Postcolonialism: A Guide for the Perplexed: Portrait of a Master (Guides for the Perplexed)

Nayar, Pramod K.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826400469 ISBN 13: 9780826400468

Publisher: Continuum, 2010

Rock the Nation analyzes Latino a identity through rock 'n' roll music and its deep Latin history. By linking rock music to Latinos and to music from Latin America, the author argues that Latin music, people, and culture have been central to the development of rock music as a major popular music form, in spite of North American racial logic that marginalizes Latino as as outsiders, foreigners, and always exotic. According to the author, the Latin Rock Diaspora illuminates complex identity issues and interesting paradoxes with regard to identity politics, such as nationalism. Latino as use rock music for assimilation to mainstream North American culture, while in Latin America, rock music in Spanish is used to resist English and the hegemony of U.S. culture. Meanwhile, singing in English and adopting U.S. popular culture allows youth to resist the hegemonic nationalisms of their own countries. Thus, throughout the Americas, Latino as utilize rock music for assimilation to mainstream national culture (s) for resistance to the hegemony of dominant culture (s) and for mediating the negotiation of Latino a identities.

Review:

Pramod Nayar's survey of postcolonialism covers substantial terrain with consummate ease. It moves from the theoretical and literary engagements with colonialism's cultures, the rise of postcolonial thought in anti-colonial struggles through the major literary themes of space, nationalism, sexuality and gender, to newer postcolonial formations in the cosmopolitan and globalized age we live in. Nayar's close attention to tropes, literary figurations, the politics of postcolonial theory and the continued relevance of postcolonial approaches to terrorism, cybercultures and globalization - all carefully illustrated and evidenced from texts from Africa, Asia, South American and other formerly colonized nations - makes this book at once an indispensable introduction to the field and a critical evaluation of the literary-political discipline of "Postcolonial Studies." The book will be of interest to students in History, Literary Studies, Cultural Studies and Theory across the world where questions about race, culture, colonialism and identity continue to productively 'trouble' pedagogy and reading practices.

About the Author:

Pramod K. Nayar is Assistant Professor in English at the University of Hyderabad, India. His most recent books include Packaging Life: Cultures of the Everyday (Sage 2009), Postcolonial Literature: An Introduction (Pearson, 2008), A Short History of English Literature (Cambridge, India, 2000) and English Writing and India, 1600-1920 (Routledge, 2008).