In Search of a New Cognitive Schema: Unsettling Colonial Epistemologies in Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return

In this paper, I argue that Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging“ unsettles the epistemic foundations of the (Post-)Colonial Anthropocene, which prioritize linearity, binarity, and purported objectivity. Dominant contemporary epistemologies, as Sylvia Wynter has demonst...

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Main Author: Deborah Pomeranz
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Regensburg: Current objectives in postgraduate American studies c/o Universität Regensburg/Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 2021-06-01
Series:Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies
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Online Access:https://copas.uni-regensburg.de/index.php/copas/article/view/341
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author Deborah Pomeranz
author_facet Deborah Pomeranz
author_sort Deborah Pomeranz
collection DOAJ
description In this paper, I argue that Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging“ unsettles the epistemic foundations of the (Post-)Colonial Anthropocene, which prioritize linearity, binarity, and purported objectivity. Dominant contemporary epistemologies, as Sylvia Wynter has demonstrated, race and gender legitimate knowledge production as the preserve of Man, to the exclusion of human and non-human others. Instead, writing towards the multipolarity and -modality of the Door of No Return, Brand posits and practices, through both form and content, an anti-colonial epistemology, in which temporality and spatiality are recursive and knowledge is embodied and pluriversal.
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publisher Regensburg: Current objectives in postgraduate American studies c/o Universität Regensburg/Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik
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spelling doaj-art-39760fc1bb304081b04ccd9cc9f43ed32024-11-14T19:51:23ZengRegensburg: Current objectives in postgraduate American studies c/o Universität Regensburg/Institut für Anglistik und AmerikanistikCurrent Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies1861-61272021-06-0122110.5283/copas.341In Search of a New Cognitive Schema: Unsettling Colonial Epistemologies in Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No ReturnDeborah Pomeranz In this paper, I argue that Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging“ unsettles the epistemic foundations of the (Post-)Colonial Anthropocene, which prioritize linearity, binarity, and purported objectivity. Dominant contemporary epistemologies, as Sylvia Wynter has demonstrated, race and gender legitimate knowledge production as the preserve of Man, to the exclusion of human and non-human others. Instead, writing towards the multipolarity and -modality of the Door of No Return, Brand posits and practices, through both form and content, an anti-colonial epistemology, in which temporality and spatiality are recursive and knowledge is embodied and pluriversal. https://copas.uni-regensburg.de/index.php/copas/article/view/341Dionne BrandepistemologyPostcolonial StudiesBlack Diaspora Studies
spellingShingle Deborah Pomeranz
In Search of a New Cognitive Schema: Unsettling Colonial Epistemologies in Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return
Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies
Dionne Brand
epistemology
Postcolonial Studies
Black Diaspora Studies
title In Search of a New Cognitive Schema: Unsettling Colonial Epistemologies in Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return
title_full In Search of a New Cognitive Schema: Unsettling Colonial Epistemologies in Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return
title_fullStr In Search of a New Cognitive Schema: Unsettling Colonial Epistemologies in Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return
title_full_unstemmed In Search of a New Cognitive Schema: Unsettling Colonial Epistemologies in Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return
title_short In Search of a New Cognitive Schema: Unsettling Colonial Epistemologies in Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return
title_sort in search of a new cognitive schema unsettling colonial epistemologies in dionne brand s a map to the door of no return
topic Dionne Brand
epistemology
Postcolonial Studies
Black Diaspora Studies
url https://copas.uni-regensburg.de/index.php/copas/article/view/341
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