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Colonialism's culture : anthropology, travel, and government /

By: Publication details: Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, ©1994.Description: xi, 238 pages : illustrations ; 24 cmISBN:
  • 0691037329
  • 9780691037325
  • 0691037310
  • 9780691037318
Subject(s): Genre/Form: LOC classification:
  • JV305 .T45 1994
Contents:
From Present to Past: the Politics of Colonial Studies -- Culture and Rule: Theories of Colonial Discourse -- From Past to Present: Colonial Epochs, Agents, and Locations -- Colonial Governmentality and Colonial Conversion -- Imperial Triumph, Settler Failure -- The Primitivist and the Postcolonial.
Summary: In a wide-ranging account of the development of ideas about human difference, Nicholas Thomas challenges reigning theories that portray colonialism as monolithic in character, purpose, and efficacy throughout the world. Taking issue with such writers as Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, and Gayatri Spivak, Thomas describes colonialism not so much as a discourse but a project--a project in which the interactions among colonizing and colonized people are far more variable and reveal greater ambivalence than generally imagined. In addition to his review of current literature in cultural studies, the author provides extended reflections on photographs, colonial novels, exhibits of indigenous art, ethnographic films, and recent Hollywood films in order to reveal how deep and pervasive is colonialism's culture for colonizer and colonized. Thomas proposes that historicized, ethnographic explorations of the colonial experience are the most fruitful approaches to understanding colonialism's continued effects. He draws on travel, anthropology, and government as vehicles that gave nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Europeans exposure to colonized populations and provided a language through which to discuss them. The author reveals colonialism to be a complex ongoing cultural process--one in which dominated populations are represented in ways that play upon and legitimize racial and cultural differences. A provocative book for specialists, Colonialism's Culture can also serve as a stimulating introduction for students across the social sciences and humanities interested in this multifaceted field of inquiry.
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Item type Current library Collection Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode
Book Book Whitecliffe Library General Shelves General JV 51 THO (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available 0009255

Includes bibliographical references (pages 196-230) and index.

From Present to Past: the Politics of Colonial Studies -- Culture and Rule: Theories of Colonial Discourse -- From Past to Present: Colonial Epochs, Agents, and Locations -- Colonial Governmentality and Colonial Conversion -- Imperial Triumph, Settler Failure -- The Primitivist and the Postcolonial.

In a wide-ranging account of the development of ideas about human difference, Nicholas Thomas challenges reigning theories that portray colonialism as monolithic in character, purpose, and efficacy throughout the world. Taking issue with such writers as Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, and Gayatri Spivak, Thomas describes colonialism not so much as a discourse but a project--a project in which the interactions among colonizing and colonized people are far more variable and reveal greater ambivalence than generally imagined. In addition to his review of current literature in cultural studies, the author provides extended reflections on photographs, colonial novels, exhibits of indigenous art, ethnographic films, and recent Hollywood films in order to reveal how deep and pervasive is colonialism's culture for colonizer and colonized. Thomas proposes that historicized, ethnographic explorations of the colonial experience are the most fruitful approaches to understanding colonialism's continued effects. He draws on travel, anthropology, and government as vehicles that gave nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Europeans exposure to colonized populations and provided a language through which to discuss them. The author reveals colonialism to be a complex ongoing cultural process--one in which dominated populations are represented in ways that play upon and legitimize racial and cultural differences. A provocative book for specialists, Colonialism's Culture can also serve as a stimulating introduction for students across the social sciences and humanities interested in this multifaceted field of inquiry.

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