Title: Decolonizing English Literary Study in the Anglophone Caribbean
Abstract:This chapter provides an account first of the nature of English literary study in the colonial Caribbean, and then of Caribbean attempts to decolonize the practice in the later twentieth century. It a...This chapter provides an account first of the nature of English literary study in the colonial Caribbean, and then of Caribbean attempts to decolonize the practice in the later twentieth century. It analyzes the evolving ways scholars and teachers have understood the “coloniality” of the practices they inherited, and the different means by which they have attempted to change them. It also analyzes representations of literary study in works of Caribbean literature. It schematizes the decolonization of English literary study into three broad movements. First, it describes attempts to incorporate more material by Caribbean writers on literary curricula after independence. Second, focusing on Sylvia Wynter’s early essays, it describes the incorporation of anticolonial forms of critique in critical method. Finally, it shows how Caribbean scholars expanded the purview of literary studies, incorporating analysis of popular forms including calypso and dancehall. Overall, the chapter asks how scholars in the anglophone Caribbean have understood the task of decolonizing the English literary curriculum and what lessons this might hold for those working both within and outside the Caribbean today.Read More