Absolutely postcolonial: Writing between the singular and the specific (Angelaki Humanities MUP)

Contrary to its usual characterisation in terms of plurality, particularity and resistance, this book argues that the post-colonial is best understood as an ultimately singular or non-relational category. A singularity is something that generates the medium of its own existence, to the eventual exclusion of other existences. Drawing on the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Alain Badiou and guided by comparisons with Buddhism and Islam, Absolutely postcolonial defends this approach both through a detailed critique of postcolonial theory and through comparative, comprehensive readings of four very different contemporary writers: Edouard Glissant, Charles Johnson, Mohammed Dib, and Severo Sarduy. Along the way, it also looks to some of these same writers for resources with which we might develop a relational or specific alternative to the postcolonial paradigm that has become so influential in literary and cultural studies.