Representing Minorities : Studies in Literature and Criticism

The papers in this volume include not only the traditional view of what constitutes a minority but also any individual, or group recalcitrant and reluctant, not to say resistant, to the generalized lobotomy operated by the rampant uniformisation of cultures around the world. For in the ruins of “the end of history” and its context of violence and Manichean politics, any opposition to the “general consensus” could be dismissed as anti-historical and atavistic. The objective of the book is precisely to counter such rhetoric and underscore the necessity of cultural diversity and the right to difference. This book contains what can amount to a critical response to the current context of confusion surrounding the postmodern condition that arguably dominates most societies. It stresses the issue of ethics not only in world politics but also in literature and criticism which are the main focus here. In fact, the interest in minority issues is in itself an ethical concern that contributes to give substance to the idea that postmodernity opens the gates for the long-suppressed identities and sensibilities to emerge and demand recognition. This volume intends, therefore, to contribute to the recent ethical turn that seems to take place in scholarship worldwide. Operated mainly by what is referred to as postcolonial studies this shift turned literary criticism and cultural studies into the site where a sense of literature can be envisioned that is not at all universalist, or reflecting the hegemonic temptations of the new world order. It seeks to present a patchwork of minor literatures, in the sense that besides the “major” literatures/languages, there are myriads of minor voices that express dissimilarity oftentimes under the umbrella of those major languages and literatures themselves.