Postcolonial Whiteness

A Critical Reader on Race and Empire

Edited by Alfred J. Lopez

Subjects: Postcolonial Studies, Literary Theory, Cultural Studies
Paperback : 9780791463628, 271 pages, February 2005
Hardcover : 9780791463611, 271 pages, February 2005

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Table of contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

1. Introduction: Whiteness after Empire
Alfred J. Lopez

2. The Body of the Princess
Diane Roberts

3. Lavender Ain't White: Emerging Queer Self-Expression in its Broader Context
John C. Hawley

4. Whiteness in Post-Socialist Eastern Europe: The Time of the Gypsies, The End of Race
Aniko Imre

5. Vampiric Decolonization: Fanon, "Terrorism," and Mudrooroo's Vampire Trilogy
Gerry Turcotte

6. "White Talk": White South Africans and the Management of Diasporic Whiteness
Melissa Steyn

7. The Color of Schizophrenia
Cheryl Temple Herr

8. The Gaze of the White Wolf: Psychoanalysis, Whiteness, and Colonial Trauma
Alfred J. Lopez

9. "Motley's the Only Wear": Hybridity, Homelands, and Conrad's Harlequin
Frances B. Singh

10. Hymns for and from White Australia
Christopher Kelen

11. The Times of Whiteness; or, Race between the Postmodern and the Postcolonial
Ryan S. Trimm

List of Contributors

Index

Explores the undertheorized convergence of postcoloniality and whiteness.

Description

Postcolonial Whiteness examines the interrelations between whiteness and the history of European colonialism, as well as the status of whiteness in the contemporary postcolonial world. It addresses two fundamental questions: What happens to whiteness after empire, and to what extent do white cultural norms or imperatives remain embedded in the postcolonial or postindependence state as a part—acknowledged or not—of the colonial legacy? Presenting a wide range of critical and theoretical responses, the contributors explore these questions by focusing on such diverse topics as the legacy of Princess Diana; queer self-expression; the changing situation of Gypsy, or Romani, minorities in Eastern Europe; literature, including Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Caryl Phillips's Cambridge, and Gothic impact on the literature of Australia; reconstruction of white South African social identity; cross-cultural discussions of mental illness; Freud's case history of the Wolfman; and Australia's national anthems.

Alfred J. López is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Mississippi and the author of Posts and Pasts: A Theory of Postcolonialism, also published by SUNY Press.