A Study Of Post-Colonialism In China From The Perspective Of Identity

Post-colonialism appeared in the late1980’s. As a theory with strong critical feature, it mainly explores the new relationships between east and west, aiming at effectively resisting and criticizing western hegemonic discourses. From the late1980’s to the early1990’s, under the influence of political and cultural factors, post-colonialism was introduced into China, which is still a hot topic today. Chinese postcolonial criticism put forward a series of theories, such as cultural theory of the third world, literary theory’s aphasia, the reconstruction of Chineseness, and study on Zhang Yimou’s films. Many misreading can be found in the above-mentioned Chinese postcolonial criticism, and these misreading are caused by Chinese intellectuals’ identity crisis since China has entered into modern society. Therefore, this thesis will analyze Chinese postcolonial criticism from the angle of identity, focusing on clarifying doubts about dual identity of major postcolonial theorists, analyzing errors about national identity in the reconstruction of Chineseness proposition, interpreting cultural identity misreading of literary theory’s aphasia.In the Introduction, the thesis makes a quick summary of definition of post-colonialism, analyzing the cultural and political background, accepting process, its concrete critical practice, and some misreading of post-colonialism’s introduction and application in China. At last, the thesis will discuss the fundamental cause of these misreading:Chinese intellectual’s anxiety of identity since May fourth.Then the thesis briefly discusses the definition and connotation of identity, in order to provide some reference for further research. Next the chapter explains relationships between identity and post-colonialism, pointing out that the content of post-colonialism like race, nation, diaspora, culture, gender and so on, fits in with identity, thereby provides a theory supporting point of thesis.After clarifying the concept of identity, the thesis uses three chapter to analyze the misreading of Chinese postcolonial criticism (postcolonial theorists’hybridity of identity, the reconstruction of Chineseness, literary theory’s aphasia) from perspective of dual identity, national identity and cultural identity. There are three main misreading:Chinese scholars’misunderstanding of western postcolonial theorists (Said, Spivak, Homi Bhabha) post-colonial deconstruction strategy while they live and do research in first world, some misunderstanding about the concepts of modernity and the nationalism confuse of Chinese scholars, the essentialism of reconstruction strategy of Chinese literary theory.In the end, the thesis makes a summary based on the above chapters. It put forward that we should free ourselves from merely promoting our national cultural identity. To get rid of the misreading of post-colonialism, we need possess thoughts of "see big things through small". At last, concrete reality and theories should be stressed.