International Colloquium: Shame in Postcolonial/Postimperial Literature in English

Martedì 30 e mercoledì 31 maggio - ore 9.45
Sala Farinati - Biblioteca Civica di Verona (Via Cappello, 43)

In Sartrean terms European colonialism has showcased “the strip-tease” of the assumptions of Western Humanism. The obscenity of the in-human staged in the colonial setting and continuing in new versions after decolonization has entailed that the theme of shame runs through decades of colonial/postcolonial literature in English, be it in oblique or in ostensibly audible modes.
The Colloquium invites critical reflections addressing white shame, i.e. the shame of the masters/colonizers and their ‘tainted’ descendants, as well as the shame of the colonized originating in the power politics exerted on their bodies and minds, in the intrinsically alienating and deforming colonial theatre (Fanon docet). In the convenors’ intentions the Colloquium should provide an occasion to weave thoughts on the relationship between shame and literary writing, thus interrogating the alleged “irreconciliability” (T. Bewes’s The Event of Postcolonial Shame, 2001) of the ethical and the aesthetic when shame is at stake. One might argue, rather, whether it is not the case that literature can be the most, when not the only, adequate place for shame to find a voice. The urgency of some reflection on postcolonial shame appears from what we are witnessing at present in Europe, with its cultural and political unpreparedness and false consciousness vis-à-vis the ‘boomerang invasion’ of refugees and asylum-seekers running for their bare lives (in a fully biopolitical sense) from the horrors of postcolonial/post(?)imperial anomy and violence. In addition, the political cogency of the theme/issue is also effectively confirmed by the ethics of reconciliation invoked and staged by various national contexts and policies of memory that, though running the serious risk of becoming perfunctory rituals bound to eclipse the violence of history, nonetheless witness the inevitability of coming to terms with its crimes and responsibilities/ connivance. As a matter of fact, the challenging issue that this Colloquium intends to explore is whether and how critically reflecting on the subject of colonial/postcolonial shame informing literary texts, can fruitfully contribute to a rethinking of humanism once it has been stripped down of its arrogant and exclusive biases, rather than declaring it obliterated.