| My project explores a diverse group of novels from different cultures and countries to reach beyond the earlier model of Postcolonial Literature structured around Edward Said's seminal Orientalism with Great Britain as the center. I consider the histories and literature of nations farther afield than those that make up the canon of Commonwealth Literature to address the role of U.S. imperialism, as well as other forms of European colonialism, that are not taken into account by the orientation of global literature around Said's paradigm. This opening up of the field will make room for the complex reverberations of colonialism in the post-/neo-colonial era, such as the United States military occupation of Haiti in the early twentieth century and the role of the French in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. I acknowledge the range of different global colonialisms and explore their impact upon the post-/neo-colonial present, while still leaving space for the differences between forms of colonialism. In order to do this, I consider texts from a range of countries, cultures, and temporal periods, including works by William Faulkner, Marie Vieux-Chauvet, and Tierno Monenembo, to emphasize the multiplicity of experiences of colonialism, while also underscoring the commonalities---structural racism, sexism, classism, and violence as a tool of control---between them. |
