Subjects That Matter

Namita Goswami

Description

In this ambitious book, Namita Goswami draws on continental philosophy, postcolonial criticism, critical race theory, and African American and postcolonial feminisms to offer postcoloniality as a model for philosophical practice. Moving among and between texts, traditions, and frameworks, including the work of Gayatri Spivak, Theodor Adorno, Barbara Christian, Paul Gilroy, Neil Lazarus, and Hortense Spillers, among others, she charts a journey that takes us beyond Eurocentrism by understanding postcoloniality as the pursuit of heterogeneity, that is, of a non-antagonistic understanding of difference. Recognizing that philosophy, feminism, and postcolonial theory share a common concern with the concept of heterogeneity, Goswami shows how postcoloniality empowers us to engage more productively the relationships between these disciplines. Subjects That Matter confronts the ways Eurocentrism, an identity politics that considers difference as inherently oppositional, relegates minority traditions to a diagnostic and/or corrective standpoint to prevent their general implications from playing a critical and transformative role in how we understand subjectivity and agency. Through unexpected, often surprising, and thought-provoking analytic connections and continuities, this book's interdisciplinary approach reveals a postcolonial pluralism that expands philosophical resources, confounds and limits our habitual disciplinary lexicons, and opens up new areas of inquiry.
Acknowledgments

Introduction: What Tradition Tells, Tradition Wanted: Subjects That Matter

Part I. Heterogeneity

1. Objects Behaving Like Subjects: Because We’re Way Past the Post

2. Without Sacrifice, Without Vengeance: The Postcolonial Adorno

3. Europe as an Other: Subalternity, Postcolonial Theory, and Philosophers of the Future

4. The Second Sex: Philosophy, Feminism, and the Race for Theory

5. Hit-Take, Hit-Alliance: Paradigmatically Postcolonial and Exemplarily Western

Part II. The Resurrection of the Flesh

6. I Am an Animal: Time, Cruelty, and Metaphysics

7. The (M)other of All Posts: Postcolonial Melancholia in the Anthropocene

8. Compulsory Rationality in the Economics of Empire: Sati, Always Sati

9. Sacred Texts, Sacred Deaths: For Family Women

10. Wagging Fingers and Missing Dicks: An Updated Grammar Book (Race, Gender, and the Animal in the
Age of Global Warming)

Conclusion: Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism 2.0: An Aesthetic Education and the Planetary Imperative

Coda
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Philosophy

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 23 août 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438475684
• Langue: English

Extrait

SUBJECTS THAT MATTER
SUBJECTS THAT MATTER
PHILOSOPHY, FEMINISM, AND POSTCOLONIAL THEORY
NAMITA GOSWAMI
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2019 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Goswami, Namita, author.
Title: Subjects that matter : philosophy, feminism, and postcolonial theory / Namita Goswami.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018043673 | ISBN 9781438475677 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438475684 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Feminist theory. | Postcolonialism.
Classification: LCC HQ1190 .G67 2019 | DDC 305.42—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018043673
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Papa
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: What Tradition Tells, Tradition Wanted: Subjects That Matter
P ART I H ETEROGENEITY
Chapter 1 Objects Behaving Like Subjects: Because We’re Way Past the Post
Chapter 2 Without Sacrifice, Without Vengeance: The Postcolonial Adorno
Chapter 3 Europe as an Other: Subalternity, Postcolonial Theory, and Philosophers of the Future
Chapter 4 The Second Sex: Philosophy, Feminism, and the Race for Theory
Chapter 5 Hit-Take, Hit-Alliance: Paradigmatically Postcolonial and Exemplarily Western
P ART II T HE R ESURRECTION OF THE F LESH
Chapter 6 I Am an Animal: Time, Cruelty, and Metaphysics
Chapter 7 The (M)other of All Posts: Postcolonial Melancholia in the Anthropocene
Chapter 8 Compulsory Rationality in the Economics of Empire: Sati , Always Sati
Chapter 9 Sacred Texts, Sacred Deaths: For Family Women
Chapter 10 Wagging Fingers and Missing Dicks: An Updated Grammar Book (Race, Gender, and the Animal in the Age of Global Warming)
Conclusion: Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism 2.0: An Aesthetic Education and the Planetary Imperative
Coda
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
It is never easy to come to the end of a journey no matter how difficult it might have been. Yet, I am not really certain I can pinpoint when this project began. Inklings of it seem to have always been there while the rest of me needed to catch up. Now that the book is moving into the world, I can only gesture to those who made it possible—you are part of a lifeworld that cannot be captured on a page. These people buttressed my ability to live to fight another day, often by the skin of my teeth.
If there is a lesson to be learned in any transcribing of “what it actually takes” for a story to be told, for me, it lies in a paradoxical recognition that this book could not be what it is without being what it was. And so, in the words of Emily Dickinson, “It’s all I have to bring today— / This, and my heart beside.”
I want to thank SUNY Press, and in particular, Andrew Kenyon, for standing with this project for more years than I would like to count. His diligence and his faith are irreplaceable. I must add that I am incredibly grateful for SUNY’s readers and their invaluable feedback.
If we must assign beginnings, then all of this begins with Richard Werner. His was the first philosophy class I ever took, and it has always stayed with me. Thank you for being my mentor, my teacher, and my friend, when I was a newly arrived international student at Hamilton College. I have also always had excellent brilliant woman karma, and without Chandra Mohanty, Deepika Bahri, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Cynthia Willett, and Tina Chanter, I would not be who I am today.
A most affectionate nod goes to my former graduate students (you know who you are), including those in my two Spivak seminars and my seminar on postcolonial theory. Some of the material herein was first presented to these students who surprised me every day with their smarts and creativity. I witnessed firsthand their courage, maturity, and ferocious intellect; you will always remain a part of me.
I am indebted to those who held out their hands when it seemed impossible to go further: Charles Mills, Kristie Dotson, Henry Schwarz, Alison Bailey, José Medina, Sarah Hoagland, Falguni Sheth, Azadeh Erfani, O’D Johnson, Mary Rawlinson, Eric Nelson, Russell Ford, Tommy Curry, Mickaella Perina, Robin James, Tyler Williams, Matt Roberts, Lauren Guilmette, Linda Martín-Alcoff, Emily Lee, Kathryn Sophia Belle, Kyoo Lee, Yitian Zhai, Maeve O’Donovan, Lisa Yount, Franklin Perkins, Mary Jeanne Larrabee, and Ann Russo. I miss you, Darrell Moore.
My students at Indiana State University (you also know who you are) show me why we must persist. You made this venture easier with your humor, sincerity, and fortitude. My colleagues at Indiana State University, including those in the Department of Philosophy, the Department of Multidisciplinary Studies, and the College of Arts and Sciences, have always provided the requisite resources and bon homie . Thank you.
So much of life happens as a project comes into being. I must register how my family got me through while also being in the crucible alongside me. There are no words that will ever suffice to impart what Brendan William Corcoran means to me. Without you, I would not be here today. As my partner, best friend, and fellow traveler in every way, your sacrifices, efforts, patience, and love are inestimable. The privilege is all mine. Diarmuid Dhruv Corcoran, there is nothing that makes me prouder and happier than being your mom. Your songs, beaming smile, biting wit, goodness, fierce intelligence, curiosity, kindness, and compassion bring pure joy. You are everything.
Samir अब उस वक़्त के साथ क्या करें ? Thanks for sticking it out with me भाई साब . My mother’s wicked humor, let’s-get-on-with-it attitude, and fearlessness helped immeasurably during many an impasse. You were there at every step. I can only hope that I am my mother’s daughter. My mother-in-law undauntedly provided unconditional love and taught us all to cherish life. Having come to hold his new grandson a week after he was born, my father-in-law died before holding him ever again. I still hear his bellowing laughter and try to feel gratitude, as he did, for each new day. (Thank you for listening to me and reading my missives as I called to you when exploring Ireland’s landscapes.)
This book is dedicated to my father who passed away two months before his only grandchild would visit India for the first time. पापाजी आप इतना जल्दी चले गये | It is your integrity, untiring discipline, humility, and goodwill that are my example. Although nothing would be better than giving this book to you in person, I know that you always understood. Your sacrifices and love are the bridge this immigrant daughter walks on.
An earlier version of chapter 3 was originally published as “ Europe as an Other: Postcolonialism and Philosophers of the Future ” in Hypatia : A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 29:1 (Winter 2014): 62–78.
An earlier version of chapter 4 was originally published as “ The Second Sex: Philosophy, Feminism, Postcolonialism, and the Race for Theory ” in Angelaki: Journal of Theoretical Humanities 13:2 (August 2008): 73–91.
An earlier version of chapter 7 was originally published as “ The (M)other of All Posts: Postcolonial Melancholia in the Age of Global Warming ” in Critical Philosophy of Race 1:1 (January 2013): 104–20.
An earlier version of chapter 9 was originally published as “ Among Family Women: Sati , Postcolonial Feminism, and the Body ” in Phenomenology, Embodiment, and Race . Ed. Emily Lee. Buffalo: State University of New York Press, 2014. 79–102.
Introduction
What Tradition Tells, Tradition Wanted: Subjects That Matter
Views are implicit from the direction taken by the subject-matter itself, its entire freedom to move, and freedom of our thought to follow it.
—Theodor Adorno, “Why Philosophy”
It is the matter … that brings us to dialectics.
—Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics
There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.
—Audre Lorde, Sister/Outsider
We excel our ancestors only in system and organization: they lied as fluently and as brazenly.
—C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins
The subject matter of this book is heterogeneity. The book uses this subject matter to challenge Eurocentrism, which prevents postcoloniality as a historical era and distinct conceptual accomplishment from truly making a difference in how we understand subjectivity and agency. This interruption of Eurocentric identity politics is oriented by the following three questions: 1. Is it the subject itself or the disciplinary framework that brings this subject matter