MelancholiaMelancholia

Melancholia –

“Is the concept of ‘melancholia’ helpful for understanding postcoloniality?”

Contents:

A Brief History of ‘Melancholia’

Melancholia in Sociology

Mitscherlich’s Melancholia of Germany

Gilroy’s Melancholia of Post-Colonial Britain

Butler’s Melancholia of Freud

Melancholic Postcoloniality

Bengali Hindus in Berne

Germany’s Next Topmodel by Heidi Klum

Conclusion: Varying uses of Melancholia – Melancholia everywhere?

Written for Gender and Postcolonial Theory
MSc in Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies
London School of Economics and Political Science

April 2009

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The WestThe West

European Subjectivities –

Comparing Subject Formations of ‘the West’

This text will look at the concept of ‘The West’:
How it is used to define a territory, a population, a mindset or subject.
Further, how this subject came into being, what its philosophical foundations are.
This will help explain the social consequences from thinking within the ‘West’.
And finally it will look at some tensions within the subject caused by differences in the languages that constitute ‘The West’.

Written for Topics in Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies
MSc in Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies
London School of Economics and Political Science
April 2009
Download PDF: European Subjectivities – Comparing Subject Formations of ‘the West’