Culture and Imperialism

How does the “civilizing mission” support the project of imperialism? What are the assumptions that lie beneath the idea of the “civilizing mission”?

How does colonialism impact the metropolitan centers, such as London and Paris, versus how it impacts the margins, such as India or Algeria? What do the metropolitan centers have to gain from colonialism, as opposed to the natives in colonized areas, and vice versa?

What is the purpose of contrapuntal reading, according to Said? How is contrapuntal reading different from traditional forms of interpreting literary or critical material?

If nationalism often, if not always, reproduces the ideologies of imperialism, then what does liberation, as Said defines it, offer instead? What is the goal of liberation, and how does it impact culture?

If a character occupies a liminal space in a text, how is that character different from a typical protagonist or other supporting fictional players? What is such a character’s function within a narrative? Use at least one example, apart from Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, to illustrate how a liminal character works within a narrative.

How is the nationalism which often emerges in formerly colonized territories a positive progression from imperialism? How is it negative? Does you agree with Said’s position that nationalism is inherently flawed?

Should culture be implicated in political ideologies, such as imperialism? Or, should culture be considered only an aesthetic or artistic endeavor? Do you agree that “all art is quite useless,” as according to Oscar Wilde (by which he means art is solely for pleasure), or that “all art is propaganda,” as according to George Orwell? Might there be a middle ground? What’s at stake here?

Is imperialism a geographical project, the literal conquest of particular places foreign to the conqueror? Or, is it an imaginative project, the dissemination of a particular set of ideas about who conquers and who is conquered? Or both? Examine Said’s statement that “the enterprise of empire depends upon the idea of having an empire” (11).