Many postcolonial scholars assert that there has been a shift away from the global dominance of the nation-state system toward the so-called postnational. Why, then, do such a large number of popular and provocative postcolonial narratives, both through their rhetorical intent and through their circulation histories, indicate that the nation remains a primary site of textual negotiation? And why does the nation remain a central facet of international marketing and distribution campaigns? In an effort to answer these questions, my dissertation attends to both what narrative texts marketed to an international audience do (rhetorically, aesthetically, and politically) and what is done with these narratives in the processes of circulation and distribution. I demonstrate the benefits of this dual model of reading by offering three chapter-length case studies from various genres, regions, and post/colonial conditions.
“Circulating Stories: Postcolonial Narratives and International Markets” borrows from the methodologies of rhetorical narrative theory and cultural studies as well as from the important theoretical distinction between postcolonialism and postcoloniality, formulated by Graham Huggan in The Postcolonial Exotic (2001). Huggan defines postcolonialism as textual and cultural agencies of resistance and postcoloniality as the late-capitalist system of global cultural exchange that inevitably manipulates and perverts texts through channels of distribution and reception. My analytic strategy in each chapter is to confront the “entanglement” of these two tendencies, and then to extricate postcolonialism from postcoloniality in order to accomplish the following two purposes: (1) to better understand the complex designs and potential effects of postcolonial texts and (2) to consider how authors and filmmakers committed to postcolonialism seek to navigate the treacherous waters of postcoloniality. My goal is to respect the voices and visions of postcolonial artists and, at the same time, resist perpetuating critical naiveté about the possibility of unmediated or “authentic” rhetorical exchange between postcolonial artists and their audiences.