A Postcolonial Aesthetic Framework for Global Anglophone Narratives

Thesis Abstract

This study investigates how a postcolonial aesthetic framework can account for the affective and ethical dimensions of global Anglophone narratives, addressing gaps in existing models that treat postcolonial literature as primarily national or historical rather than transregional and stylistically entangled. The problem emerges from the fragmentation of comparative anglophone literatures into region-bound categories, which obscures how aesthetic strategies—narrative voice, metafiction, intertextuality, and form—mediate power relations, memory, and identity across diverse postcolonial contexts. The aim is to develop a cohesive aesthetic framework that integrates decolonial, posthuman, and mobility theories to interpret how form produces postcolonial critical knowledge in global Anglophone writing. Specific objectives are to (a) delineate an analytic repertoire of aesthetic modalities—voice modality, temporality, spatiality, and materiality—that recur across Anglophone texts from Africa, the Caribbean, South Asia, and the diaspora; (b) examine intertextual networks and polyphonic narration as mechanisms of ethical engagement with colonial histories; (c) test the framework against a curated corpus of 60 contemporary novels, short story cycles, and memoirs published between 1990 and 2024; (d) identify how transnational publication circuits and translation practices shape reception and interpretive communities; and (e) articulate prescriptive guidelines for applying the framework in literary criticism, pedagogy, and cultural policy discourse. A mixed-methods approach is employed. The research adopts a qualitative dominant design with thematic analysis as the core analytic technique, supplemented by corpus linguistics methods to quantify patterning across large textual datasets. The population comprises global Anglophone narrative corpora, with a purposive sample of 60 works selected for representativeness across regions, gender, and genre. Data collection involves in-depth textual analysis, author interviews (n=20) where possible, and metadata from publisher catalogs and translation records. Instruments include a coding schema for aesthetic modalities derived from an initial theoretical pilot study, an interview protocol oriented toward reception and interpretation, and a document checklist for publication and translation metadata. Validity and reliability are ensured through triangulation across textual analysis, author/critic interviews, and secondary reception data; intercoder reliability will be established via Cohen’s kappa on 15% of the coded corpus. Data analysis proceeds in three stages (i) deductive coding aligned with the proposed aesthetic modalities (voice, temporality, spatiality, materiality) and intertextual networks; (ii) inductive thematic synthesis to capture emergent motifs such as mobility, fragmentation, and posthuman subjectivities; and (iii) corpus-assisted analysis using concordance and collocation patterns to identify cross-cultural convergence and divergence in stylistic strategies. The analytical framework will be formalized into a Postcolonial Aesthetic Matrix (PAM) that integrates decolonial theory (e.g., Gloria Anzaldúa’s borderlands concepts and Walter Mignolo’s coloniality of knowledge), posthumanism (Donna Haraway; Rosi Braidotti), and mobility theory (Arjun Appadurai; Héctor Patricio). A conceptual model will map aesthetic modalities to ethical implications for readers, power critique, and knowledge production. Expected findings include (a) a robust typology of aesthetic modalities that recur across global Anglophone texts and correlate with ethical stances toward colonial legacies; (b) evidence that intertextual networks and polyphonic narration function as collective memory infrastructures enabling readers to renegotiate responsibility and historical accountability; (c) demonstration that mobility, translation, and publication circuits shape interpretive communities and can democratize or distort postcolonial critique; (d) identification of regional particularities and convergences in form that inform a transferable, cross-contextual framework for analysis and pedagogy. The study contributes to knowledge by operationalizing a transregional postcolonial aesthetic theory that foregrounds form as a site of knowledge production, expands methodological tools for literary analysis through the PAM, and offers a replicable analytic template for scholars examining globalization and postcoloniality in literature. The conclusion asserts that a postcolonial aesthetic framework can coherently explain how global Anglophone narratives negotiate power, memory, and ethical responsibility through distinctive yet interconnected stylistic strategies, and recommends integrating PAM in graduate curricula, translation studies, and cross-cultural literary criticism to foster more nuanced, globally aware readings.