Unthinking Eurocentrism
"Unthinking Eurocentrism, a seminal and award-winning work in postcolonial studies first published in 1994, explored Eurocentrism as an interlocking network of buried premises, embedded narratives, and submerged tropes that constituted a broadly shared epistemology. Within a transdisciplinary study, the authors argued that the debates about Eurocentrism and post/coloniality must be considered within a broad historical sweep that goes at least as far back as the various 1492s: the Inquisition, the Expulsion of Jews and Muslims, the Conquest of the Americas, and the Transatlantic slave trade; a process which culminates in the post War attempts to radically decolonize global culture. Ranging over multiple geographies, the book deprovincialized media/cultural studies through a polycentric approach, while analysing in depth such issues as postcolonial hybridity, antinomies of Enlightenment, the tropes of empire, gender and rescue fantasies, the racial politics of casting, and the limitations of positive image analysis. The substantial new afterword in this 20th anniversary new edition brings these issues into the present by charting recent transformations of the intellectual debates, as terms such as the transnational, the commons, indigeneity, and the Red Atlantic have come to the fore. The afterword also explores some cinematic trends such as indigenous media and postcolonial adaptations that have gained strength over the past two decades, along with others, such as Nollywood, that have emerged with startling force. Winner of the Katherine Kovacs Singer Best Film Book Award, the book has been translated in full or in its entirety into diverse languages from Spanish to Farsi. This expanded edition of a ground-breaking text proposes analytical grids relevant to a wide variety of fields including postcolonial studies, literary studies, anthropology, media studies, cultural studies, and critical race studies. "-- "Unthinking Eurocentrism explores issues of Eurocentrism and multiculturalism in relation to popular culture, film and the mass media. The book multiculturalizes media studies by looking at Hollywood movie genres such as the western, the musical and the imperial film from multicultural perspectives, examining issues from the racial politics of casting to colonialist discourse and gender and Empire. More than just a critique of Eurocentrism and racism, Unthinking Eurocentrism also confirms artistic, cultural and political alternatives, discussing a wide range of non-Eurocentric media including Third World films, rap video and indigenous media. Synthesising literary theory, media theory and cultural studies to form a challenging interdisciplinary study, the authors argue that current debates about Eurocentrism and Afrocentrism are merely surface manifestations of a deep rooted shift: the decolonisation of global culture. A substantial additional chapter by the authors brings the book into the present. Ella Shohat and Robert Stam consider new related terms that have come to the fore in recent years, such as the transnational, and consider how postcolonial studies itself has evolved. They also look at what happened to some of the film trends noted, such as aesthetics of garbage and indigenous media. This revisiting of a classic text will be essential reading for students of media studies, literary and cultural studies and postcolonial studies"--
