REPLY: Discourse and Representation in African History

H-AFRICA---Mel Page (AFRICA@ETSUARTS.EAST-TENN-ST.EDU)
Wed, 9 Aug 1995 19:31:35 GMT-5

Date sent: Wed, 9 Aug 95
From: Ralph Austen, University of Chicago
<wwb3@midway.uchicago.edu>

Perhaps Harold Marcus could explain the rationale of his semianr a
little more clearly? Is it some kind of confrontation between
"postie" theorists and colonial writing? Some of the theorists you
choose (Said, Bhaba) seem to have little to do with Africa and raise
many other problems with which I have sometimes plaued my own grad
sudents, but more in the context of a course on "colonialism" (the
theorists would probably say "coloniality") than Africa. In fact, the
main soruce and focus of this theory (by focus I mean hsitorical
reference point) seems to be South Asia (more correctly, the South
Asian academic and literary diaspora).