Rush to Judgment? Postcolonial Criticism and Quebec‪.‬

There is a commonly held view in Quebec studies today that postcolonial theory and postcolonial criticism are underused and underrepresented. Is this a bad thing? The underlying assumption is that the introduction of postcolonial theory and criticism to the field of Quebec Studies would be enabling--but of what, precisely? Of productive analyses and debates that have been impeded until now? Or of the very possibilities for deepening and broadening the study of Quebec as a legitimate matter of interest beyond its own borders? While disciplinary and institutional questions are necessarily imbricated, we should know better than to assume that the former necessarily dictate the latter. In fact, it could be argued that the reverse is true in this case, where there appears to be a certain urgency about fitting Quebec into the space of the post. In this essay I want to begin by addressing directly some of these institutional imperatives; then, to explore how responses to these imperatives may be overlooking the belated character of the demand that Quebec Studies "go postcolonial." I follow this with an exploration of how the debate over colonialism, democracy and relational aspects of identity has evolved most recently in Quebec and the possible convergences afforded by new understandings of these same issues in English Canada. Finally, I will return to the more circumscribed field of literary production and criticism to evaluate how these might fare in the new "order of postcolonial discourse" suggested by these convergences. Postcolonialism, la Francophonie, Quebec Studies: institutional considerations