On the PostcolonyAchille Mbembe is one of the most brilliant theorists of postcolonial studies writing today. In On the Postcolony he profoundly renews our understanding of power and subjectivity in Africa. In a series of provocative essays, Mbembe contests diehard Africanist and nativist perspectives as well as some of the key assumptions of postcolonial theory. This thought-provoking and groundbreaking collection of essays—his first book to be published in English—develops and extends debates first ignited by his well-known 1992 article "Provisional Notes on the Postcolony," in which he developed his notion of the "banality of power" in contemporary Africa. Mbembe reinterprets the meanings of death, utopia, and the divine libido as part of the new theoretical perspectives he offers on the constitution of power. He works with the complex registers of bodily subjectivity — violence, wonder, and laughter — to profoundly contest categories of oppression and resistance, autonomy and subjection, and state and civil society that marked the social theory of the late twentieth century. This provocative book will surely attract attention with its signal contribution to the rich interdisciplinary arena of scholarship on colonial and postcolonial discourse, history, anthropology, philosophy, political science, psychoanalysis, and literary criticism. |
Contents
Time on the Move | 1 |
Of Commandement | 24 |
On Private Indirect Government | 66 |
The Aesthetics of Vulgarity | 102 |
The Thing and Its Doubles | 142 |
Out of the World | 173 |
Gods Phallus | 212 |
The Final Manner | 235 |
| 245 | |
| 271 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Africa African Studies Afrique Ahmadou Ahidjo animal arbitrariness authority autocrat become body Cameroon Tribune century ceremonies civil society coercion colonial commandement conflicts constituted context Côte d'Ivoire countries Critique Culture dead death discourse distinction divine domination Douala economy everyday everything example exercise existence fetish FIGURE flesh force forms G. W. F. Hegel Gallimard hand he/she Hegel his/her human imaginary individual institutions Journal of African Karthala L'État labor Labou Tansi language London Mbembe means ment monotheism nation native official organization Palm-Wine Drinkard Paris Paul Biya person phallus Phenomenology of Spirit police political Politique africaine possible postcolony pouvoir production reality regime relations relationship representation rituals rule Seuil signs simply slave social sovereignty space structures sub-Saharan Sub-Saharan Africa taxation taxes territory theory thing tion trade tradition trans transformed V. Y. Mudimbe violence Yahweh Yaoundé York Zaire
References to this book
Post-colonial Studies: The Key Concepts Bill Ashcroft,Gareth Griffiths,Helen Tiffin No preview available - 2007 |