110 pages • 3 hours read
Lois TysonCritical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide
Nonfiction | Reference/Text Book | Adult | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 12 Summary and Analysis: “Postcolonial Criticism”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism.
According to Tyson, postcolonial criticism analyzes “cultural difference” and is useful for understanding the similarities of the critical theories “that deal with human oppression” (363), like queer theory, African American theory, etc. Postcolonial theory holds that any population that has experienced oppression can be considered “formerly colonialized” and can be widely applied, although different populations incorporate it differently depending on their specific cultural historical experiences.
Tyson gives a brief history of colonialism beginning with the “Age of Discovery” in the 15th century through the height of British colonialism in the early 20th century. Following World War II, Britain and other colonial powers lost many of their colonial territories. Postcolonial criticism studies works about and/or by colonized or once-colonized peoples from the 15th century to the present.
Tyson asserts that the most relevant postcolonial criticism for English majors is analysis of works that deal with British colonialism and its legacy. Postcolonial theory typically analyzes both how colonial ideologies have been internalized by dominated populations and anticolonial efforts to resist colonialism. It can be applied to texts created both under and after colonial rule. In this way, postcolonial theory is one method of 
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