Full Description
Postcolonial Imperialism considers the inability to distinguish between reality and fiction as a key condition of contemporary life. If postcolonial theory has highlighted how white colonizers created images of racialized Others which project their own self-hatred or disavowal, Joseph Tonda here shows how these images have in turn colonized Western imaginaries. He argues that the Global North's obsession with its own phantoms takes a newly powerful form in the dazzling images of postcolonial screens. With examples ranging from Nicki Minaj to Osama Bin Laden and child soldier Johnny Mad Dog, Tonda reflects on power by analyzing the dazzlements of both Central Africa and the West, showing how African life prefigures Western experiences. Translated from its original French, Postcolonial Imperialism is a prescient critique of authoritarian attempts to enforce alternate realities, and of the many ways screens can distort our vision.
Contents
Translator's Note ix
Opening Threshold. The Dazzling Dark Powers of Postcolonial Imperialism 1
Threshold 1. Johnny Mad Dog and Osama Bin Laden: Agents of Postcolonial Imperialism 21
Threshold 2. Anchor Points 39
Threshold 3. Illuminations 57
Threshold 4. Sex-Bodies, Bombshell Breasts, and Dazzling DVDs and VCDs 83
Threshold 5. Bombs and Lightning Bolts 97
Threshold 6. Nafissatou Diallo, DSK, Sarkozy, and Postcolonial Imperialism 109
Threshold 7. Literary Dazzlements 127
Threshold 8. Africanism and Postcolonial Imperialism 155
Anaconda. Critical Threshold of Postcolonial Imperialism 169
Afterword / Peter Geschiere 181
Notes 195
Bibliography 217
Index 229
