ABSTRACT
The encounter between the European and the indigene also triggered various streams of utopian thought, with immense catalytic impact on what we know as the Western “left.” A crucial yet often absent conversation, in the sense, has to do with how the field of World Literature might be mapped across the cognate field of what is variously called “Postcolonial Theory,” “Postcolonial Critique” and “Postcolonial Studies.” Postcolonial Theory incorporates while also tweaking and criticizing anti-colonial discourse. The “Pitfalls of National Consciousness” chapter in Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, written during the twilight of French colonialism in Algeria, constituted an anticipatory gesture toward the postcolonial field. If one takes a longer view of colonialism as beginning with Columbus and the Conquest, people everywhere live under the shadow of Columbus and the “Columbian exchange” of plants, vegetables, minerals, goods, and peoples.
