In brief: Olson challenges the notion that there can be no such thing as ethics in a postmodern age, writing that ethics "is the encounter with the Other." Juxtaposing contact zone theory and postcolonialism, Olson posits that "postcolonial theory, given its rigorous concern with encounters with the Other, can reinvigorate our theorizing of contact zones as well as present substantive implications generally for composition theory and pedagogy."