Deconstruction and the Postcolonial

by Michael Syrotinski

"Postcolonial studies, and the rich body of theory that it applies in its analyses, has transformed and unsettled the ways in which, across a whole range of disciplines, we think about notions such as subjectivity, national identity, globalization, history, language, literature or international politics. Until recently, the emphasis of the groundbreaking work being carried out in these areas has been almost exclusively within an Anglophone context, but increasingly the focus of postcolonial studies is shifting to a more comparative approach." "One of the most intriguing developments in this shift of emphasis has been within the Francophone world, given that a number of genealogical lines of influence are now being drawn connecting the work of the three figures most associated with the emergence of postcolonial theory - Homi Bhabha, Edward Said, and Gayatri Spivak - to an earlier generation of French (predominantly 'poststructuralist') theorists. Within this emerging narrative of intell