Bart J. Moore-Gilbert

Kipling and "Orientalism"

First published in 1986, this book sets Kipling firmly in the historical context not only of contemporary India but of prior Anglo-Indian writers about India. Despite his enthusiastic reception in England as ‘revealer of the East’, in India he seems to have been regarded as just one more Anglo-Indian writer. The author demonstrates the traditionalism of Kipling’s use of the themes of Anglo-Indian fiction – themes such as the ‘White Man’s grave’, domestic instability, frustration and loneliness. In particular, Kipling is shown to be writing in a strongly conservative idiom, concentrating on the role of the British hierarchy as the determining factor in a response to India, on British insecurity and fears of a repeat of the 1857 mutiny, and regarding Indian institutions only in so far as they represented a threat to British rule. Conservative critiques of liberalism are also discussed.

New Worlds, New Selves: Montaigne, `the Atlantic' and the emergence of modern autobiography

This essay argues that Montaignes Essays expresses the emergence of the early Modern European Self in a canonical form. This emergence is substantially affected by means of Montaignes comparative reflections on the non-Western Self, most notably the inhabitants of the “New World” opened up by transatlantic explorations. To this extent, “the Atlantic” is crucial not just to the construction of the western Self, but to the evolution of autobiography as a genre. Montaignes negotiations with “New World” peoples proceed along three main axes, which the article defines through the work of Tzvetan Todorov. The article also argues that while Montaignes writing of the Other is conventionally seen as exemplifying a healthy cultural relativism, it is in fact more complex in its ideological effects. In particular, Montaigne anticipates many of the problems that Said has identified in the discourses of “Orientalism.” This is not surprising, given the extent to which Montaigne conceptualises the recently “discovered” inhabitants of the “New World” in terms of long-established western tropes about eastern peoples.

Time bandits: temporality and the politics of form in Palestinian women’s life-writing

This article explores the complex relationships between textual form, time/temporality/history and oppressive structures of patriarchy and colonialism as they are manifested in Palestinian women’s life-writing. It argues that questions of “the political” cannot be divorced from aesthetic issues in a context where national cultures are in the process of being (re)formed. Further, it argues that a focus on gender can produce more nuanced understandings of national(ist) narratives, helping to prevent their homogenization. Finally, it seeks to establish some commonalities and differences between this branch of Palestinian cultural production and both western (women’s) life-writing and what has come to be defined as postcolonial literature. In suggesting that greater attention should be paid to Palestine within postcolonial studies, it also seeks to respect the important differences – historical, political and cultural – between Palestine and other regions more commonly addressed by the field.