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Connected to the question of nationalistic and identitarian assertions versus the other-regarding 'worlding' of literary-critical praxis is the question of the Global South – questions more specifically connected to colonialism, postcolonial discourse, and new-imperialism. To what extent can postcolonialism offer a suitable methodological toolkit for studying literature today? Conversely, what are some of the current discontents with postcolonialism, arising particularly from emerging insights into colonialism and literary production from the Global South? To answer these questions, this lecture probes into the different strands of recent critiques of postcolonialism as an adequate method of literary criticism. It also focuses on one of the primary research outputs of the current lecturer, which has been in the area of 'polycoloniality', or the multiple and productive strands of networked and mutually competitive colonial processes, which have always been multinational rather than mononational – with there being colonial efforts in South Asia, for instance, not just by the English (as is often presumed) but by the Portuguese, Dutch, French, Danish, 'Germans', etc, too. This lecture examines this further, particularly in relation to France's involvement in colonial projects in South Asia.

In this article, Sylvie Maurel analyses the Gothic destabilizing machinery at work in Jean Rhys’s "Wide Sargasso Sea". The first Gothic element the author looks at is the demonic agency that haunts the novel. Colonial history lingers in Rhys’s world and accounts for some of the strange and unexpected phenomena that occur on the island. Actually, the narrative is under the double influence of a past set in an actual history of slavery and a future already written in the story of "Jane Eyre". Rhys’s characters have an uncanny prescience of what lies ahead and a sense that they cannot evade repetition. The motif of witchcraft is another element that links "WSS" to the Gothic. The motif goes beyond a picturesque reference to the West Indian context and functions as a metaphor of the relationship between language and power. Christophine’s witchcraft and Rochester’s Eurocentric discourse are two similar attempts at transforming the world through language. The power of language is also reflected in the way the novel constantly brings together multiple voices and conflicting views which seem to hide a secret rather than reveal a final truth. Rochester can only feel the presence of such a secret and risks delirium as he tries to get a grip on something that constantly eludes him.