The Voices of Silence: Postcolonial Feminisms

Abstract

Literature is the place where we forge our subjectivities and develop our knowledge of the world. However, as a privileged space, it is not available to all. Throughout the twentieth century, and from initially different premises and perspectives, two schools of thought have called for a change in the status quo in Human and Social Sciences in general, and in literary theory and criticism in particular: feminism and postcolonialism. If the postcolonial epistemological project consists in restoring ways of thinking and living that have been systematically denied by hegemonic discourses, the possibility of including a gender perspective in these readings arises naturally. This article aims at drafting a cartography of the main contributions of feminism and postcolonialism to literary theory and criticism.