Literature on the Periphery of Capitalism: Brazilian Theory, Canadian Culture (1)

Imre Szeman Empire and culture have to be on the globalization agenda, especially in a white invader-setter colony like anada where!!! culture is supposed still by too many to be something imported "or consumption as an additive to, or sedative "or, economic servitude! # $en %indlay, & ontent 'roviders(& )he age o" globalization is the age o" universal contagion! # *ichael +ardt and ,ntonio -egri, Empire (1./) Postcolonial Solidarities ,ny attempt to theorize the surprising similarities between 0razilian and anadian cultural and literary history has to begin by openly acknowledging the vast and irrecoverable di""erences between them#di""erences o" history, culture, economics, geography, and so on! Indeed, there seem to be so many di""erences that one might be inclined to see the points o" connection as mere coincidence1 the cultural circumstances and e2pressions o" both countries might appear similar in outward appearance (or at least, might seem so in many cases), but their inner logic emerges out o" entirely di""erent material circumstances that cannot be passed over in silence! %or instance, the "orms and issues o" anadian postmodern or postcolonial "iction bear some resemblance to magical realism or to 0razilian "ictional e2pressions o" the dilemmas o" postcolonial cultural autonomy! -evertheless, only the most retrograde "orm o" comparative literature would "eel com"ortable assigning these "orms the same meaning, the same social value, or the same social or cultural role and signi"icance! )his does not, it seems to me, mean that there is no value in making connections or comparisons between 0razil and anada, and especially o" doing so under the general rubric o" postcolonial criticism and theory, which brings to the "ore the historical and economic circumstances under which each nation came into e2istence! I would argue that such comparison is especially important "or understanding anadian culture and literature, over which there has been a long struggle "or sel"-understanding! I want to suggest all too brie"ly here that because anada has imagined itsel" as part o" the mainstream o" 3estern modernity instead o" as a colonial society with its own uni4ue "orm or mode o" modernity#that is, because it has imagined itsel" as more like the 5nited States or the 5nited 6ingdom than 0razil or *e2ico (though what is the $iberal 'arty but a anadian version o" the '7I8)#it has misunderstood or never ade4uately e2plored the conditions o" possibility o" anadian culture and literature! In order to make such connections, however, it seems to me that one would "irst have to have a di""erent

sense o" the postcolonial that the "orm that this concept or practice generally takes in the academy today! )hough the concept o" the postcolonial is notoriously "le2ible, applicable to an increasingly wide range o" sites and situations, "rom the writing and culture o" minority communities within 3estern countries to the literatures o" the "ormer Soviet 0loc countries, it is the general ethos o" the postcolonial that needs to be re"igured rather than the geographic regions to which one might considerable sa"ely applying it! In contrast to the underlying universalistic assumptions o" comparative literature (which have all but been dissolved in its trans"ormation, in -orth ,merica at least, "rom the study o" literature to the study o" theory), one o" the main lessons o" postcolonial criticism has been &that postcolonial societies, cultural "ormations and movements emerge at di""erent times, in di""erent "orms and in di""erent places around the globe& (*oore-9ilbert :;.)! )hese di""erences need to be attended to1 even i" anada can be considered, as 'eter 3orsely suggests, &the world<s richest underdeveloped country& (::), its modernity is not that o" 0razil<s, nor is it <postcolonial< in the same way as even the other outposts o" 0ritish colonialism in the 3estern hemisphere! Such apparent lack o" attention to de"ining di""erences is no doubt part o" the reason why %redric =ameson<s proposal that postcolonial literature be read as &national allegory& was greeted with such hostility1 totalizing gestures o" this kind could not but be read as in opposition to the very ethos o" postcolonial criticism! (:) >et even though this attention to di""erence (to the di""erence o" di""erences) has "ormed the dominant vision o" the pro?ect o" postcolonial studies, it is still only one version o" the postcolonial, underwritten by its own (largely unacknowledged) grand theories concerning the nature o" sub?ectivity and agency that e2press the common-sense o" the 3estern<s academy understanding o" the connection between individual volition and the possibility o" politics per se! 3hile it has been supremely attentive to di""erence, postcolonial studies has o"ten been hazy about continuities and structural similarities o" the kind that comparative analyses probe and attempt to highlight! =ameson might have been wrong about the speci"ics o" his analyses o" third-world te2ts, but the attempt to relate the postcolonial situation to material circumstances that are necessarily global (i!e!, imperial capitalism) seems theoretically unimpeachable and more necessary now than ever! @ne "orm o" comparison pushes towards violence and the leveling o" di""erences, both theoretically and empiricallyA another, which is what Samir ,min describes as &genuine universalism,& articulates the activity "undamental to the construction o" the solidarities out o" which politics grows! *any writers have written recently o" a &crisis& in postcolonial criticism that has emerged out o" its recent institutional acceptance (Seshadri- rooks) and its encounter with a new set o" historical circumstances and relations that have come to be re"erred to as &globalization!& %or some postcolonial critics, globalization is ?ust more o" the same old imperialism, but through di""erent means (the spread o" consumerism and mass culture) and through a new, singular historical agent1 the 5nited States (,shcro"t 11:-.)! %or others, globalization has re"igured the empirical and theoretical landscape so signi"icantly that is demands new theoretical models to understand the dynamism o" contemporary capitalism and its e2ercise o" hegemony along multiple vectors (,ppadurai)! I" globalization names a situation o" crisis "or postcolonial thought, it seems to me that it is because the

postcolonial can no longer ade4uately theorize the contemporary circulation o" power, or understand the dynamism o" a capitalism that e2ercises hegemony by cultivation di""erence rather than seeking to contain or obliterate it (Birlik, *iyoshi)! -o one ob?ects to di""erence todayA indeed, biopolitical power circulates by means o" it! ,s *ichael +ardt and ,ntonio -egri write, theorists &who advocate a politics o" di""erence, "luidity and hybridity in order to challenge the binaries and essentialism o" modern sovereignty have been out"lanked by strategies o" power& (1.C)! 3hich should not be taken as a signal o" the end o" postcolonial criticism, as +ardt and -egri seem to suggest, but as an impetus to rediscover or invent a new theoretical "ramework that would permit one to think the underlying logic by and through which the periphery is produced as periphery, while also being attentive to the multiple modernities produced by global capitalism! Even "or those critics who have been wary o" its rhetoric, globalization has occasioned a "urious pursuit o" new theories and models o" a social imagined as "undamentally trans"ormed! In the case o" postcolonial studies, although a theoretical encounter with globalization is long overdue (see @<0rien and Szeman), it seems to me that it is by means o" a rediscovery o" an earlier "orm o" postcolonial thought that a more politically and theoretically productive way o" thinking about the globe<s multiple modernities might emerge! )his is especially true o" attempts to think about these modernities in relation to one another, and to think their relationships whether or not they are the product o" the same colonial power (the organizing logic o" most postcolonial criticism to date)! ,s 0art *oore-9ilbert points out, one o" the reasons "or the recent sense o" crisis in postcolonial criticism emerges out o" its constitutive split character! It<s main "ault line or point o" rupture lies in the discontinuities between the criticism o" "igures such as hinua ,chebe, 3ole Soyinka and 3ilson +arris, and that o" Edward Said, 9ayatri Spivak, and +omi 0habha#between, that is, the attempt to highlight the complementarity o" di""erent postcolonial "ormations and develop global solidarities, and the emphasis on the politics o" heterogeneity and di""erence! Even i" we want to avoid returning to universalistic narratives, whether or not they are now (supposedly) purged o" their Eurocentrism (as in some discourses o" cosmopolitanism), it seems to me that globalization prompts us to seek out global complementaries and solidarities (o" the kind, "or instance, tentatively put "orward by the 9roup o" DD during the high point o" postcolonial state politics!) @nly a postcolonialism that attends to continuities and similarities can work actively against the dominant narrative o" globalization as global neoliberalism, by activating other narratives o" globalization that are currently hindered by an insistence o" the irreducible particularity o" local circumstances! )he "ollowing brie" "oray into the lessons that anadian culture can learn "rom 0razilian theory is written with this "ramework in mind! Misplaced Ideas: From Brazil to Canada I have wanted to write "or some time about the shock o" recognition that greeted me when I "irst read through 7oberto Schwarz<s Misplaced Ideas: Essays on Brazilian Culture! Schwarz<s main concern is to e2amine the central intellectual and theoretical problems that arise inevitably in the analysis o" the culture o" 0razil! 3hat surprised me was how similar these problems were to those "ound in attempts to theorize the

conditions o" anadian culture and, be e2tension, anadian literature! %rom what I<ve said thus "ar, it should be clear that this is not to suggest that the correlation is e2act#that is, that there is a precise structural homology between 0razil and anada that will tell us everything that we ever wanted to know about anadian culture and writing now and in the "uture! -evertheless, the similarities are striking enough that they are worth e2amining, especially since it seems to me that indirectly approaching some old issues in anadian literature reveals some une2pected blind spots that still re4uire critical illumination! 3hile Schwarz shows that there are any number o" &misplaced ideas& in relation to 0razilian culture, an important set o" these circulates around a problem intimately "amiliar to an earlier generation o" anadian writers1 the way in which 0razilian and $atin ,merican culture has always been e2perienced as &arti"icial, inauthentic and imitative& (1)! Schwarz suggests that 0razilian culture has, "or more than a century and "rom competing points o" view (right, le"t, modernist, nationalist, cosmopolitan, etc!), been seen as derivative#as e2isting in relation to the 3est in the same way that a copy relates to an original! In line with the work o" other postcolonial writers and critics, Schwarz draws attention to the belie" that one<s culture is somehow inauthentic or derivative as ideological in the most common sense o" the term1 a "alse structure o" belie" passed o"" as reality in order to suppress an understanding o" the true nature o" social and political power! 3hat is suppressed in this idea o" cultural inauthenticity, in anada as much as in 0razil, is a recognition o" the material, historical circumstances that "irst established the idea o" an &original& culture to which others, by contrast, seem to be mere copies! )he root cause in both cases can be "ound it the long process o" European imperialism and the array o" ideologies and concepts associated with it that served to enable, legitimate, and sustain the imperial pro?ect1 discourses related to its religious and civilizing mission, the discourse o" anthropology and its concern with the primitive, Eurocentric discourses o" modernization and development, and even the teleological claims o" *ar2ism and its assertions about the inevitability o" certain stages o" historical development (as in the in"amous ,siatic mode o" production)! ,s Schwarz shows in the case o" 0razil, believing that one<s culture is merely a pale imitation o" a more "ully and more genuinely realized one produces a social and cultural malaise that seems to be impossible to throw o""! )his is a "eeling that anadians are well aware o", and, at least in part, it is the attempt to break "ree o" this malaise that has "uelled a great deal o" anadian writing throughout its history! I" a sense o" cultural inauthenticity is ideological in the sense that it constitutes a "alse belie", then it seems that the solution is simple enough1 recognizing the reality behind the illusion should be enough to shatter it and set us "ree! 0esides the "act that this is an entirely idealist solution to a materialist problem, Schwarz e2plains why it hasn<t been that easy to locate a solution! @nce in place, the "ocus on inauthenticity as the origin o" social and cultural problems generates a cultural dialectic that never ade4uately resolves itsel" in order to produce the desired end1 a genuine national culture! &-othing seems more reasonable, "or those who are aware o" the damage,& Schwarz writes, &than to steer in the opposite direction and think it is enough to avoid copying metropolitan trends in order to achieve an intellectual li"e with great substance& (.)! )he desire to re?ect

everything "oreign, to isolate and destroy the bacteria that have invaded the national host in order to leave it pure and "ree o" disease, was the motivating idea behind 0razilian cultural and economic nationalism in the 1E/;s, ?ust as it was in anada during the same period! -ot surprisingly, in neither case was nationalism success"ul in eliminating the contagion o" the "oreign and leaving behind a healthy body that could be identi"ied as purely 0razilian or anadian1 "rom the beginning, the opposition between the national and the "oreign at work in cultural nationalism was an unreal one that did &not allow us to see the share o" the "oreign in the nationally speci"ic, or the imitative in the original and o" the original in the imitative& (1/)! @n the other side o" this dialectic, re?ecting nationalism while embracing what might be seen as a more cosmopolitan perspective is e4ually problematic! 9iving up on the idea that there can be an authentic national culture by treating this idea as &a provincial phenomenon associated with archaic "orms o" oppression& seems to represent a step "orward (F)! ,t the same time, as Schwarz points out, given the conte2t o" the international mass media against which these suggestions were "ramed in the period a"ter the 1E/;s, &an emphasis on the international dimension o" culture becomes no more than a legitimation o" the e2isting mass media,& and this is not &emancipatory or aesthetically acceptable& (F)! I" these two positions mark out the territory o" possible solutions to the crisis o" an inauthentic culture, then there doesn<t appear to be much hope that 0razil can overcome the sense that it possesses a derivative cultureA neither solution is ade4uate, and in "act each generates new problems o" authenticity, whether in the "orm o" a mythologized, e2clusionary nationalism developed in opposition to the taint o" the "oreign or in the "orm o" a "alse cosmopolitanism that represents little more than a belated acceptance o" the global order and 0razil<s place within it! It seems to me that at the core o" the problem that Schwarz identi"ies in 0razilian culture#at the heart o" what permits this arrested dialectic o" inauthenticity to circulate endlessly#is a sense o" belatedness, o" having arrived too late on the historical scene, at the end o" a 3estern modernity that had completely mapped out the landscape in advance! )he points o" overlap between the pro?ect o" national culture in 0razil and anada emerge "ully when considered in relation to this temporal "igure! )he sense o" belatedness has been central to the problem o" anadian culture and literature! %or e2ample, it makes an appearance at an important ?uncture in -orthrop %rye<s conclusion to the "irst edition o" the Literary History of Canada: Canadian Literature in English ! 3hat is "inally posed "amously as a spatial 4uestion#&3here is here8&#emerges "rom a consideration o" the uni4ue temporal problem "aced by anadian literature and culture1 English anada was "irst a part o" the wilderness, then a part o" -orth ,merica and the 0ritish Empire, then a part o" the world! 0ut it has gone through these revolutions too 4uickly "or a tradition o" writing to be "ounded on any one o" them! anadian writers are, even now, still trying to assimilate a anadian environment at a time when new techni4ues o" communication, many o" which, like television, constitute a verbal market, are annihilating the boundaries o" that environment! (C:/)

%or %rye, anadian writing comes into the world too late "or it to be organically distinctive or authentically representative o" the national space in which it originates! anadian writing is belated because the world in moving too "ast "or it to assimilate both its successive phases o" development (which arrive and speed by without any internal, national compulsion) and now, decisively, the new technological environments being produced transnationally! )he net e""ect o" what we would now describe as globalization is to annihilate what, in the pre"ace to The Bush arden, %rye identi"ies as &the sense o" a speci"ic environment as something that provides a circum"erence "or an imagination& (iii)! In other words, even i" anadian writing were somehow able to &catch up& so that is would no longer e2perience this sense o" belatedness, it would then "ind that the conditions "or cultural speci"icity#that is, "or a truly national literature#have been thoroughly eclipsed! )he two solutions to the problem o" cultural inauthenticity outlined by Schwarz are more or less reproduced in %rye<s consideration o" anadian writing! +ere, too, there seems to be no way "orward, since it is neither possible to assert a real national distinctiveness nor to claim unproblematic assent to a global cultural playing "ield whose rules were established outside anada! In %rye<s case, however, a di""erent possibility emerges "rom his consideration o" the signi"icance o" mass communication and mass media on anadian culture and writing! (Incidentally, almost "our decades later these concerns, more pressing than ever, are dealt with in"re4uently by anadian literary critics and writers!) 3ith respect to %rye, 7ichard avell has argued in his e2amination o" what he describes as the &%rye-*c$uhan debate& that, by the 1ED;s, %rye was no longer de"ending the virtues and verities o" literary culture and its inherently civilizing 4ualities! In"luenced by *c$uhan<s ideas on the "unction o" contemporary media and on anada<s position as a &borderline& country# borderline not merely because anada was poised between the "oreign and the national, the cosmopolitan and the bust, but also because it was beyond these dichotomies#by 1EC; %rye saw as a solution to the problem o" belatedness what he had once seen as a threat to anadian literature! &In an <instant< world o" communication,& he writes, &there is no reason "or cultural lag or "or a di""erence between sophisticated writers in large centers and naive writers in smaller ones! , world like ours produces a single international style o" which all e2isting literatures are regional developments& (4td! in avell :/:)! In this way, the global modernity that once consigned belated nations like 0razil and anada to the cultural periphery o""ered a technological solution to the historical-metaphysical problem o" cultural inauthenticity! 3e should remember that the relationship o" the original to the copy is also a temporal one1 the copy is de"icient not merely or even primarily because it reproduces all o" the "eatures o" the original, but because it comes a"ter it in time! I" the problem o" cultural inauthenticity is understood as a temporal problem, then a solution to cultural belatedness and its conse4uent cultural malaise might be to "latten time! )he ideological order to succession o" cultures (primary, secondary, tertiary, etc!) is thus dismantled! In e""ect, this is what %rye claimed on behal" o" *c$uhan1 the problem o" anadian belatedness is resolved once and "or all by the creation o" a single global time in which it is no longer possible to position onesel" as out o" sync with the main currents o" modernity! (.)

%rye<s solution to the problem o" anadian cultural speci"icity has been largely accepted by contemporary anadian writers and critics, and indeed, by 0razilian writers, too1 we are all cosmopolitans now! +ardly imagining itsel" any longer as inauthentic or as secondary to more established literatures, anadian writing is now spectacularly sel"con"ident and globally respected! >et "or all o" the welcome success o" contemporary anadian writing, something should trouble us about %rye<s embrace o" the instantaneous present and the international style as a ?oint solution to the problem o" anadian culture! ,s avell points out, %rye<s evocation o" the &international style& in The Modern Century was &made in the service o" his larger theory that the "orms o" literature are autonomous1 given, however, that these <autonomous< "orms are those o" classical European literature, they simply resurrect G,!=!*!H Smith<s distinction between naive and cosmopolitan& (:F/)! It is not clear whether, a decade or so later, his evocation o" an international style is any less Eurocentric in its claims or in its suggestion that we are all cosmopolitans now because, having never been properly established, not even a residue o" the provincial voice has been le"t behind! It seems to me that what has been substituted in this vision o" &a single international style o" which all e2isting literatures are regional developments& is merely one ideology about time and culture "or another! 3hat I have been describing as belatedness 'aul Smith, drawing on the work o" =ohannes %abian, has described as the denial o" &allochronism&1 the denial to the &@ther& o" a contemporaneity with the 3est, which means that the @ther may then be seen as primitive, underdeveloped, and uncivilized and there"ore in need o" intervention by the 3est in order to make it modern, developed, and civilized (1:)! 3ith this, Smith contrasts the new rhetoric and ideology o" contemporary global capitalism! 9lobalization has been represented repeatedly in both popular and academic writing through a series o" by now "amiliar images1 that o" a &"ully global space replete with an ecstatic buzz o" cyber communications, or o" an instantaneous mobility o" people, goods, and services, or o" a global market place hooked up by immaterial money that "lashes around the globe many times a minute& (1.)! Smith insists that these images o" globalization do not represent the reality o" the global present! 7ather, they constitute a concerted attempt to con?ure away the contradictions created by an intensi"ied neoliberal capitalism than has in "act deepened the divide between the -orth and the South, the 3est and the rest! It does so by pro?ecting an image o" the world that is isochronic, a world in which everything happens at the same time and thus one in which the problems and contradictions produced by an earlier, imperialist capitalism are done away with ?ust as surely as are the limitations o" time and space! )his rhetoric has become so thoroughly embraced by even many progressive political and social groups around the world, who have come to see globalization as inevitable and largely unalterable, that is has become hard to believe what everyone nevertheless senses1 "ar "rom changing anything, this isochronic dream o" capitalism is merely a way o" &denying allochronism to the other in a new way& (1.)! 3hat is missing in %rye<s assessment o" the "ate o" anadian writing, ?ust as surely as in the collective anadian ?oy over the vigour o" its contemporary writing on the global stage, is a level o" analysis that might get us beyond the dilemma o" cultural identity outlined by Schwarz! Instead o" replacing a lamentable belatedness with a

problematic ac4uiescence to global capitalism<s isochronic dream, we need to dig deeper to "ind the root cause o" the inauthenticity "elt in both 0razil and anada i" we want to understand the direction o" anadian literature in the new millennium! Schwarz concludes that &the pain"ulness o" an imitative civilization is produced not by imitation# which is present in any event#but by the social structure o" the country& (1F)! 'ut more bluntly, &it is not copying in general but the copying of one class that constitutes the problem& (11)! It is perhaps easier to see this in the case o" 0razil than that o" anada, largely because o" the more e2treme social hierarchies produced by the institution o" slavery and the lati"undia! )he parallels between the two colonial situations should nevertheless prompt us to see anadian writing in a di""erent way! Schwarz notes that in 0razil, be"ore the nineteenth century, the imitation o" Europe by the ruling class did not constitute a problem! %ar "rom it1 its estrangement "rom the masses and its close connection to the culture o" the &home country& were two o" the chie" sources o" its legitimacy as the class in power! It was independence#which, ?ust as in anada, did not involve a revolution#that created a new set o" political relations that conse4uently has an e""ect on 0razilian culture! Independence le"t the ruling hierarchy largely in place, even as it introduced &modern& "orms o" citizenship, ideas o" "reedom, and concepts o" political emancipation! )he ruling hierarchy thus "aced a dilemma1 &deprecating the bases o" its social pre-eminence in the name o" progress, or deprecating progress in the name o" its social pre-eminence& (1:)! )he drama o" cultural inauthenticity arose out o" this dilemma! ,s the modern, progressive "orces o" an e2panded democracy came to the "ore over time, it became increasingly di""icult to assert the authenticity o" the old, happily imitative, colonial order in 0razil against the new conditions o" citizenship! ,t the same time, in order to maintain political power, the indigenous ruling class had to assert a cultural di""erence "rom the masses, who in 0razil#?ust as in anada#have never been troubled by the idea that their culture doesn<t 4uite measure up to some outside standard! 0razil<s unhappily imitative national culture#or at least the culture that claims to represent the nation#arose as a longing "or an earlier, less problematic, class hierarchy in a new world situation in which it became necessary to produce a culture e! nihilo1 a new culture, neither working-class nor colonial, but something else! 0ut this culture, such as it is, has always lacked the material conditions to sustain it beyond its always hesitant, uncertain ideologically "unction as the ready-to-hand discourse to e2plain the dissatis"actions o" li"e on the periphery! 3hen we accept global capitalism<s isochronic rhetoric to lend support to the current success o" anadian writing, we are in e""ect burying ever deeper the structural conditions that produced our earlier "eelings o" cultural inauthenticity! 3e do likewise when we take the current success o" anadian literature as evidence o" a kind o" anadian e2emplarity with respect to the modern (as articulated by *c$uhan) or postmodern (as per $inda +utcheon) that has permitted anadian culture to be a hothouse "or global culture avant la lettre! In both cases, we suppress our ability to ask deep 4uestions about the political and social "unction o" anadian literature with respect to everyday li"e in anada, especially as e2pressed in class terms! In opposition to this isochronic ideology, I think that it is worth retaining the idea that anadian culture is a belated (i!e!, postcolonial) culture in order to remind ourselves o" the social and political bases o" our sense o" what culture is and how we imagine its relationship to the

production o" the nation! Biana 0rydon has suggested that &withholding the status o" <authentic< colonialism "rom countries such as anada!!! makes it harder "or all anadians to identi"y and combat the particular kinds o" postcolonial e2perience they are currently undergoing as they watch their economy shrink, ?obs disappear, and cultural sovereignty erode& (11)! It is e4ually the case that "ailing to understand the political and social "unction o" anadian literature as it relates to class makes it di""icult to understand the ways in which anada is more like 0razil than we might have imagined! Volu ility and !essentiment , brie" word on literary history by way o" conclusion! =ust as his Misplaced Ideas helps us to see absences and gaps in disputes over anadian culture, which remain "irmly in place in recent debates over cultural policy in anada and the impact o" a global mass culture that is always read in anada as &,merican,& the recent translation o" " Master on the #eriphery of Capitalism, Schwarz<s ma?estral analysis o" *achado de ,ssis< The #osthumous Memoirs of Br$s Cubas, o""ers a model "or re-thinking anadian literary history in terms o" class! Schwarz<s elaborate analysis highlights the connections between social and literary "orm in *achado<s most "amous novel! 7e"using to read the novel<s stunning and unprecedented "ragmentary "orm as a sign o" 0razilian cultural maturity (as postmodernism avant la lettre), Schwarz e2plains the way in which the &volubility& (volubilidade% o" *achado<s novel, its endless and startlingly shi"ts o" tone, sentiment, opinion, "orm, and style &retain the speci"ic "eatures!!! o" a motion or course imposed on the 0razilian ruling class by historical circumstances#or, i" one pre"ers, that those circumstances allowed it to have& (:;)! I<ve already o""ered some sense o" what Schwarz (and ,ntonio andido be"ore him) took these circumstances to be! Br$s Cubas e2empli"ies that problem o" <misplaced ideas< in a nutshell (it is, o" course, an analysis o" *achado<s "iction that allowed Schwarz to derive this concept in the "irst place)! +e writes1 , vital part o" the volubility!!! is the accelerated and per"unctory consumption o" attitudes, ideas, convictions, literary manners, and more, soon abandoned "or others and thus discredited! )his movement has recourse to the stock o" enlightened appearances, and in this way, when it is taken to its "inal conse4uences, mocks the totality o" contemporary thinking, which is subordinated to a principle contrary to it and thus deprived o" credibility! )his is the course or tra?ectory that history allowed, or imposed upon, the 0razilian ruling class as a whole! (:.) In order to understand nineteenth and twentieth-century literary production in anada, a similar mapping o" the connections between literary "orm and social conditions is essential! I am not suggesting that this hasn<t been doneA however, imagining anada as 0razil prompts a di""erent view o" nineteenth-century social relations, and thus o" literary production as well! anadian modernity, too, is constituted along a ri"t between Enlightenment progress, in the "orm o" emancipation and the e2tension o" civil liberties on one hand, and a mode o" production that in a country o" &hewers o" wood and drawers o" water& has relied on a domestic and immigrant labour "orce that has rarely (and

certainly not in the present era o" globalization) been able to access the "reedoms "ormally guaranteed them! )he plight o" worker<s and o" immigrant communities has o" course been the sub?ect o" numerous anadian novels, "rom the accounts o" early settler<s to the immigrants in =ohn *arilyn<s &nder the 'ibs of (eath, and "rom *ichael @ndaat?e<s In the )*in of a Lion to the enormous body o" e2ceptional novels released over the past decade by South East ,sian and aribbean- anadian writers! 0ut it is only recently that a common, de"ining "ormal principle has been identi"ied in anadian writing! In his analysis o" a number o" nineteenth-century anadian te2ts, including harles *air<s historical drama Tecumseh and =ames Be*ille<s " )trange Manuscript +ound in a Copper Cylinder (like Br$s Cubas, a te2t o"ten taken as voicing a postmodern-like criti4ue o" interpretation), 9lenn 3illmott identi"ies a "orm o" literary ressentiment particular to anadian te2ts! 3illmott appeals to the meaning %riedrich -ietzsche gives to the concept o" ressentiment in ,n the enealogy of Morals! It is the "iction o" moral superiority and myth o" apocalyptic vindication which are invented by the weak as a reaction and constitute their negative identity "ormation, against the strong! It is this negative double o" an ,merican dream, the monster o" a anadian ressentiment that we "ind!!! wherever we look "or e2pressions o" social purpose and unity in the literature o" the "ormative period o" anadian nationalism, and whose persistence anadians still "eel today! (1.D) 3hat remains to be determined are the social and political circumstances that produced and continue to reproduce this ressentiment, which like Br$s Cubas volubility is related to the ambiguous, contradictory circumstances "aced by the anadian elite at the end o" the 1Eth century, which has made it endlessly possible "or both material and legal in?ustices to be e2cused as necessary part o" the e""orts o" the 5nited States< &postcolonial betters!&

"otes
(1) ,n earlier version o" this paper appeared as &0elated or Isochronic8 anadian 3riting, )ime, and 9lobalization,& Essays on Canadian -riting D1 (:;;;)1 1IF-F.! (back) (:) %or a discussion o" critical misreadings o" =ameson<s in"amous essay on third-world literature, see my J3hoKs ,"raid o" -ational ,llegory8 =ameson, $iterary riticism, 9lobalization,L )outh "tlantic .uarterly 1;;!. (:;;:)1 C;1-:F!

(back) (.) See also %rye, onclusion1 &)he writers o" the past decade, at least, have begun to write in a world which is post- anadian, as it is post-,merican, post-0ritish, and post everything e2cept the world itsel"! )here are no provinces in the empire o" the aeroplane and television, and no physical separation "rom the centres o" culture, such as they are! Sensibility is no longer dependent on a speci"ic environment or even on sense e2perience itsel"& (CIC)! (back) 3orks ited ,min, Samir! Eurocentrism! )rans! 7ussell *oore! -ew >ork1 *onthly 7eview ', 1ECE! ,ppadurai, ,r?un! Modernity at Large: Cultural (imensions of lobalization! *inneapolis1 5 o" *innesota ', 1EE/! ,shcro"t, 0ill, 9areth 9ri""iths and +elen )i""in! /ey Concepts in #ostcolonial )tudies! -ew >ork1 7outledge, 1EEC! 0rydon, Biana! &Introduction1 7eading 'ostcoloniality, 7eading anada!& Essays on Canadian -riting F/ (1EEF)1 1-1E! avell, 7ichard! &*aterial .uerelle1 )he ase o" %rye and *c$uhan!& Essays on Canadian -riting /C (1EEE)1 :I:-/F! Birlik, ,ri"! The #ostcolonial "ura! 0oulder1 3estview ', 1EED!

%indlay, $en! & ontent 'roviders o" the 3orld 5nite( , ritical anadian ,nalysis and ,genda!& Topia C (:;;:), "orthcoming! %rye, -orthrop! onclusion! Literary History of Canada: Canadian Literature in English! Ed! arl %! 6linck! )oronto1 5 o" )oronto ', 1E/F! ---! 're"ace! The Bush arden: Essays on the Canadian Imagination! )oronto1 ,nansi, 1ED1! +ardt, *ichael, and ,ntonio -egri! Empire! ambridge1 +arvard 5', :;;;! =ameson, %redric! &)hird-3orld $iterature in the Era o" *ultinational apitalism!& )ocial Te!t 1F (1EC/)1 /F-CC! *iyoshi, *asao! &)urn to the 'lanet1 $iterature, Biversity, and )otality!& Comparative Literature F.!I (:;;1)1 :C.-ED! *oore-9ilber, 0art! #ostcolonial Theory: Conte!ts0 #ractices0 #olitics! -ew >ork1 Merso, 1EED! @<0rien, Susie, and Imre Szeman, eds! "nglophone Literatures and lobal Culture! Spec! issue o" )outh "tlantic .uarterly 1;;!. (:;;1)! Schwarz, 7oberto! Misplace Ideas: Essays on Brazilian Culture! Ed! =ohn 9ledson! -ew >ork1 Merso, 1EE:! ---! " Master of the #eriphery of Capitalism! )rans! =ohn 9ledson! Burham, - 1 Buke 5', :;;1!

Seshadri- rooks, 6alpana! &,t the *argins o" 'ostcolonial Studies1 'art 1!& In The #re1 ,ccupation of #ostcolonial )tudies! Ed! %awzia ,"zal-6han and 6alpana Seshadri- rooks! Burham, - 1 Buke 5', :;;;1 .-:.! Smith, 'aul! Millennial (reams: Contemporary Culture and Capital in the 2orth! -ew >ork1 Merso, 1EED! 3illmott, 9lenn! & anadian 7essentiment!& 2e3 Literary History .:!1 (:;;1)1 1..-F/! 3orsely, 'eter! The Three -orlds: Culture and -orld (evelopment! hicago1 5 o" hicago ', 1ECI! http1NNwww!humanities!mcmaster!caNOszemanNilha!htm