Colonialism, Postcolonialism, and Literary Criticism

A set of vocabulary flashcards defining key theoretical, historical, and literary terms from the lecture, including colonialism, postcolonialism, neo-colonialism, Said's Orientalism, and literary concepts from Coetzee and Achebe.

J. M. Coetzee

South African author whose work The Good Story explores the tension between pragmatic courtroom truth and poetic narrative truth, as well as the role of human imagination and therapy in shaping life narratives.

Bretton woods institutions

World bank, IMF, IBRD and IDA. 1180 called the branches of Wall Street

Social lending

What the IDA gives countries now: money for healthcare, education, housing instead of infrastructure.The IDA is now mostly focused on alleviating poverty

Colonialism time-frame

1500'S - 1900'S

Repression

A psychological theory stating that painful or traumatic memories cannot be entirely forgotten, as the omitted experiences remain stored in the dark recesses of memory.

Colonialism

The policy of conquest of another land and its people, notably practiced by European powers (such as Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands) from the 1500s into the 1900s.

Declaration of the Rights of Man

A foundational document approved by the National Assembly of France on August 26, 1789, proclaiming the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, including liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.

Spatial Fix

A concept advanced by David Harvey describing how capitalist development moves outward to foreign colonies or investments to solve limitations on capital accumulation and expansion within a home territory.

The White Man's Burden

A poem by Rudyard Kipling published in February 1899 in McClure's Magazine, representing colonial discourse by depicting imperial conquest as a self-sacrificing duty to manage subjugated populations.

Orientalism

As defined by Edward Said, the corporate Western institution and network of interests for dominating, restructuring, and exercising authority over the Orient through descriptions, teaching, ruling, and authorized views.

Postcolonialism

An academic field focused on analyzing the literature, language, society, and revolutions of former colonies, while critiquing the ideological and economic structures sustaining imperial control.

Neo-colonialism

The ongoing ideological, political, and financial power exerted by Western nations (predominantly the United States) over formerly colonized Third World nations.

Bretton Woods Conference

The 1944 United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference held in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, which established institutions like the World Bank and IMF to rebuild post-WWII Europe and promote international financial cooperation.

International Development Association (IDA)

A branch of the World Bank established in 1960 to provide long-term, below-market interest rate loans for social lending projects (education, healthcare, agriculture, housing) in poorer nations.

Chinua Achebe

Nigerian author (1930–2013) who wrote against dehumanizing Western depictions of Africans as the subordinate Other, utilizing Western materials and literary allusions to establish an authentic African voice.

Heart of Darkness

An 1899 novella by Joseph Conrad that portrays European presence in Africa and depicts African people as grotesque or subordinate, serving as a key target of critique for postcolonial writers.

Concept of the Other

A foundational concept in Western thought denoting an unknown or blank space against which a dominant group defines its own identity, reducing marginalized groups to a subordinate status.

Allusion

The incorporation of identifiable elements from prior or contemporaneous textual or extratextual sources to enrich meaning or connect with a shared background of knowledge.