Overview
Represents a key intervention in postcolonial studies from one of its founding proponents
Puts questions of structure, symbol, and style centre-stage in a way unprecedented in postcolonial criticism to date
Takes a broad overview of the discipline, supported by a range of salient case studies
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
Reviews
“The book is valuable enough for reminding postcolonial literary critics not to neglect the how of writing and of reading, especially with regard to how postcolonial writing influences its readers’ social, political, and ethical sensibilities. … it is a welcome and timely reminder for postcolonial literary critics to not neglect the literary aspect of their research.” (Edward Powell, The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory, Vol. 27 (1), December 23, 2019)
“Boehmer’s book is, nevertheless, a vindication of postcolonial studies and of the potential of postcolonial literature to change the world. … Boehmer’s instruction to pay attention to the text’s formal and expressive meanings is a strategy to approach writings about terror or trauma without flattening them.” (Jenni Ramone, THE Times Higher Education, timeshighereducation.com, March 28, 2019)
“What sets Boehmer’s work apart from many other academic writers’ is its readability. … Throughout Postcolonial poetics, Boehmer’s careful examination of “reading” practices allows for not only a deeper understanding of the formal, aesthetic dimension of postcolonial writing, but our role as readers in decoding and experiencing a text. It constitutes an invigorating relocation of attention in postcolonial studies.” (Karina Magdalena Szczurek, LitNet, litnet.co.za, November, 2018) “This finger-on-the-pulse book re-aligns postcolonial poetics and politics, reading and form and returns us to postcolonial concerns via new pathways. A series of finely-calibrated readings range across regions and genres. Written with Boehmer’s characteristic elegance and lucidity, this highly-teachable volume will be around for some time to come.” (Professor Isabel Hofmeyr, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa)
“Elleke Boehmer brings a much-needed emphasis on readerly engagement to the fields of postcolonial studies and world literature. In these lucid essays, Boehmer argues eloquently for a pragmatic poetics: one that is attuned to the affordance of form as well as the dynamic and charged relations between readers and literary works.” (Professor Rita Felski, University of Virginia, USA)
“For those of us who’ve been trying for decades to drag the aesthetic into postcolonial studies, Elleke’s Boehmer’s lively, lucid, and wide-ranging book finally pushes it across the line. Postcolonial Poetics makes the spirited yet judicious argument that attention to form and literary structure need not shortchange political or material content. With its commanding knowledge of the field, this book reveals the aesthetic means by which literature illuminates the historical violence and material inequalities of the postcolonial world. Elucidating the relation between literature’s mimetic what and its formal how, Boehmer’s important intervention opens new futures for postcolonial studies.” (Professor Jahan Ramazani, editor of The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Poetry)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Postcolonial Poetics
Book Subtitle: 21st-Century Critical Readings
Authors: Elleke Boehmer
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90341-5
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-90340-8Published: 11 July 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-07995-6Published: 26 January 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-90341-5Published: 27 June 2018
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIV, 220
Topics: Postcolonial/World Literature, African Literature, Contemporary Literature