We are looking at identity and representation through the lens of Empire and Colonialism. It had an aim to undermine the universalist claims that ‘great literature has a timeless and universal significance [which] thereby demotes or disregards cultural, social, regional, and nations differences in experience and outlook’.

Postcolonial criticism challenges the assumption of a universal claim of what is good and what is bad.

‘constituted a fundamentally important political act’

Edward Said

the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism – Edward Said Culture and Imperialism

‘imperialism was principally economic‘ and looked to answer that question by highlighting ‘the privileged role of culture in the modern imperial experience’

‘an economic system like a nation or a religion, lives not by bread alone, but by beliefs, visions, daydreams as well, and these may be no less vital to it for being erroneous’ – V. G. Kiernan

‘the desire to contain the intangibilities of the East within a western lucidity, but this gesture of appropriation only partially conceals the obsessive fear.’

ORIENTALISM

– is a term expressing the varying historical and cultural relationship between Europe and Asia, specializing in the study of Eastern cultures and traditions. ‘In this view, the outlying regions of the world have no life, history or culture to speak of, no independence or integrity worth representing without the West.‘ culture is the identification of a country.

 Jacques Lacan

– we are going to look at the other

The mirror stage

we cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are / who we are not.

Applying that theory to culture, communications and media studies, it is possible to see why we are so obsessed with reading magazines, listening to music, watching films, videos and television because, essentially, we are exploring ‘The Other’ as a way of exploring ourselves.

Comparison

Jacques Lacan looks at how you reflect at yourself which apply to cultures and that is why explore the other.

In other words, postcolonial criticism challenges the assumption of a universal claim towards what constitutes ‘good reading’ and ‘good literature’; questioning the notion of a recognised and overarching canon of important cultural texts – book, poems, plays, films etc – much of which is institutionalised into academic syllabi.

Overall, POSTCOLONIALISM operates a series of signs maintaining the European-Atlantic power over the Orient by creating ‘an accepted grid for filtering through the Orient into Western consciousness‘. (Said, 1978:238). Or as Paul Gilroy puts it, ‘a civilising mission that had to conceal its own systematic brutality in order to be effective and attractive’ (2004:8)

the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism – Edward Said Culture and Imperialism, 1993: xiii

Essentially, and most crucial for postcolonial critical thinking, it is possible to identify a process whereby REPRESENTATIONS of – the East /the Orient / the ‘Other’ – are CONSTRUCTED through the lens of WESTERN COLONIAL POWER. So as much as the concept and image of ‘the West’ itself, the Orient is an idea that has a history and a tradition of thought, imagery, and vocabulary that have given it reality and presence in and for the West. The two geographical entities thus support and to an extent reflect each other.

Jacques Lacan – The Other

A good way to develop an understanding of this term is in his exploration of the mirror stage of child development, whereby, as we cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are / who we are not. Lacan proposed that in infancy this first recognition occurs when we see ourselves in a mirror.

In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. – Edward Said

Jacques Lacan – The other. A good way to develop an understanding of this term is in his exploration of the mirror stage of child development, whereby, as we cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are / who we are not. Lacan proposed that in infancy this first recognition occurs when we see ourselves in a mirror. Applying that theory to culture, communications and media studies, it is possible to see why we are so obsessed with reading magazines, listening to music, watching films, videos and television because, essentially, we are exploring ‘The Other’ as a way of exploring ourselves.

For example some Europeans may go over to Africa and say how it was there, but they are not truly representing the place, only seeing ‘The Other’