3. 3. New English Literatures Online

The study of New English Literatures is concerned with colonial and postcolonial writing which emerged in former British colonies such as: parts of Africa, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Caribbean countries, India, Malaysia, Malta, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, islands in the South Pacific, and Sri Lanka.²⁷⁴ According to many theorists, the USA should also be included in the list but owing to its state of independence, which was won long before other colonies, and its current position of power, American literature is not considered to be postcolonial.²⁷⁵ African-American literature, however, is regarded as postcolonial because of its African and European cultural origins, and because of its marginal status.²⁷⁶
In general, critics have not yet agreed upon an acknowledged and recognised definition of the term postcolonial. There is an ongoing debate concerning the terminology and what exactly postcolonialism means. Elleke Boehmer, for instance, believes that superficially, most modern and contemporary literatures could be called colonial or postcolonial owing to the conquest of Britain by the Roman Empire.²⁷⁷ She therefore proposes a narrower definition and focuses on "literature written in English"²⁷⁸ in the countries which formerly belonged to the British Empire. Ania Loomba states that postcolonialism is a relatively vague concept,²⁷⁹ and Christine MacLeod claims that "there is no definitive consensus on what technically constitutes postcoloniality".²⁸⁰ Daniel M. Mengara opines that "the term 'postcolonial' as applied to the literatures of the former colonized countries has been subject to endless debates due to its internal complexity",²⁸¹ and Deepika Petraglia-Bahri is aware of a "considerable debate over the precise parameters of the field and the definition of the term 'postcolonial' [which] is a very loose term".²⁸² Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin suggest that a lack of critical practice concerning the New Literatures is responsible for "the inability of European theory to deal adequately with the complexities and varied cultural provenance of post-colonial writing".²⁸³ They nonetheless believe that the term postcolonial is the best solution at the moment because "it points the way towards a possible study of the effects of colonialism (...). Even so, better terms may still emerge."²⁸⁴
In order to understand the concept of postcolonial literature it is necessary to be familiar with colonialism which is, according to Boehmer, "associated with the expansion of the European nation-state in the nineteenth century".²⁸⁵ There is, however, no precise definition of the term 'colonial literature' because it does not belong to the literary canon and "because it is so heterogeneous."²⁸⁶ Boehmer argues that colonial literature is "writing concerned with colonial perceptions and experience, (...) mainly by metropolitans, but also by creoles and indigenes during colonial times [and] therefore includes literature written in Britain as well as in the rest of the Empire".²⁸⁷ In this regard, she distinguishes between colonial and colonialist literature which is written "from the imperialists' point of view".²⁸⁸ Colonialist works include for example Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, and E.M. Forster's A Passage to India.²⁸⁹ In the late eighteenth century, Europe was regarded as the "leading exemplum of scientific humanity - which was believed to be humanity in its most achieved form."²⁹⁰ The nineteenth century novel, then, introduced a world picture with Britain at the centre.²⁹¹ Therefore, colonies belong to the margin.
In the age of decolonisation, postcolonial literature is considered as critical reflection of colonial experience. Postcolonialism implies a historically based value judgement because colonialism is "a 'bad' manifestation of power politics".²⁹² The beginnings of postcolonial studies date back into the 1970s.²⁹³ Petraglia-Bahri believes that "the 'postcolonial' (...) seems to describe the second half of the twentieth-century in general as a period in the aftermath of the heyday of colonialism."²⁹⁴ Authors look for "a self-constituted identity"²⁹⁵ and independence. In this respect, the use of language is a predominant issue in postcolonial theory. On the one hand, writers abandon the coloniser's language in order to rediscover their roots. On the other hand, the use of English implies "the fusion of cultures"²⁹⁶ because "the meeting of two cultures, and in particular the way in which an indigenous order has been usurped by alien and intrusive values"²⁹⁷ is one of the dominant themes in postcolonial literature. Authors regard "language as a medium of power"²⁹⁸ but instead of using Standard English, they employ a national variety in order to reconstruct and deconstruct the English language.²⁹⁹ Therefore, "post-colonial writing abrogates the privileged centrality of 'English' by using language to signify difference while employing a sameness which allows it to be understood."³⁰⁰ A reason for this deconstruction process is the imperial power's "control over the means of communication rather than the control over life and property".³⁰¹ Authors try to express their difference and use writing as an instrument of power to establish a position against the imperialists, because writing is one of the most important instruments of communication. Ashcroft et al. add that "[i]n many post-colonial societies, it was not the English language which had the greatest effect, but writing itself."³⁰² They continue arguing that the "seizing of the means of communication and the liberation of post-colonial writing by the appropriation of the written word become crucial features of the process of self-assertion and of the ability to reconstruct the world as an unfolding historical process."³⁰³
Nonetheless, not only language and the means of communication need to be changed but "the entire system of cultural assumptions on which the texts of the English canon are based".³⁰⁴ English Studies deny "the value of the 'peripheral', the 'imaginal', the 'uncanonized'."³⁰⁵ Ashcroft et al., however, suggest a reconsideration of the English canon "which all too frequently still acts as a touchstone of taste and value".³⁰⁶ Migrant writers who have been "geographically displaced by colonialism",³⁰⁷ for example Salman Rushdie, should be regarded as postcolonial authors and are thus responsible for a broader definition of postcolonial literature, which might eventually gain access to the canon. In this respect, Landow's remarks concerning the canon as central, and non-canonical works as colonial³⁰⁸ has interesting parallels in the canon debate and in the postcolonial discussion.
Postcolonial literature is writing at the margin and has similarities to contemporary European thought, for example feminism, post-structuralism,³⁰⁹ and even hypertext theory. The female body, for instance, was used metaphorically for colonies and the dis-covery of conquered land.³¹⁰ In this connection, Loomba quotes Freud who regarded the sexual life of women as a 'dark continent',³¹¹ in other words a colony. Female authors, whether postcolonial or not, have always been marginalised and excluded from the canon. They are treated as colonies in a male-dominated value system because mainly men decide which authors - usually male writers - gain access to the canon.³¹² Women have to create their own language and have to find a voice to express their desires and wishes.³¹³ Therefore, in feminist, postcolonialist, post-structuralist and in hypertext theory, decentralisation and deconstruction are common denominators in order to redefine the concept of centre and thus to expand the English canon.
Hypertext and the Internet in particular may help to do so by providing resources, for example A Celebration of Women Writers. As for postcolonial literature, there are not many texts available on the new medium, mainly because of the copyright situation, since most of the texts were written after 1923. Jack Lynch's Literary Resources - Other National Literatures³¹⁴ represents a starting point for postcolonial research. Postcolonial and Postimperial Literature: An Overview³¹⁵ by George P. Landow offers material concerning postcolonial literature and theory, and provides access to pages where one can find bibliographical and biographical information of some of the most important authors. SETIS Australian Literature Database³¹⁶ supplies a number of nineteenth and twentieth century Australian texts. The most comprehensive collection can be obtained from Alan Liu's Voice of the Shuttle: English Literature. Minority Literatures³¹⁷ and Voice of the Shuttle: English Literature. Other Literatures Written in English.³¹⁸ Both pages provide theory and criticism. In contrast to Jack Lynch's project, Liu includes links to author pages which constitute the largest part of these VoS sub-pages. The author pages merely contain bibliographical and biographical data instead of electronic full-text versions. Apart from Chadwyck-Healey's LION, which includes an African-American Poetry database containing nearly 3,000 poems, none of the text archives examined in chapter 3. 2. offers postcolonial works.
Compared to 'traditional' English literature, the New Literatures are unsuitably covered on the Wold Wide Web. A representative canon of postcolonial literature cannot be obtained from the Internet. Many contemporary works are still under copyright protection and are not published in freely accessible text archives. At the time of writing, only colonial and postcolonial theory was sufficiently presented on the new medium.