Introduction: What postcolonial theory doesn't say

The chapters that make up the contents of this book first came together as papers presented at a 2010 conference with the same title at the University of York. As organizers, we were careful in the ways in which we shaped the panels, which featured an eclectic range of topics, from screening the conflict in Afghanistan and the contemporary Nigerian novel to questions of world ecologies and human-rights ethics, as well as the usual investigations of the "epistemological crisis" surrounding the subject area that always populate large gatherings debating any aspect of the nature of postcolonial studies. Our initial aim was to examine the points of interaction between these different specific critical inquiries and to ask what might be theoretical in the ideas that underpin them. Developing this line of questioning, we wanted to assess the theoretical articulations of these interdisciplinary projects, to see how they say what they say and whether it is what scholars in the field would like to hear said. How, we asked, might the field's cultural and institutional capital best be put to use in an investigation of its theoretical foundations?.