탈식민주의 이론과 영문학 교육

Postcolonial Theory and the Education of English Literature

The postcolonial theory, launched with the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) and strengthened by the works of Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, and others, has made it possible to analyze and challenge the western-centered discourse on colonial others. Consequently, the terrain of literary studies and education has come to question the colonial ideology not only in literary texts but also in educational institutions. This essay is to consider the role of English literary studies and education under the colonial rule. A historical investigation unveils that English literary studies did not begin in Britain as might be expected but in the colonial India, where the education of the English language and literature was set up for the colonial control of Indian subjects. The aim of English education in India was to form an interpreter class which had the role of bridge between the governing British and the governed Indian, which consists of Indian colonial subjects who are physically Indian but mentally British. The interpreter class largely contributed to the maintenance and expansion of the British rule in India. However, when the Indian interpreter class came to recognize their national identity as the Indian who could not be equal to the ruling British, they built up a resistance movement against the British colonial rule. The Indian national consciousness was the outcome of the colonial contradiction between the ideal of human equality and the practice of the British unequal treatment of Indians. Hence, the site of the English literature education in the colonial India turns out to be the site of colonial resistance for the building of the Indian nation. This can also be true of the education of English literature in Korea. The site of English education in Korea should be the site of colonial struggle.