In Theory

Classes, Nations, Literatures

Aijaz Ahmad

• Publisher: Verso
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781844672134
• eBook ISBN: 9781789603637
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism Theory
• Index: Literature

After the Second World War, nationalism emerged as the principle expression of resistance to Western imperialism in a variety of regions from the Indian subcontinent to Africa, to parts of Latin America and the Pacific Rim. With the Bandung Conference and the formation of the Non-Aligned Movement, many of Europe's former colonies banded together to form a common bloc, aligned with neither the advanced capitalist "First World" nor with the socialist "Second World." In this historical context, the category of "Third World literature" emerged, a category that has itself spawned a whole industry of scholarly and critical studies, particularly in the metropolitan West, but increasingly in the homelands of the Third World itself.
Setting himself against the growing tendency to homogenize "Third World" literature and cultures, Aijaz Ahmad has produced a spirited critique of the major theoretical statements on "colonial discourse" and "post-colonialism," dismantling many of the commonplaces and conceits that dominate contemporary cultural criticism. With lengthy considerations of, among others, Fredric Jameson, Edward Said, and the Subaltern Studies group, In Theory also contains brilliant analyses of the concept of Indian literature, of the genealogy of the term "Third World," and of the conditions under which so-called "colonial discourse theory" emerged in metropolitan intellectual circles.
Erudite and lucid, Ahmad's remapping of the terrain of cultural theory is certain to provoke passionate response.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Literature among the Signs of Our Time
• 1. Literary Theory and ‘Third World Literature’: Some Contexts
• 2. Languages of Class, Ideologies of Immigration
• 3. Jameson’s Rhetoric of Otherness and the ‘National Allegory’
• 4. Salman Rushdie’s Shame: Postmodern Migrancy and the Representation of Women
• 5. Orientalism and After: Ambivalence and Metropolitan Location in the Work of Edward Said
• 6. Marx on India: A Clarification
• 7. ‘Indian Literature’: Notes towards the Definition of a Category
• 8. Three Worlds Theory: End of a Debate
• Notes
• Index