Postcolonial Europe, presentation by Professor Frank Schulze-Engler

Professor Frank Schulze-Engler heads the Department of New English Literatures and Cultures at Goethe University (Frankfurt), and lectures at its Institute for English and American Studies. Schulze-Engler uses theory as a tool to address issues of identity, place and culture. His 10/03/2010 presentation, Postcolonial Europe, provides a case in point. In highlighting the disjoint between “the idea and practice of Europe” Schulze-Engler proposes that postcolonial analysis is a viable method with which to begin grappling with Europe’s complex identity.

At the outset of this presentation Schulze-Engler admitted a general skepticism towards both postcolonial studies and the enduring nationalistic accounts of European identity. He elaborated on this by questioning the geographical, political, cultural, economic, and intellectual boundaries of ‘Europe’; and acknowledging the “diversity in lived reality” of Europeans. In an effort to confront this challenge of European identity, the gulf between what has at times been termed “old” and “new” Europe, Schulze-Engler began to re-think and extend theory beyond its usual limitations, applications, and bias, and focus on the concept of a Postcolonial Europe. Here, postcolonial analysis shifted from the ‘dominated peripheral colonies’ to the ‘dominating centre’ that was, itself, undergoing significant transformation from the backwash of colonialism, as well as the recent formation of the European Union.

Like so many of the ‘post-isms’ that flowed from the ‘moment of theory’ in the 1960‘s and 70‘s, this postcolonial approach required a kind of ‘transcendental reduction’ before tending towards a perspective of ‘de-centered and multiple’ truths (Hunter, 2006). With the complexities of Europe exposed, Schulze-Engler was afforded an angle from which to challenge both the concept of Europe, and the fallacy of Western Imperialism, hegemony, and Eurocentrism. In targeting Eurocentrism, “the originary fountain from which all good things flow” (Stam & Shohat, 2005), Schulze-Engler tied it intimately to theories of Modernity, in which the Western narrative is given as the typical benchmark, as well as Colonial theory, in which the Western narrative proliferated internationally throughout cultures, institutions and academia. The ability for education to reproduce thought structures/theory/‘optics’ further allowed the traditional narrative of colonisation to dominate.

By bringing to the fore this knot of theoretical issues, postcolonial analysis was able to be legitimately refocused from the colonies back onto Europe. Schulze-Engler admits that Postcolonial Europe is an irritant to both the discipline of postcolonial studies and to the concept of Europe. Yet with the past inextricably linked to the present, Schulze-Engler finds the use of this extended theory both provocative and productive. The transition from “old” to “new”, or “nationalistic” to “cosmopolitan”, Europe is complex and requires theorisation in order to be better understood. Within contested Europe, postcolonialism provides but one starting point from which to explore and understand some of the dynamics of cultural change and identity formation. It is one of the present tools at hand. And so long as there continues to be a disjoint between “the idea and practice of Europe”, theory will continue to emerge and be applied to this difficult case.