Postcolonial Theory

Leela Gandhis important book is the first to describe the field of postcolonial studies in theoretical terms, setting it in an intellectual context alongside poststructuralism and deconstruction. She argues that it is marked not by a politics of identity so much as its breaching. Drawing our attention to its focus on the indefinite, unfinished, and peripatetic, Gandhi allows us to see postcolonialism as a contemporary but also successor of anarchism. -- Faisal Devji, University of Oxford Postcolonial Theory is much more than a primer. It is a shimmering and indispensable work by a formidable thinker that reforms all that it describes. Leela Gandhi tells a vivid story about the enormous stakes involved in thinking about forms of colonial violence and suffering that haunt contemporary society. The lessons of Postcolonial Theory are bold and urgent ones for students to learn and for scholars to confront today. -- Mrinalini Chakravorty, author of <i>In Stereotype: South Asia in the Global Literary Imaginary</i> This book is everything an introduction should be. It is focused, informative, thought-provoking, enjoyable, and student-friendly. As an invitation to a first engagement with its now sprawling subject, it is timely and welcome. * Radical Philosophy * [Gandhis] admirably concise and well-written volume will prove invaluable to readers new to postcolonial theory as well as to readers already familiar with this diverse and often diversely confusing field. * Novel: A Forum on Fiction * An acutely stimulating read. * World Literature Today *

Leela Gandhi is John Hawkes Professor of Humanities and English at Brown University. She is author of Affective Communities: Anticolonial Thought, Fin-de-Sicle Radicalism, and the Politics of Friendship (2006) and The Common Cause: Postcolonial Ethics and the Practice of Democracy, 1900-1955 (2014).

Acknowledgments Preface to the Second Edition Preface to the First Edition 1. After Colonialism 2. Thinking Otherwise: A Brief Intellectual History 3. Postcolonialism and the New Humanities 4. Edward Said and His Critics 5. Postcolonialism and Feminism 6. Imagining Community: The Question of Nationalism 7. One World: The Vision of Postnationalism 8. Postcolonial Literatures 9. The Limits of Postcolonial Theory Epilogue: If This Were a Manifesto for Postcolonial Thinking Bibliography Index