Lorna Burns – författare

Engagements with Postcolonial Literature and Theory offers a detailed exploration of the debates, theories, texts, and themes that have shaped the evolution of postcolonial literary studies. Encompassing prose, poetry, and drama, this book navigates the history of postcolonial literature and its criticism.Each chapter is framed by a postcolonial author’s own literary ‘engagement’. Case studies on Chinua Achebe, Kamau Brathwaite, Derek Walcott, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Junot Diaz, Jean Rhys, Hari Kunzru, Arundhati Roy, and J. M. Coetzee elucidate each chapter’s central concepts and themes: colonial subjects and rebels; nations and nationalism after decolonisation; postcolonial difference; and subaltern representation. In this book, Lorna Burns tracks the evolution of postcolonial theory from anti-colonialism (Albert Memmi and Frantz Fanon) to the poststructuralist first wave (Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Homi Bhabha), the Marxist counter-response (Aijaz Ahmad and Benita Parry), and, finally, looks ahead to new directions in postcolonial theory.Aimed at students and scholars who are new to postcolonialism, as well as those returning to it for fresh insights and inspiration, this book engages with the complexity of both postcolonial theory and literature to furnish the reader with a fuller understanding of their significance and value, as well as the connections to be forged between them.

Engagements with Postcolonial Literature and Theory offers a detailed exploration of the debates, theories, texts, and themes that have shaped the evolution of postcolonial literary studies. Encompassing prose, poetry, and drama, this book navigates the history of postcolonial literature and its criticism.Each chapter is framed by a postcolonial author’s own literary ‘engagement’. Case studies on Chinua Achebe, Kamau Brathwaite, Derek Walcott, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Junot Diaz, Jean Rhys, Hari Kunzru, Arundhati Roy, and J. M. Coetzee elucidate each chapter’s central concepts and themes: colonial subjects and rebels; nations and nationalism after decolonisation; postcolonial difference; and subaltern representation. In this book, Lorna Burns tracks the evolution of postcolonial theory from anti-colonialism (Albert Memmi and Frantz Fanon) to the poststructuralist first wave (Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Homi Bhabha), the Marxist counter-response (Aijaz Ahmad and Benita Parry), and, finally, looks ahead to new directions in postcolonial theory.Aimed at students and scholars who are new to postcolonialism, as well as those returning to it for fresh insights and inspiration, this book engages with the complexity of both postcolonial theory and literature to furnish the reader with a fuller understanding of their significance and value, as well as the connections to be forged between them.

World Literature and Dissent reconsiders the role of dissent in contemporary global literature. Bringing together scholars of world and postcolonial literatures, the contributors explore the aesthetics of resistance through concepts including the epistemology of ignorance, the rhetoric of innocence, the subversion of paying attention, and the radical potential of everydayness. Addressing a broad range of examples, from the Maghrebian humanist Ibn Khaldūn to India’s Facebook poets and examining writers such as Langston Hughes, Ben Okri, Sara Uribe, and Merle Collins, this highly relevant book reframes the field of world literature in relation to dissenting politics and aesthetic. It asks the urgent question: how critical practice might cultivate radical thought, further social justice, and value human expression?

World Literature and Dissent reconsiders the role of dissent in contemporary global literature. Bringing together scholars of world and postcolonial literatures, the contributors explore the aesthetics of resistance through concepts including the epistemology of ignorance, the rhetoric of innocence, the subversion of paying attention, and the radical potential of everydayness. Addressing a broad range of examples, from the Maghrebian humanist Ibn Khaldūn to India’s Facebook poets and examining writers such as Langston Hughes, Ben Okri, Sara Uribe, and Merle Collins, this highly relevant book reframes the field of world literature in relation to dissenting politics and aesthetic. It asks the urgent question: how critical practice might cultivate radical thought, further social justice, and value human expression?

Postcolonial studies took shape in response to the nationalist and decolonization movements of the twentieth century. Today, a resurgent interest in world literature reflects an increased awareness of globalization. These twin projects are torn between a criticism that finds in the text the trace of capitalist modernity and one that accounts for the revolutionary potential of literature to challenge our global present. Postcolonialism After World Literature exposes what is at stake in this critical choice through a line of philosophical enquiry – Bruno Latour, Gilles Deleuze, and Jacques Rancière – that poses an alternative to the materialist strand of world literary criticism pioneered by Pascale Casanova and Franco Moretti. Engaging with these theorists and others, Lorna Burns contests world-systems theory as the basis for thinking about contemporary postcolonial and world literatures, and proposes a renewed framework that promotes literature’s capacity to provoke dissent; to imagine new forms of belonging and relation for both national and world citizens; and to stage the shared equality of all. Moving between theory and the novels of Roberto Bolaño, J. M. Coetzee, Kamel Daoud, Dany Laferrière, Pauline Melville, Arundhati Roy and Kamila Shamsie, Postcolonialism After World Literature presents the case for rethinking world literature in light of the legacies of postcolonialism, and for reshaping postcolonial studies in an era of world literature. Lorna Burns is Lecturer in Postcolonial Literatures at the University of St Andrews, UK. She is the author of Contemporary Caribbean Writing and Deleuze (Bloomsbury, 2012).

Postcolonial studies took shape in response to the nationalist and decolonization movements of the twentieth century. Today, a resurgent interest in world literature reflects an increased awareness of globalization. These twin projects are torn between a criticism that finds in the text the trace of capitalist modernity and one that accounts for the revolutionary potential of literature to challenge our global present. Postcolonialism After World Literature exposes what is at stake in this critical choice through a line of philosophical enquiry – Bruno Latour, Gilles Deleuze, and Jacques Rancière – that poses an alternative to the materialist strand of world literary criticism pioneered by Pascale Casanova and Franco Moretti. Engaging with these theorists and others, Lorna Burns contests world-systems theory as the basis for thinking about contemporary postcolonial and world literatures, and proposes a renewed framework that promotes literature’s capacity to provoke dissent; to imagine new forms of belonging and relation for both national and world citizens; and to stage the shared equality of all. Moving between theory and the novels of Roberto Bolaño, J. M. Coetzee, Kamel Daoud, Dany Laferrière, Pauline Melville, Arundhati Roy and Kamila Shamsie, Postcolonialism After World Literature presents the case for rethinking world literature in light of the legacies of postcolonialism, and for reshaping postcolonial studies in an era of world literature. Lorna Burns is Lecturer in Postcolonial Literatures at the University of St Andrews, UK. She is the author of Contemporary Caribbean Writing and Deleuze (Bloomsbury, 2012).

Contemporary Caribbean Writing andDeleuze maps anew intellectual and literary history of postcolonial Caribbean writing andthought spanning from the 1930s surrealist movement to the present,crossing the region's language blocs,and focused on the interconnected principles of creativity and commemoration.Exploring the work of Rene Menil, edouard Glissant, Wilson Harris, DerekWalcott, Antonio Benitez-Rojo, Pauline Melville, Robert Antoni and NaloHopkinson, this study reveals the explicit and implicit engagement withDeleuzian thought at work in contemporary Caribbean writing.Uniting for the first time two majorschools of contemporary thought - postcolonialism and post-continentalphilosophy - this study establishes anew and innovative critical discourse for Caribbean studies and postcolonialtheory beyond the oppositional dialectic of colonizer and colonized. Drawingfrom Deleuze's writings on Bergson, Nietzsche and Spinoza, this studyinterrogates the postcolonial tropes of newness, becoming, relationality and aphilosophical concept of immanence that lie at the heart of a little-observeddialogue between contemporary Caribbean writers and Deleuze.