Ships in the night

Abstract

This article reflects on the fact that postcolonial studies and the critique of American cultural imperialism, despite addressing similar core themes, have developed largely in isolation from one another. It identifies four primary reasons for these separate evolutionary trajectories, relating in turn to when and where the respective critiques have taken shape, and to the different cultural geographies and cultural products that they have each examined. These explanations are important, I argue, to the degree that they help to suggest ways in which the two debates might begin to feed into and constructively inform one another. The second part of the essay maps out the potential contours of such a dialogue.