Priyamvada Gopal
DECOLONIZATION AND THE UNIVERSITY
29 September 2021
In this Theory from the Margins event, we engage with Prof Priyamvada Gopal’s about her recent article ‘On Decolonisation and the University’, Textual Practice 35 (6) 2021. In this article, Gopal takes issue with certain strands of decolonial thinking, arguing instead for a revival of anti-colonial thinking inspired by classical anti-colonial thinkers such as Frantz Fanon.
Rated as one of the world’s ‘top ten thinkers’ by Prospect Magazine in the UK in 2021, Priyamvada Gopal is Professor of Postcolonial Studies in the Faculty of English at Cambridge University in the UK. Born in Delhi, India, Gopal was educated at the University of Dehli and the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) before moving to the USA to pursue a PhD in Postcolonial Literature at Cornell University. Among her books are Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent (Verso, 2020) – which was shortlisted for the 2020 Nayef al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding , The Indian English Novel: Nation, History and Narration (Oxford University Press, 2009) and Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation and the Transition to Independence (Routledge, 2005). A trenchant critic of colonialism and post-imperial historical amnesia about colonialism, Gopal is also a public intellectual and a regular contributor to The Guardian UK, The Nation, The Hindu, Open Democracy, al-Jazeera English and numerous other publications.