Colonizing the Past

Colonizing the Past PDF Author: Edward Watts
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813943884
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 445

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Book Description
After the Revolution, Americans realized they lacked the common, deep, or meaningful history that might bind together their loose confederation of former colonies into a genuine nation. They had been conquerors yet colonials, now politically independent yet culturally subordinate to European history and traditions. To resolve these paradoxes, some early republic "historians" went so far as to reconstruct pre-Columbian, transatlantic adventures by white people that might be employed to assert their rights and ennoble their identities as Americans. In Colonizing the Past, Edward Watts labels this impulse "primordialism" and reveals its consistent presence over the span of nineteenth-century American print culture. In dozens of texts, Watts tracks episodes in which varying accounts of pre-Columbian whites attracted widespread attention: the Welsh Indians, the Lost Tribes of Israel, the white Mound Builders, and the Vikings, as well as two ancient Irish interventions. In each instance, public interest was ignited when representations of the group in question became enmeshed in concurrent conversations about the nation’s evolving identity and policies. Yet at every turn, counternarratives and public resistance challenged both the plausibility of the pre-Columbian whites and the colonialist symbolism that had been evoked to create a sense of American identity. By challenging the rhetoric of primordialism and empire building, dissenting writers from Washington Irving to Mark Twain exposed the crimes of conquest and white Americans’ marginality as ex-colonials.

Colonizing the Past

Colonizing the Past PDF Author: Edward Watts
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813943884
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 445

Get Book Here

Book Description
After the Revolution, Americans realized they lacked the common, deep, or meaningful history that might bind together their loose confederation of former colonies into a genuine nation. They had been conquerors yet colonials, now politically independent yet culturally subordinate to European history and traditions. To resolve these paradoxes, some early republic "historians" went so far as to reconstruct pre-Columbian, transatlantic adventures by white people that might be employed to assert their rights and ennoble their identities as Americans. In Colonizing the Past, Edward Watts labels this impulse "primordialism" and reveals its consistent presence over the span of nineteenth-century American print culture. In dozens of texts, Watts tracks episodes in which varying accounts of pre-Columbian whites attracted widespread attention: the Welsh Indians, the Lost Tribes of Israel, the white Mound Builders, and the Vikings, as well as two ancient Irish interventions. In each instance, public interest was ignited when representations of the group in question became enmeshed in concurrent conversations about the nation’s evolving identity and policies. Yet at every turn, counternarratives and public resistance challenged both the plausibility of the pre-Columbian whites and the colonialist symbolism that had been evoked to create a sense of American identity. By challenging the rhetoric of primordialism and empire building, dissenting writers from Washington Irving to Mark Twain exposed the crimes of conquest and white Americans’ marginality as ex-colonials.

Colonialism Past and Present

Colonialism Past and Present PDF Author: Alvaro Felix Bolanos
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791489760
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
This collection of essays offers alternative readings of historical and literary texts produced during Latin America's colonial period. By considering the political and ideological implications of the texts' interpretation yesterday and today, it attempts to "decolonize" the field of Latin American studies and promote an ethical, interdisciplinary practice that does not falsify or appropriate knowledge produced by both the colonial subjects of the past and the oppressed subjects of the present. Using recent developments in postcolonial theory, the contributors challenge traditional approaches to Hispanism. The colonial situation under which these texts were composed, with all its injustices and prejudices, still lingers, and most studies have consistently avoided the connection between this colonial legacy and the situation of disenfranchised groups today. Colonialism Past and Present challenges discursive strategies that celebrate only European cultural traits, dismiss non-European cultural legacies, and solidify constructions of national projects considered natural extensions of European civilization since independence from Spain.

The Colonial Past in History Textbooks

The Colonial Past in History Textbooks PDF Author: Karel Van Nieuwenhuyse
Publisher: IAP
ISBN: 1641131942
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
This book examines the evolving representations of the colonial past from the mid-19th century up to decolonization in the 1960s and 70s ? the so-called era of Modern Imperialism – in post-war history textbooks from across the world. The aim of the book is to examine the evolving outlook of colonial representations in history education and the underpinning explanations for the specific outlook in different – former colonizer and colonized – countries (to be found in collective memory, popular historical culture, social representations, identity-building processes, and the state of historical knowledge within academia). The approach of the book is novel and innovative in different ways. First of all, given the complexity of the research, an original interdisciplinary approach has been implemented, which brings together historians, history educators and social psychologists to examine representations of colonialism in history education in different countries around the world while drawing on different theoretical frameworks. Secondly, given the interest in the interplay between collective memory, popular historical culture, social representations, and the state of historical knowledge within academia, a diachronic approach is implemented, examining the evolving representations of the colonial past, and connecting them to developments within society at large and academia. This will allow for a deeper understanding of the processes under examination. Thirdly, studies from various corners of the world are included in the book. More specifically, the project includes research from three categories of countries: former colonizer countries – including England, Spain, Italy, France, Portugal and Belgium –, countries having been both colonized and colonizer – Chile – and former colonized countries, including Zimbabwe, Malta and Mozambique. This selection allows pairing up the countries under review as former colonizing-colonized ones (for instance Portugal-Mozambique, United Kingdom-Malta), allowing for an in-depth comparison between the countries involved. Before reaching the research core, three introductory chapters outline three general issues. The book starts with addressing the different approaches and epistemological underpinnings history and social psychology as academic disciplines hold. In a second chapter, evolutions within international academic colonial historiography are analyzed, with a special focus on the recent development of New Imperial History. A third chapter analyses history textbooks as cultural tools and political means of transmitting historical knowledge and representations across generations. The next ten chapters form the core of the book, in which evolving representations of colonial history (from mid-19th century until decolonization in the 1960s and 1970s) are examined, explained and reflected upon, for the above mentioned countries. This is done through a history textbook analysis in a diachronic perspective. For some countries the analysis dates back to textbooks published after the Second World War; for other countries the focus will be more limited in time. The research presented is done by historians and history educators, as well as by social psychologists. In a concluding chapter, an overall overview is presented, in which similarities and differences throughout the case studies are identified, interpreted and reflected upon.

Colonizing Animals

Colonizing Animals PDF Author: Jonathan Saha
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108997155
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Animals were vital to the British colonization of Myanmar. In this pathbreaking history of British imperialism in Myanmar from the early nineteenth century to 1942, Jonathan Saha argues that animals were impacted and transformed by colonial subjugation. By examining the writings of Burmese nationalists and the experiences of subaltern groups, he also shows how animals were mobilized by Burmese anticolonial activists in opposition to imperial rule. In demonstrating how animals - such as elephants, crocodiles, and rats - were important actors never fully under the control of humans, Saha uncovers a history of how British colonialism transformed ecologies and fostered new relationships with animals in Myanmar. Colonizing Animals introduces the reader to an innovative historical methodology for exploring interspecies relationships in the imperial past, using innovative concepts for studying interspecies empires that draw on postcolonial theory and critical animal studies.

Colonizing Language

Colonizing Language PDF Author: Christina Yi
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231545363
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
With the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1894, Japan embarked on a policy of territorial expansion that would claim Taiwan and Korea, among others. Assimilation policies led to a significant body of literature written in Japanese by colonial writers by the 1930s. After its unconditional surrender in 1945, Japan abruptly receded to a nation-state, establishing its present-day borders. Following Korea’s liberation, Korean was labeled the national language of the Korean people, and Japanese-language texts were purged from the Korean literary canon. At the same time, these texts were also excluded from the Japanese literary canon, which was reconfigured along national, rather than imperial, borders. In Colonizing Language, Christina Yi investigates how linguistic nationalism and national identity intersect in the formation of modern literary canons through an examination of Japanese-language cultural production by Korean and Japanese writers from the 1930s through the 1950s, analyzing how key texts were produced, received, and circulated during the rise and fall of the Japanese empire. She considers a range of Japanese-language writings by Korean colonial subjects published in the 1930s and early 1940s and then traces how postwar reconstructions of ethnolinguistic nationality contributed to the creation of new literary canons in Japan and Korea, with a particular focus on writers from the Korean diasporic community in Japan. Drawing upon fiction, essays, film, literary criticism, and more, Yi challenges conventional understandings of national literature by showing how Japanese language ideology shaped colonial histories and the postcolonial present in East Asia. A Center for Korean Research Book

Colonizing the Realm of Words

Colonizing the Realm of Words PDF Author: Sascha Ebeling
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438432011
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
A true tour de force, this book documents the transformation of one Indian literature, Tamil, under the impact of colonialism and Western modernity. While Tamil is a living language, it is also India's second oldest classical language next to Sanskrit, and has a literary history that goes back over two thousand years. On the basis of extensive archival research, Sascha Ebeling tackles a host of issues pertinent to Tamil elite literary production and consumption during the nineteenth century. These include the functioning and decline of traditional systems in which poet-scholars were patronized by religious institutions, landowners, and local kings; the anatomy of changes in textual practices, genres, styles, poetics, themes, tastes, and audiences; and the role of literature in the politics of social reform, gender, and incipient nationalism. The work concludes with a discussion of the most striking literary development of the time—the emergence of the Tamil novel.

Colonization

Colonization PDF Author: Marc Ferro
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134826532
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
The first comprehensive synthesis and analysis of colonialism from its origins to the present. Using a non-Eurocentric approach, Ferro compares all the European colonial powers, as well as Arab, Turk and Japanese colonialism.

The Costs of Connection

The Costs of Connection PDF Author: Nick Couldry
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503609758
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Just about any social need is now met with an opportunity to "connect" through digital means. But this convenience is not free—it is purchased with vast amounts of personal data transferred through shadowy backchannels to corporations using it to generate profit. The Costs of Connection uncovers this process, this "data colonialism," and its designs for controlling our lives—our ways of knowing; our means of production; our political participation. Colonialism might seem like a thing of the past, but this book shows that the historic appropriation of land, bodies, and natural resources is mirrored today in this new era of pervasive datafication. Apps, platforms, and smart objects capture and translate our lives into data, and then extract information that is fed into capitalist enterprises and sold back to us. The authors argue that this development foreshadows the creation of a new social order emerging globally—and it must be challenged. Confronting the alarming degree of surveillance already tolerated, they offer a stirring call to decolonize the internet and emancipate our desire for connection.

Colonizing Hawai'i

Colonizing Hawai'i PDF Author: Sally Engle Merry
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691221987
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 389

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Book Description
How does law transform family, sexuality, and community in the fractured social world characteristic of the colonizing process? The law was a cornerstone of the so-called civilizing process of nineteenth-century colonialism. It was simultaneously a means of transformation and a marker of the seductive idea of civilization. Sally Engle Merry reveals how, in Hawai'i, indigenous Hawaiian law was displaced by a transplanted Anglo-American law as global movements of capitalism, Christianity, and imperialism swept across the islands. The new law brought novel systems of courts, prisons, and conceptions of discipline and dramatically changed the marriage patterns, work lives, and sexual conduct of the indigenous people of Hawai'i.

Mexican American Colonization during the Nineteenth Century

Mexican American Colonization during the Nineteenth Century PDF Author: José Angel Hernández
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107378753
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
This study is a reinterpretation of nineteenth-century Mexican American history, examining Mexico's struggle to secure its northern border with repatriates from the United States, following a war that resulted in the loss of half Mexico's territory. Responding to past interpretations, Jose Angel Hernández suggests that these resettlement schemes centred on developments within the frontier region, the modernisation of the country with loyal Mexican American settlers, and blocking the tide of migrations to the United States to prevent the depopulation of its fractured northern border. Through an examination of Mexico's immigration and colonisation policies as they developed in the nineteenth century, this book focuses primarily on the population of Mexican citizens who were 'lost' after the end of the Mexican American War of 1846–8 until the end of the century.