Culture Power:Other Asias

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

The body of work loosely referred to as ‘Critical Theory’ has undoubtedly enabled new ways of understanding the subtle configurations of culture and power in the world. Yet what is often overlooked is that this ‘radical’ theory too [Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, Agamben et. al] is limited to the history and experiences of modern Western Europe. In our course on ‘Other Asias’ we will attempt to understand how the experiences of Asia/ the non-west might compel us to understand the imbrications of culture and power in completely new ways. The arrival of the Portuguese off the coast of Calicut [/Kerala] on the 20th was an abrupt end to an entire era of peaceful navigation that had been the hallmark of the Indian Ocean region till then. This encounter between da Gama’s men and Malabari society, the terror and violence of the Portuguese, would also lay the blueprint for Europe’s relationship with Asia for the next five hundred years. The point to be underlined is that European presence in Asia was always founded on armed force/ violence. Indeed this dichotomy of democracy at home and colonialism/ despotism abroad continues to be the mainstay of, for example, US foreign policy very much today in its ‘War on Terror.’ In her landmark book Other Asias, (2007), which marks one of the most incisive theorizations of the ‘Asian Century’, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak however cautions against overhasty notions of an ‘Asian identity.’ As Spivak insightfully reminds us, the models of colonialism were many, not one. Using her book as our scaffolding, we will read a selection of essays/books/films in an attempt to understand the many ‘Asian’ presents as the new postcolonial states in turn find themselves overwhelmed by an all-encompassing market logic(/globalization).