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Overview
One of the most stinging critiques in the global society is to accuse one of being a colonizer, or a colonialist. The implication is that one is trying to subjugate a class or a group of people, perhaps even the inhabitants of an entire region, in order to dominate them and plunder their labor and resources.
Colonialism in the Americas, Africa, and Asia resulted in the leaving behind of European languages, customs, ways of doing business, and cultural values which often blended with the primary ones.
Is colonizing something ever a good thing? It's probably worthwhile to ask that question.
It is also probably worthwhile to go through a road trip of internal colonialization, or "colonization of the imagination" just to see how, why, and when you find yourself adopting alien attitudes.
Internal Colonialism: This concept was used by Marxists like V. I. Lenin and A. Gramsci to describe political and economic inequalities between regions within a given society, by political sociology to characterize the uneven effects of state development on a regional basis, and by race relations theory to describe the underprivileged status and exploitation of minority groups within the wider society. . . . The members of [an internal colony] may be differentiated by ethnicity, religion, language or some other cultural variable; they are then overtly or covertly excluded from prestigious social and political positions. . . .
Readings
THEORETICAL BASES
Venuti, Lawrence. "The Formation of Cultural Identities" in The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference. New York and London: Routledge, 1998.
Veblen, Thorstein
"Theory of the Leisure Class" (1899)
"Pecuniary Emulation" -- Chapter II
Ginsberg, Debra. "Hello, I'll Be Your Post-Feminist Icon this Evening" in Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress. NY: Perennial, 2001.
BACKGROUNDS & ISSUES
Lost Poets of the Great War
"Jihad Vs. McWorld" by Benjamin R. Barber (The Atlantic Monthly, March 1992)
"The Clash of Civilizations?" by Samuel P. Huntington
Alice Walker
"A South Without Myths"
MUSIC
Rai Music of Algeria
FILM & TELEVISION
Black Hawk Down -- danger, chaos, and anarchy in a post-colonial environment
Behind Enemy Lines
Harrison's Flowers
LITERATURE -- SHORT STORIES & OTHER PROSE
Flisar, Evald. "Executioners"
Burton, Richard
Arabian Nights (1850)
"Tale of Two Hashish Eaters"
POETRY
Marge Piercy
"A Work of Artifice" ("The bonsai tree / in the attractive pot / could have grown to 80 ft"
from "The Circles on the Water" (1982)
Alberto Rios
"Day of the Refugios" (1994)
Cesar Vallejo
"To My Brother Miguel in memoriam" (1971)
Reetika Vazirani
"Independence" (when i am nine, the british left...)
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