2015/08/06 by John McLeod · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Australian History and Society #Colonialism #Commonwealth #Commonwealth, Australian Politics and Federalism #Context (archaeology) #Criticism #Discipline #Generosity #History #Law #Political science #Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies #Postcolonial literature #Social science #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1177/0021989415594653
published in The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 50(3), 282-296 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2015/08/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
This article looks back across the development of the Journal of Commonwealth Literature in the 1970s and considers its evolution in the context of the wider disciplinary shift from Commonwealth Literature to postcolonial studies. It argues that the editorial generosity and wisdom of editor Arthur Ravenscroft empowered important opportunities of critique for contributors, some of whom anticipated the subsequent concerns of postcolonial thought in contending with the predominant Leavisite paradigms of Commonwealth literary criticism and arguing for a politicized, provincializing new mode of critical activity. In reviewing the journal in the 1970s, we might note that the shift from Commonwealth to postcolonial was more organic and transitional than is sometimes claimed.