Course Description
Embracing a comparative approach that begins by excavating the foundations of post colonial theory, this course analyzes cultural production emanating from or relating to three distinct geographic areas: Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. The course will explore the changing nature of the relationship between the periphery and the core of an increasingly globalized economy.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students will prepare for an academic conference
presentation; experiment, through practice and example, with
different pedagogical approaches; and write a 15- to 20-page
essay of publishable quality. Graduate students will meet as a
group with the instructor three or four times during the
semester.
Athena Title
Comp Postcolonial Studies
Semester Course Offered
Not offered on a regular basis.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
On a general level, students will learn both how post-colonial theory emerged at the end of the twentieth century and how the theory changed over the last several decades. Students will learn how to apply this theory to an array of cultural artifacts: novels, plays, poems, films, and musical productions. This will enable them to appreciate not only the effects of colonialism and neocolonialism on cultural production, but also the ways that particular forms encode, transmit, and question cultural values. In turn, students will better understand the global forces that shape our world and construct our identities.
Topical Outline
• Colonial Legacies: Michel de Montaigne, “Of Cannibals;” Bartolemé de Las Casas, The Devastation of the Indies • Transnational Shakespeare 1: William Shakespeare, The Tempest • Transnational Shakespeare 2: Aimé Cesaire, The Tempest; Roberto Retamar, Caliban; José Martí, “Our America” • Edward Said’s Orientalism: Post Colonialism’s Foundational Text? • Concept of Nation-State: National Liberation and State Theory • National Literatures and Caribbean Discourse: Édouard Glissant • Atlantic World and Latin America: Writings by Walter Gnolo, Edmundo O’Gorman, etc. • Problems and Pitfalls of Theory: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak; HomiK. Bhabha; Benita Parry; Anne McClintock • Colonial Condition: Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Mask; Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora” • Colonizer/Colonized: Albert Memmi; Frantz Fanon; Gillo Pontecorvo, The Battle of Algiers • Feminism and Post colonialism: Assia Djebar, So Vast a Prison; Sara Suleri; Chandra Mohandy • Language and Colonialism: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Decolonizing the Mind • Globalization and Claims of Postcoloniality: Simon Gikandi; Arjun Appadurai • Subaltern Studies: Dipesh Chakrabarty; Leila Ghandi; South Asian Theorists • Transnational Subjects 1: Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North • Transnational Subjects 2: No Violet Bulawayo, We Need New Names • Transnational Subjects 3: Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea
Syllabus