Rethinking Anglo-American Literary Tradition: Critical Pedagogy and Diasporic Negotiations of Difference

Ayman Abu-Shomar, The University of Jordan/ Aqaba

This research paper addresses the various interpellation processes in post-colonial academic institutions by which the literary text, the critic and the teacher address the learner producing her as a ‘subject proper’ of Westernisation. In literary tradition, the text is open to contestation among diverse schools of thought. In educational settings, however, the text is appropriated as a self-consolidating world wherein the learners are subjected to this world. Drawing on Frankfort School thinkers of Diasporic Philosophy, Bakhtin’s Dialogism and Freire’s Critical Pedagogy, the paper examines the responses of undergraduate students of English to open-ended group interviews with regard to their experiences while studying Anglo-American canonical literary texts. It also examines their views regarding the outcome of an interventionist critical approach informed by the above theoretical strands. The findings of the study reveal that the overwhelming majority of the research participants negotiate cultural difference in a context of power relations. Hence imbibe their own worldviews to fit those of the text and the literary criticism it infuses. This study addresses the broader educational debate within postcolonial institutions and critical pedagogy by raising awareness of the hegemonic power of literary tradition. In this way it offers an original contribution by exploring intersecting areas of theory, so far believed to be discrete: diasporic philosophy, postcolonialism and dialogism in the context of educational studies.