Peter Hulme

"Beyond the Straits"

Abstract:

The intellectual work of Postcolonial Studies has involved seeing what happens when the blinkers of colonial assumptions are removed. That removal is not instantaneous, which is why new objects and agendas are still coming into focus, and why we need to continue struggling to identify the colonial preconceptions which may still guide our approaches – the metaphorical sense of the straits in my title. In some literal sense those straits are that narrow strip of water which separates Europe from the feared hordes of economic migrants supposedly massing on the North African shore. But the paper's main focus will be on the need to push beyond what those straits still represent in historical terms - a self-contained Europe (and West) whose history effectively starts in 1492. Definitions of colonialism and imperialism still need discussing within global rather then simply Western parameters; but that global focus needs also to return to Europe in order to fragment the unquestioned unities of nation state and continent. The kinds of topics I would expect to use as examples are: the position of Spain within the debates about the meaning of imperialism; a postcolonial approach to the history and literature of Europe before 1492; postcolonial readings of Shakespeare; the politics of location; the necessity and dangers of global thinking.