Maps of Englishness

“Maps of Englishness” redefines the concept of Englishness. Simon Gikandi surveys the British imperial tradition, exploring the politics of identity in England and how the colonial experience inspired narrative forms that changed the nature of Englishness. Although postcolonial theorists have written much on how contemporary readers understand colonial, the reinterpretation of these texts has only begun. Instead of concentrating on the dominance of the culture of empire and its reconstitution of colonial places and people, Gikandi focuses on the process by which the colonized cultures became instrumental in the “inventing” of Europe. Gikandi provides detailed readings of race and the crisis of English identity in the works of Trollope, Carlyle and others; through the narratives of imperial women travellers such as Mary Kingsley; and through Africanist texts by Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene, and the works of such post-colonialists as Salman Rushdie and Joan Riley. In so doing, he makes a timely contribution to the fields of postcolonial and literary studies.

Author Biography

Simon E. Gikandi is professor of English language and literature at the University of Michigan.