Product Description

Homi Bhabha is one of that small group occupying the front ranks of cultural theoretical thought. Any serious discussion of post-colonial/postmodern scholarship is inconceivable without referencing Mr. Bhabha. - Toni Morrison

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14691 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 440 pages

Review
'Bhabha is that rare thing, a reader of enormous subtlety and wit, a theorist of uncommon power. His work is a landmark in the exchange between ages, genres and cultures; the colonial, post-colonial, modernist and postmodern.' - Edward Said, Columbia University

'Homi Bhabha is one of that small group occupying the front ranks of literary and cultural theoretical thought. Any serious discussion of post-colonial/postmodern scholarship is inconceivable without referencing Mr. Bhabha. - Toni Morrison, Princeton University

'The Location of Culture is an exuberantly intelligent voyage of discovery and disorientation. Supple, subtle, and unafraid, its power lies in its remarkable openness to all that is challenging and unsettling in the contemporary world.'

- Stephen Greenblatt, Cogan University Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University

'The Location of Culture has been extraordinarily fertile for work in a variety of fields: literature, geography, architecture, politics among them. Homi Bhabha is at once radical and subtle in his method of argument and his insights have been fundamental to the flourishing of post-colonial studies.' - Gillian Beer, University of Cambridge

'Bhabha's lightning raids into the past furnish Westerners with snapshots of a world more complicated, fluid, and unsettling than the one they thought they had inherited.' - J.M. Coetzee

'The work being done in my field, African and African-American Studies, is unimaginably richer because of Homi Bhabha's stunning contribution to literary, historical, and cultural studies. The breadth and depth of his analysis, and the razor precision of his writing, push us all to be better, more innovative scholars, and I thank him for it.'

- Henry Louis Gates, JR

From the Back Cover
In The Location of Culture, Homi Bhabha sets out the conceptual imperative and political consistency of the post-colonial intellectual project. In a dazzling series of essays he explains why the post-colonial critique has altered so significantly the landscape of postmodern discourse. Bhabha investigates and illuminates a diverse range of texts. He discusses writerssuch as Morrison, Gordimer and Rushdie and historical documents such as those on theIndian Mutiny. He builds on the work of important theorists such as Fanon and EdwardSaid to provide a theory of cultural hybridity which goes beyond the polarities of self andother. The Location of Culture is a unique and exciting volume, bringing together for the first time some of the most seminal writings in the fields of literary theory and cultural criticism.

About the Author
Homi K Bhabha (1949- ) Born into the Parsi community of Bombay, Bhabha is a leading voice in postcolonial studies. He is currently Professor of English and Afro-American Studies, Harvard University

Customer Reviews

Difficult but rewarding
Anyone who hasn't read this book should be warned that it is not easy reading. There's a lot of vocabulary taken from poststructuralism and critical theory in here, and readers whose familiarity with such work is limited would do well to avoid this book until they've familiarised themselves through easier texts.

That said, this is a very rewarding book which raises important issues. Most political theory and philosophy is all about Europe and North America, and Bhabha is one of the handful who realise that the remaining 3/4s of the world actually exist. I find him quite an open-minded thinker; like all critical theorists, he has his shibboleths and his preferred theoretical vocabularies, but he doesn't let this get in the way of his analysis of specific situations and texts. In addition, this is a hopeful text, insisting on the possibility of change for the better.

The "location of culture" of the title is a location in contingency, perhaps the Lacanian Real or some other such non-place; the basic point is that culture is not a fixed entity and that it can be reconstructed through various discursive manoeuvres such as hybridity (the fusion of two or more cultures) and "sly civility" (the ironic or dishonest maintenance of a cultural facade). Do not expect a structured narrative; each chapter basically stands on its own, and most are actually reproduced articles and essays from elsewhere. Nevertheless, they link together quite well because they all deal with similar issues about culture, oppression and change.

If you can't manage the whole book then at least try out the chapters on stereotyping and on how newness enters the world, which are pure genius - Bhabha at his best.

A word of warning, though - Bhabha at times endorses a heavy Lacanian ontology, only to apparently abandon it again in the next chapter, and to resurrect it again in the one which follows. He doesn't seem to be able to make his mind up whether he endorses the whole Lacanian package or not. This isn't a disaster because it means his approach is open and fluid, but it can make an already difficult text even more difficult. All in all, though, this is well worth a read.

Interesting, yet never develops as it should.
Bhabha raises pertinent and fascinating points, yet I never felt as though he really elaborated on them. I was hoping to see Bhabha's opinions on parallels between the past, present and future. Both the previous reviews brought up relevent points, I felt. I wouldn't totally reject Bhabha's ideas as the first reviewer seemed to, yet the second reviewer was much too eager in his praises. In the future I think it would do Bhabha good to diversify his work.

Homi don't play that!
Let's get one thing straight. Homi Bhabhi is difficult to understand. However, I think everyone else who wrote reviews is wrong. Bhabha is the only post-colonial theorist who has an adequate grasp of historical dynamics in constructing identity, while remaining unafraid to problematize notions of historicity. I don't think the other people who reviewed this book understand that. I liked this book. But I liked his earlier stuff--EG Nation and Narration--a little better.