Nazione e narrazione

by Homi K. Bhabha

L’America conduce all’Africa; le nazioni dell’Europa e dell’Asia si incontrano in Australia; i margini della nazione ne spostano il centro; le genti della periferia tornano per riscrivere la storia e la narrativa della metropoli... Il grande sensore whitmaniano dell’America è stato sostituito da un’esplosione di Warhol, da un’istallazione di Kruger o dai corpi nudi di Mapplethorpe... Ma in mezzo a tutte queste immagini eccessive... vi sono coloro che non hanno ancora trovato una propria nazione... Siamo noi a perdere qualcosa, per non aver potuto aggiungere le loro voci alle nostre realizzando questo libro. Le loro questioni irrisolte stanno lì a ricordarci, in un modo o nell’altro, quelle domande che devono valere per tutti noi. “Quando diventiamo un popolo? Quando smettiamo di esserlo?... E che c’entrano queste enormi questioni con i nostri rapporti con ciascun altro e con tutti gli altri insieme?” Homi Bhabha, Nazione e narrazione.

Genres: Theory, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Sociology, History, Post Colonial, Academic

520 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Homi K. Bhabha is the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of English and American Literature and Language, and the Director of the Humanities Center, at Harvard University. He is one of the most important figures in contemporary post-colonial studies, and has coined a number of the field's neologisms and key concepts, such as hybridity, mimicry, difference, ambivalence. Such terms describe ways in which colonised peoples have resisted the power of the coloniser, according to Bhabha's theory.

Reviews

[Tania · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for my Portuguese class.

Chapters read: 1 - 2 - 4 - 5- 8 - 10 - 13 - 16

I didn't mind the essays, though I must admit that the writing styles were not particularly engaging. Lots of repetitive walls of texts that could have been condensed in much more compact formats.

[Frances · Rating 3 out of 5]

Under the pretext of breaking through nationalist identity politics, Bhabha compiles a smattering of various texts dealing with literary manifestations of nationalism in the attempt to utilize post-structuralist reading strategies to “evoke [the] ambivalent margin of the nation space,” (4). Granted, it's a dated project. Granted, the term "ambivalent" feels worn out and cliche to anyone who is invested in postcolonial or nationalist studies today. Still, Nation and Narration is one of those anthologies that is so often cited, it's impossible to avoid.

Some of the essays are markedly more “ambivalent” than others. Some, like Geoffrey Bennington’s discussion of the logics of “post” in national literary culture (both as the prefix for ‘after’ as well as a logic sustained by the postal service), or Timothy Brennan’s exegesis of several “postcolonial” novels in the attempt to identify the ties between form and nation, are more interested in the politics of marginalization than others—Rachel Bowlby, for instance, insists on a rather surface-level reading of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in order to make a rather reified feminist reading of American national culture.

After reading quite a bit of Bhabha over the last few years, it’s become clear to me that he generally makes the same argument in different ways, always moving in and out of three key texts (or writers) to compile his own method: Derrida, Freud, and Marx. His contribution to the book is no difference, invoking Derrida’s notion of aporia, particularly as it reasserts itself as an entire lexicon (play, différance, etc.) in order to locate the margins of national culture. Bhabha borrows Derrida’s understanding of dissemination and iteration to development what, for me, is the most important critical contribution of the book—the revision of Anderson’s “calendrical time” to include what Bhabha calls “iterative time”—that is, the chronology of simultaneity in which utterances fight, conflict, and ultimately create spaces of uncertainty within larger cultural narratives like nationalism. The temporal logic of iteration is an incredibly useful tool, particularly when examining the proliferation of violence as an aesthetic in 19th century mass-marketed literature (both in Britain and the United States). However, my critique of “DissemiNation” echoes similar critiques I have made of Bhabhas other essays on colonial literary politics—that is, how is one to track the possibilities that “iterative time” opens up within a material sense of circulation? How do we confront the affect of iteration in a political climate that is primarily based on the accrual of material goods?

[Lidiana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great articles discussing many sides of the problematic relation between colonialism/post-colonialism. Anyone who is interested in the topic of subalternity, imperialism and all it is faces will find an article here that will suit their area of expertise.

[Mahender Singh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really a tough text about relationships between nationalism and literature.
While ordering, I had expected a discourse on nationalism per say but found a compound study of nation, nationalism and various literary pieces.
It was nerve wracking but some essays are quite enlightening as well.

[Louise · Rating 1 out of 5]

read Bhabha's chapter only

[Salahuddin Hourani]

ملاحظة لي: لم اقرا الكتاب بعد - صديق لادوارد سعيد - مفكر وناقد لما بعد الكولونيالية

[Scott Neigh]

Read selectively but substantially and intensively for school. A number of the pieces that amount to readings of particular works will not be useful to me, but a number of the other essays present ideas that I may be able to use as the course progresses. I'm thinking particularly of Sneja Gunew's essay on multiculturalism in Australia (which is intriguing in its mix of similarities to and differences from Canadian state multiculturalism); in a different way, Simon During's defense of nationalism and his understanding of literature as opposed to nationalism rather than part of it (a good chunk of which I disagree with but which is also quite thought-provoking); and Homi Bhabha's own essay which finishes the book (which I found rather difficult but which is probably the most theoretically interesting piece in the book).

[Humphrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good stuff all around: a good mix of theoretical and location-specific, with essays concentrating on a number of different regions and aspects. Bhabha is even (mostly) readable here!

[Aliina Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice Book.

[Francisca]

chapters read:

"introduction: narrating the nation" by homi k. bhabha
"what is a nation?" by ernest renan
"the national longing for form" by timothy brennan
"postal politics and the institution of the nation" by geoffrey bennington
"literature--nationalism's other?" by simon during
"dissemiNation: time, narrative, and the margins of the modern nation" by homi k. bhabha