marguerite Taos Amrouche--Born in 1913, Marguerite-Taos is the younger sister of Jean Amrouche. Like her brother, she was concerned with preserving the cultural heritage of the Kabylie. In 1966 she published a collection of tales, poems and proverbs called le Grain magique. She also collected and recorded songs and chants from this culture. She also wrote two novels: l'Amant imaginaire (1975) and an autobiographical novel Jacinthe noire (1947).

Mouloud Mammeri was born on the 28th of December 1917 in Kabylia. A patriot who struggled for the independence of Algeria from French Colonization, he also studied in Morocco and in France before becoming director of the Centre de recherche anthropologiques in Algiers. But Mammeri is probably best known as a staunch advocate for cultural pluralism in Algeria and for the struggle for the recognition of the Amazigh culture and language throughout North Africa. In 1980 his lecture on ancient Amazigh poetry from Kabylie was canceled by the authorities. This act of cultural repression triggered massive demonstrations all over Algeria. Among the people in the front ranks of the demonstrations were Kabylie artists and intellectuals. The date in which the demonstrations started is still celebrated as Tafsut Imazighen "The Amazigh Spring" by Amazigh cultural movements all over North Africa. Mammeri was a founder of a review, Awal , dedicated to research into Amazigh culture, language and history. His novels include La Colline Oublié (1952), Le Sommeil du juste (1955) and l'Opium et le Bâton (1965). He also collected the poems and stories of his native region in Contes Berberes de Kabylie and Poèmes kabyles anciens (1980). Books by Mouloud Mammeri in French Abdelhamid Benhedougga was born in 1925 in El Mansoura (Bordj-Bou-Arréridj), and pursued his higher educaiton in Tunisia. He returned to Algeria in 1954 where he taught Arabic literature. In 1955 he left for France where he held odd jobs to earn a living. He retunred to Tunisia in 1958 where he wrote for the radio and press of the FLN. He returned to Algeria in 1962 and has written for the theater, radio and television, including the BBC and Radio Tunisia. His publications inlcude a collection of articles called Al Djazair Bayn El amsi wal youmi (Algeria Between Yesterday and Today, 1958) a collection of poems, Al-Arwah Ash-Shaghira (Empty Souls, 1967) and several novels, most recently Wa Ghadan Yaoum Djadid (Tomorrow is a New Day, 1992). His novel, Je rêve d'un monde..., (I Dream of a World) has been published in French translation in number 15-16 of Algérie Littérature / Action

Kateb Yacine--Born August 6, 1929 in Constantine, Kateb Yacine is one of the most respected writers in the Maghreb. His most famous novel is Nedjma, was published in the midst of Algeria's anti-colonial war against the French. It arguably the most important novels in the Francophone Maghrebi tradition. Yacine has described it as "autobiographie au plurielle" in which three narratives, memories of his childhood and his mother, infatuation with his cousin Nedjma and Algerian history. He has also published poetry (Soliloques) and theater (Le Cercle des représailles) and other novels. He died on October 28,1989.

Jean Sénac--The child of an unknown father, Jean Sénac was born in 1926 to Jeanne Comma in 1926 in a village near Oran. It is said that this status as a "bastard" was the source for his poetic genius and, indeed, Sénac frequently uses his quest for identity as a metaphor for Algeria's status as a newly independent nation. This search is most pronounced in Sénac's only novel Ébauche du Pére, a remarkable autobiographical novel published after Sénac was brutally murdered on August 19, 1962. He was a protégé of Albert Camus who became very much a father figure for the young poet, a relationship strained by Sénac fervent support for Algerian independence. Sénac was an Algerian citizen by choice and his love for the nation is always present in his poetry. Some of his collections are Dérision et Vertige, Poémes, and Avant-Corps. Books by Jean Sénac in French--See, also, the anthology of Sénac's works published by Marsa Editions.

Mohammed Dib is by far Algeria's most prolific writer and a major figure of world literature. His work provides a fascinating, moving picture of Algerian history beginning with a trilogy Algérie which covered the period from 1939-1942. The trilogy includes the novels: La Grande Maison, l'Incendie and Le Métier à tisser. Dib is an innovative writer who often explored experimental techniques. For example,Qui se souvient de la mer is a novel about the war for independence in Algeria, set in a mythical, science fiction like city. In so doing, the novel becomes a compelling allegorical narrative of the specific conflict in Algeria and of the psychology of resistance to oppression. Dib's other novels include: Le Talisman, La Danse du roi, Habel, and, most recently, Le Désert sans détour. He has also published collections of poetry such as Ombre gardienne; Feu, beau feu and O vive.

Assia Djebar is certainly the best known woman writer (if not the best known overall) of the Maghreb, at least in the West.She taught history for many years at the University of Algiers, and much of work is pervaded by persistent historical questioning. But above all Djebar's work is concerned with the situation of women in Algeria and with giving them the voice that elements in society would have them denied. She is also a prize winning film-maker.

Les Enfants du nouveau monde (1962), the first of her works to receive widespread critical acclaim, is a novel which deals with the Algerian anti-colonial war and, in particular, the role women played in it. Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement (1980) takes its title from Delacroix's famous painting and is made up almost entirely of conversations between women. L'Amour la fantasia (1985) is an extraordinarily complex work which weaves together historical narratives of French colonization and autobiography. In Loin de Médine (1991) she explores the lives of the women in the life of the prophet Mohammed. Her other novels include La Soif (1957), Les Impatients (1958), Les Allouettes naïves (1964) and Ombre sultane (1987).

Tahar Ouettar (also spelled Tahir Wattar) Is one of the more inportant figures in Algerian literature written in Arabic. He began his higher studies in Constantine, Tunisia, but left in 1956 to join the Civil Organization of the FLN. After the war he edited periodicals in Tunisia and Algeria. He also served as Controller of the FLN and Director Genreal of Algerian Radio. He has published novels plays and short stories in Arabic. Titles include: al-Laz (The Ace, 1974) 'Urs baghl (The Donkey's Wedding, 1978), Az-Zilzel (The Earthquake, 1974) and al-Shama'a wa'l-dahaliz (The Candle and Dark Tunnels, 1995). He currently resides in Algiers.

Ahlam Mosteghanemi--Ahlam Mosteghanemi is the author of Dhakirat al-jasad (1985), the first novel published by an Algerian woman in Arabic. In 2000, an English translation bearing the title Memory in the Flesh was published by the American University in Cairo, as a result of the novel receiving the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature. Holder of a B.A. in Arabic literature from the University of Algiers and doctorate in sociology from the Sorbonne, Mosteghanemi has written two novels, two volumes of poetry and has published a collection of essays called Algérie: Femmes et écritures.

Leila Sebbar--Born and raised in Algeria, Leila Sebbar moved to France at the age of 17. In fact, many of her novels deal with the situation of Algerian women who have immigrated to Europe. Some of the titles which built her reputation are: On tue les petites filles (1980), Des femmes dans la maison (181) and Shérazade (1982).

Rachid Boudjedra--It is said that the publication of Rachid Boudjedra's first novella Répudiation (1969) announced a new generation of Algerian writers. Through a story recounted by a young Algerian to his foreign lover concerning the life of his mother who had been repudiated by his father, Boudjedra questions the values of his traditional society. According to the author, the text is partially autobiographical, stemming from the repudiation of Boudjedra's mother by his father.

Boudjedra's fiction is provocative, experimental and moving. Topographie idéale pour un agression caractérisée, for example, is the story of an illiterate immigrant lost in the Paris metro through which Boudjedra examines complex philosophical and aesthetic issues. FIS de la haine is a work of nonfiction in which Boudjedra examines the roots of the current crisis in Algeria. The books pulls no punches towards the FIS, the West, or anyone else. And yet Boudjedra makes every effort to sort out the bloodthirsty ambitions of the FIS (Islamic Salvation Front) from the more tolerant tradition of Islam, and the ruthless, money-driven character of the West from its noble humanistic tradition. Since 1982 he has written exclusively in Arabic and the issuing French versions of his novels.

Mohamed Sari was born in 1958 in Ménacer, in the Cherchell region of Algeria. He and is currently a professor of Arabic literature at the University of Algiers. He has published literary criticism and three novels in Arabic, including As-Sa'ir (1986) and 'ala Djibel Ad-Dahra (The Mountains of Dara, 1988). His newest novel, Le Labyrinthe, has been published in French translation in Algérie Littérature / Action, Nos 41-42.

Tahar Djaout was one of the first of a far too long string of intellectuals to be killed in the violence that has shaken Algeria since the canceled 1992 elections. One of the men arrested for the assassination allegedly said that Djaout was targeted because, "he wrote too well, he had an intelligent pen, and he was able to touch people; because of this he was a danger to the fundamentalist ideology." Since his assassination, Djaout has become an important symbol for freedom of expression and the movement for a pluralist state in Algeria, but beyond all this, the world lost a phenomenal literary talent when he died.

Djaout was born in Kabylie, (1952) studied mathematics at the university, then became a journalist. As such he was a staunch advocate for democracy, and a harsh critic of corruption in the Algerian government and of the FIS. Although he began his literary career in poetry, he is best known for his novels. The three which brought him the most attention are: Les chercheurs d'os , the story of a boy who goes off to search for the remains of his brother after the Algerian war for independence; Le Invention du désert, in which a writer working on a history of the Almohad movement in North Africa confronts the ghost of history, bringing an ancient religious reformer back to life in his mind to confront the street of Paris; and Les Vigiles, the story of a young inventor and a old war veteran who confront the corruption of their society. A posthumous novel, Le Dernier été de la raison, was published in 1999, in which Djaout imagines life in a state controlled by a fundamentalist government and one individuals resistance to it.

Rachid Mimouni--Decades after Algerian independence Rachid Mimouni's literary production in French shows the incredible ability of Maghrebi writers to use French as a language of artistic creation and expression. Although he died at very young age in his self-imposed exile in Tangiers,Morocco, Mimouni left behind an impressive body of work that grapples with some of the most powerful issues in modern Algerian history. Some of his works are: Le Fleuve détourné (1982), Une paix à vivre (1983), Tombéza (1984), Paris Dakar (Written in collaboration with Leila Sebbar and others) (1987), L'Honneur de la tribu (1989), La Ceinture de l'ogresse (1990), Le Printemps n'en sera que plus beau (1990), De la barbarie en général et de l'intégrisme en particulier (1993), La Malédiction (1993).

Aissa Khelladi is a journalist, novelist, playwright and poet who has lived in France since 1994. He has published books on the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, plays, poetry and several novels, most notably Peurs et Mensonges and Rose d'abime, both of which deal insightfully and unflinchingly with the situation in contemporary Algeria. His writing is intense and gripping and often very innovative in its style. Khelladi is also the director of the important new review Algérie Littérature / Action.

Abdelkader Djemaï is a novelist and journalist who was born in Oran in 1948. He was obliged to leave Algeria in 1993. His books include Une été de cendres, a récit which tells the story of a dispossessed and haunted man who lives in his office after losing his wife and falling out of favor with his superior. It is a personal narrative which gives a glimpse into how one mans deals with the chaos in Algeria today. Other titles by Djemaï include Saison de pierres and Mémoires de nègre.

Malika Mokeddem is also trained as a physician. She was born in 1949 in the Algerian desert and was the eldest of ten children. In 1966 she left Algeria to study medicine in France where she now lives. Her first novel was written while she was practicing medicine in an office she opened in the immigrant quarters of Paris. She is a prize winning author of three novels foreground the situation of Algerian. women. Le siecle des sauterelles is set in the first half of this century, and L'Interdite deals with the rise of fundamentalism.

Merzak Allouache is, of course, best known as a film maker. His most famous film, Bab El Oued City, tells the story of a a poor neighborhood in urban Algiers and the rise of Islamic militancy. The novel Bab El-Oued was written to exorcise frustrations that arose during the making of the film.

Albert Memmi (1920) was born in the Jewish quarters of Tunis. His most famous novel, La Statue de Sel, written in 1953, treats the themes of identity and alienation in the story of a boy from the Jewish quarter of Tunis. He moved to France in 1956. Other works include Agar (1955), Le Scorpion (1969), Le Désert (1977), Le Pharaon(1989), Le Mirliton du ciel (poetry, 1990). Memmi is also the author of important philosophical works such as Portrait du colonisé (1957).

Hédi Bouraoui (b.1932) (who currently resides in Canada) moves across cultures, creating a rich dialogue between images, symbols, and words in his poetic work. Some publications include: Musocktail (1966),Tremblé (1969), Immensément croisé (1969), Eclate module (1972), Vésuviade (1976), Sans frontières (1979), Haïtu-vois (1980), Vers et l'envers (1982), Ignescent (1982), Seul (1984), L'icônaison (1985), Echosmos which also includes Bouraoui's own English translaitons of his work) (1986), and Bangkok Blues.

Salah Garmadi (1933-1982) wrote both in Arabic and in French. A popular poet, his collections of poetry in French include Avec ou sans (1970) and Nos ancêtres les Bédouins (1975).

Abdelaziz Kacem (b.1933) writes both in French and Arabic. With highly polished language expressing his biculturalism, Kacem employs myth and history to articulate the present. His work in French is Le Frontal (1983).

Mustapha Tlili (b.1937) speaks of solitude and of residing in the space of the "in-between" of three cultures: Maghrebi, French, and American. His four novels: La Rage aux tripes (1975), Le bruit dort (1978), Gloire des sables (1982), La Montagne du lion (1988). English Translations Majid el Houssi (1941) reflects in his writing the difficulties inherent in the process of acculturation. The search for self, memory, and identity manifests itself in the use of Berber and Arabic historical patrimonies. He currently resides in Italy. Some of his works include Je voudrais ésotériquement te conter (1972), Imagivresse (1973), Iris-Ifriqiya (1981), Ahméta-O (1981), Le Verger des poursuites ( ).

Moncef Ghacem (b. 1946) is poet and translator, residing in Tunisia. His poetry resounds with the power of his Mediterranean heritage and the sea, a voice articulating against injustice. Poetry in French: Cent Mille Oiseaux (1975), Car vivre est un pays (1978), Cap Africa (1989). His most recent publication is a string of engaging short stories, inspired from his native town of Mahdia: L'épervier (1994).

Abedelwahab Meddeb (b. 1946) has an original style which combines mythology, mysticism, Western and Eastern cultural references; an intertextuality and "interlanguage" which reveals the writer's (self-) conscious use of language. His works: Talismano (1979), Phantasia (1986), Les Dits de Bistami (1989), Tombeau d'Ibn Arabi (1990), Récit de l'exil occidental (1993), Les 99 stations de Yale (1995), La Gazelle et l'enfant (1992).

Fawzi Mellah (b. 1946) has written both drama and narrative. His work, usually with an interesting didactic point to make, is rooted in the sociocultural and historical realities of Tunisia, but end up revealing grains of truth pertinent to developing countries in general, to wit: the structure of the state and the discourse of power. His works: Néron ou les Oiseaux de passage (1973), Le Palais du non-retour (1975), Le Conclave des pleureuses (1987), and Elissa, la reine vagabonde (1988).

Hélé Beji (b. 1948) is known as an essayist and novelist, reinterrogating such concepts as modernity and the state; discussing the implications of the rise of the new bourgeoisie vis à vis traditional culture. Her novel is L'oeil du jour (1985).

Tahar Bekri (b. 1951) is well-known as a writer, essayist, and literary critic. His works include: Poèmes bilingues (1978), Exils (1979), Le laboureur du soleil (1983), Les lignes sont des arbres (1984), Le chant du roi errant (1985), and Le Coeur rompu aux océans (1988). He has also published a book on the literature of Tunisia: Littératures de Tunisie et du Maghreb (1994).

Amina Saïd (b. 1953) is a contemporary poet who has published: Paysages, nuit friable (1980), Métamorphose de l'île et de la vague (1985).

Hafedh Djedidi (b. 1954) is a poet, novelist, and journalist covering cultural affairs. He has published: Rien que le fruit pour toute bouche (1986), Chassés/croisés (written with Guy Coissard; 1986), Intempéries (1988), and Le Cimeterre ou le Souffle du Vénérable (1990). Books in French by Hafedh Djedidi Read up on Tunisian literature!