ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how Bhabha approaches theoretical, historical, and literary texts. It looks at his reading method, the texts he reads with this method, and our experience of reading his own texts. Bhabha’s criticism is important because of his attention to anxiety and agency, but a key point is that he finds their traces through his reading methods. This chapter, and the next, are about the key influences on Bhabha and how he has used and developed them. Critically, he has developed their models of reading in directions that are initially surprising. In one interview Bhabha says: ‘I am really of the school of reading as ravishment, reading as being ravished.’ (ST: 373) Reading is both ravishing the text and being ravished in return. What do these two forms of ravishment mean? This chapter will answer this question by first looking at Bhabha’s own prose. It then turns to look at the way this critical thinking works in relation to liberal political traditions. From here, it turns to the relation between critical thinking and Marxist traditions, and focuses on Bhabha’s reading of another central influence, Frantz Fanon. Throughout I suggest that Bhabha can be read poetically.
