Doing the Right Thing: ACLALS, Social Change, and Cultural Activism

Abstract

The role of humanities [is] empowerment of an informed imagination, modest but difficult task.1IN his wide-ranging introduction to Literature for Our Times: Postcolonial Studies in Twenty-First Century, Bill Ashcroft asks: What is field of post-colonial studies beginning to look like in twenty-first century?2 He rightly discerns that in that compendious volume - which contains selected proceedings from 14th Triennial Conference of Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies held in Vancouver in 2007 - the wide range of contemporary post-colonial is represented; he detects among postcolonial scholars a pushing into ever more expansive intellectual territory,3 and he takes up Julie Thompson Klein's argument that present new knowledge is most often produced by boundary-crossing in form of interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research.4 And indeed, there is considerable evidence that, in Ashcroft's words, scholars are venturing across boundaries of all kinds - not just disciplinary, but cultural, racial, ethnic, and linguistic boundaries.5 One example to which he points in volume he is introducing is way in which innovative explorations of existing research areas are being expanded, especially in case of research on indigenous societies.6 Another example is certainly increased attention being paid to relationship between postcolonial and environmental studies evidenced in work of scholars such as Helen Tiffin in Australia and Norbert Platz in Germany.7Such expansion of field of enquiry of postcolonial studies, whether it be in direction of indigeneity, ecocriticism, transculturality or globalization, has engendered much debate among scholars. One critic whose writings have for me proved particularly illuminating on way in which such developments have had an impact on priorities and activities of an organization like ACLALS is Paul Sharrad, passionate advocate for ethical responsibility of literary scholarship and importance of culture in processes of social change, who has embedded in his analyses of Indian writing in English perceptive reflections on nature of postcolonial literary studies and their relationship to political and social realities. As he reminds us,We cannot afford to be bogged down only in exercises in academic cleverness or yet more visits to colonial discourse and literary 'writing back'. Nor can we let ourselves as critics of culture and power be stymied by our theorizing so that difference and deconstruction disable kind of agency implicit in universals such as human rights.8Aware that, since accreditation of ACLALS to Commonwealth Foundation, organization has, at least officially, been expected to align itself more closely with Commonwealth concerns, Sharrad identifies as one of his underlying concerns need to path through competing aspects of postcolonial literary studies represented by turn to engaging ACLALS in wider decision-making processes of Commonwealth.9 In so doing, he distinguishes two relevant arguments: briefly, one urges greater engagement with social and political issues, while other emphasizes more limited aims of literary studies. Thus, on one hand, he asserts:there can be no doubt that Association and what we do as postcolonial critics (even as 'old guard' Commonwealth literary critics) is founded on, and should continue to be informed by, political ideals of cultural respect and rights to self-determination.10On other, however, Sharrad cautions that, for literary scholars,there is case for seriously considering radically modest outlook of J.M. Coetzee's work, which points out that writers and critics deal in words and small dramas of individual lives. Our responsibility is therefore to find exact word for situation and to refrain from exceeding our brief. …