The evolution of Commonwealth, postcolonial, and decolonial scholarship: Tracing the impact of field transformation on the Journal of Commonwealth Literature and vice versa

Abstract

This article explores the title change from the Journal of Commonwealth Literature ( JCL) to Literature, Critique, and Empire Today using a tripartite structure. We are the journal’s most recent ex-editors, and so the article is the culmination of about 15 years of thinking on these and related matters. In the essay’s first part, we interrogate the limitations of the term “Commonwealth” across the axes of global geopolitics as well as literature, in order to draw out some common threads within and beyond postcolonial studies. The second section thinks through the journal’s role in shaping postcolonial studies over time. Changes have been wrought in response to literary-critical and political concerns, as well as amid the self-transformation the journal has undergone over the past decade so as to open itself up to more diverse perspectives. Finally, we analyse the likely impact of the journal’s altered title for both registering and challenging understandings in its field. We hope that the article constitutes a thought-provoking exploration of the journal’s present and future avenues, and the knock-on effects this will have for postcolonial, world, and decolonial literary studies more broadly.