Postcolonial Theory and Literature

Although the three founders of the movement are located in the discipline of literary criticism, the Saidian revolution has been felt in anthropology as well. In a landmark article published in 1989 and delivered earlier to the American Association of Anthropology, Said accused anthropology of being a tool of imperialism. From within the discipline, the response to this was not as hostile as might have been expected. Important texts are Johannes Fabian's Time and the Other (1983); Michael Taussig's Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America (1980) and Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man ( 1987); and James Clifford's Predicament of Culture (1988). Arjun Appadurai cofounded the journal Public Culture in 1988, and it soon became a leading proponent of a postcolonial approach to global migration. Carol Breckenridge, its founding co-editor, is a feminist postcolonialist historian of South Asia. In the discipline of history, names to be mentioned are Ann Laura Stoler and Gauri Viswanathan, a star pupil of Edward Said, whose work combines historical scholarship with skills in literary reading.