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Syllabus: INTL 62 / PoliSci 62, Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota, Spring 2000
Postcolonial Theory
Instructor:David Chioni Moore, International Studies and English
Class:Monday evenings, 7:00 - 10:00 pm, Carnegie 404
Office hours:Thursdays 11-12, 1-3, in Carnegie 303, and highly flexible by appointment
Contacts:office: 651-696-6242 email:
Description: One of this past (!) century’s most profound transformations was decolonization: the end of direct European rule over vast areas of the earth. The worlds of politico-cultural analysis have both contributed and responded to this transformation, producing a forceful body of writings we name colonial and post-colonial critique. This course examines key documents, questions, and themes in that vast body of writing.
Course Recommended For: sophomores and above who have already begun work in any of a range of disciplines (political science, history, literature, anthropology, etc.) in which colonial, post-colonial, and/or first/third world encounters are assessed.
Content: Moving roughly chronologically, we examine psychological issues, strategies of resistance, questions of “mimicry” and “Orientalism,” and three-worlds theory. In the closing weeks we look closely at anthropology, gender and feminist studies, the US, the former USSR, and also evaluate the growing institutionalization of post-colonial studies. Three novels will play an important role in the course.
Course Conduct: The class will be run as a seminar — that is, a joint exploration. Close reading and discussion of texts will be mixed with presentations by class members and the professor.
Evaluation:
Subscription to required
Three brief (2-page) papers 3 x 7% = 21%
Presentation of reading for one week of the class14%
Midterm paper of 7 pages 15%
Active and insightful class participation 20%
A longer (10-12 page) final paper30%
Notes: Timely class attendance is integral to the course and its grade. Let me know in advance of a conflict with any religious holidays, and/or any relevant disability issues. We’ll arrange acceptable alternatives and/or accomodations, and your grades will be unaffected.
Paper format: word-processed, double-spaced, numbered pages, stapled, 1” margins all around. A title page with a good title, and then your name, course title, my name, and date. Rich acknowlegements and works cited at the end of the paper. I assume your font gives you about 300 or so words per page. Late papers drop a half grade per day late. RTFM.
Postcolonial Digest subscriptions: send the one-line message “subscribe postcolonial-digest” (without quote-marks) to the email address
Schedule:
I. Basics:
1J31Introduction: housekeeping; aims and scope
2F7The Empire Writes Back
Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism (including interview), 1955
Frantz Fanon, from Black Skin, White Masks, 1952: “The Fact of Blackness”
3F14Fanon
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 1961 (read entire book except
for the “Spontaneity” chapter and four case-studies)
4F21Questions of Mimicry
James Ngugi, et al, “On the Abolition of the English Department,” 1968
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, “The Language of African Literature,” 1986
Derek Walcott, “The Caribbean: Culture or Mimicry?” 1974
5F28Literary Interlude I — Weapons of the Weak?
Ferdinand Oyono, Houseboy, 1956
II. Topics:
6M6Said’s Orientalism
Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 1978 — all chapters except as noted
(please obtain the 1994 edition, which contains an Afterword)
7M13The Challenge of Orientalism
Edward W. Said, the 1994 Afterword to his 1978 Orientalism, pp. 329-352
James Clifford, “On Orientalism,” 1980
Richard G. Fox, “East of Said,” 1993
M20Spring Break March 18-26 — no class.
8M27The Question of Anthropology
Talal Asad, Introduction to Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter, 1973
James Clifford, “On Ethnographic Authority,” 1983
Edward W. Said, “Representing the Colonized: Anthropology’s Interlocutors,” 1989
Michel-Rolph Trouillot, “Anthropology and the Savage Slot,” 1991
Midterm paper due Thursday, March 30th, at 3:00 p.m. under my office door
9A3Literary Interlude II:
V. S. Naipaul, Guerillas, 1975
III. Trajectories:
10A10Questions of Gender and Feminism
Buchi Emecheta, Kehinde, 1994
Geraldine Heng, “A Great Way to Fly,” 1997
Amina Mama, “Sheroes and Villains,” 1997
11A17Debates on Postcolonial Theory
Aijaz Ahmad, “Jameson’s Rhetoric of Otherness ...,” 1987
Ella Shohat, “Notes on the “Post-Colonial”,” 1992
Arif Dirlik, “The Postcolonial Aura,” 1994
12A24The United States and Beyond
Lawrence Buell, “American Literary Renaissance as a Postcolonial ...,” 1990
Jenny Sharpe, “Is the United States Postcolonial?” 1993
Percy Barnevik, “The Logic of Global Business,” Harvard Business Review, 1991
12M1Other Models/Beyond a Binary
Larry Wolff, “Voltaire’s Public and the Idea of Eastern Europe . . .,” 1995
Susan Layton, “19th Century Russian Mythologies of Caucasian Savagery,” 1997
D.C. Moore,“Atrocities in Bulgaria or the Congo . . . or Wherever,” 2000
13M8Final Paper Workshop
Our final class session will likely consist of discussion of detailed, pre-
circulated prospectuses of each student’s final paper projects.
Finals period, May 11-16.
Final course papers due Sunday, May 14, by 2 pm under my office door.
______
Course Books (in order of reading; to be purchased at the Hungry Mind):
1.Césaire, Aimé. Discourse on Colonialism [1955]. NY: Monthly Review Press, 1972.
2.Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth [1961]. Trans. Constance Farrington, Intr.
Jean-Paul Sartre. New York: Grove, 1968.
3.Oyono, Ferdinand. Houseboy [1956]. Trans. John Reed. Oxford: Heinemann, 1990.
4.Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon, 1978.
Be sure to purchase the edition with the 1994 “Afterword” on pages 329-352.
5.Naipaul, V.S.. Guerillas [1975]. New York: Vintage, 1990.
6.Emecheta, Buchi. Kehinde. London: Heinemann, 1994.
Plus an extensive coursepak to be purchased — contents page follows.
Students proficient in French are encouraged to read the following versions (on reserve):
1.Césaire, Aimé. Discours sur le colonialisme. Paris: Présence Africaine, 1955.
2.Oyono, Ferdinand. Une vie de boy. Paris: Julliard, 1960.
3.Fanon, Frantz. Selections from Peau noire, masques blancs. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1952.
4.Fanon, Frantz. Les damnés de la terre, Paris: François Maspero, 1961.
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Table of Contents
Coursepak for International Studies/Polisci 62, Postcolonial Theory, Spring 2000
(coursepak by Beckwith Copy; all permissions secured)
1.Fanon, Frantz. “The Fact of Blackness.” >From Black Skin White Masks, 1952
2.Ngugi wa Thiong’o. “On the Abolition of the English Department” [1968], 1972
3.Ngugi wa Thiong’o. “The Language of African Literature,” 1986
4.Walcott, Derek. “The Caribbean: Culture or Mimicry?” 1974
5.Clifford, James. “On Orientalism,” 1988
6.Fox, Richard G. “East of Said,” 1992
7.Asad, Talal. “Introduction” to Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter, 1973
8.James Clifford, “On Ethnographic Authority,” 1983
9.Said, Edward W. “Representing the Colonized: Anthropology’s Interlocutors,” 1989
10.Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. “Anthropology and the Savage Slot: the Poetics and Politics of Otherness,” 1991
11.Geraldine Heng, “ ‘A Great Way to Fly’: Nationalism, the State, and Varieties of Third-World Feminism,” 1997
12.Amina Mama, “Sheroes and Villains: Conceptualizing Colonial and Contemporary Violence Against Women in Africa,” 1997
13.Ahmad, Aijaz. “Jameson’s Rhetoric of Otherness and the ‘National Allegory’,” 1987
14.Shohat, Ella. “Notes on the “Post-Colonial”,” 1992
15.Dirlik, Arif. “The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global Capitalism,” 1994
16.Buell, Lawrence. “American Literary Renaissance as Postcolonial Phenomenon,” 1990
17.Sharpe, Jenny. “Is the United States Postcolonial?” 1993
18.Taylor, William. “The Logic of Global Business: An Interview with ABB’s Percy Barnevik,” Harvard Business Review, 1991
19.Wolff, Larry. “Voltaire’s Public and the Idea of Eastern Europe: Toward a Literary Sociology of a Continental Division,” 1995
20.Susan Layton, “Nineteenth Century Russian Mythologies of Caucasian Savagery,” 1997
21.Moore, David Chioni. “Atrocities in Bulgaria or the Congo of King Leopold or Wherever; or, Is the Post in Post-colonial the Post in Post-Soviet?”, draft, 1999
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Sources: Coursepak for International Studies 50, Postcolonial Theory
- Fanon, Frantz. “The Fact of Blackness.” Chapter Five of Black Skin White Masks [1952], pp. 109-140. Trans. Charles Lam Markmann. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1967.
- Ngugi wa Thiong’o. “On the Abolition of the English Department (1968),” from his Homecoming: Essays on African and Caribbean Literature, Culture and Politics. London, Ibadan, and Nairobi: Heinemann, 1972, pp. 145-150.
- Ngugi wa Thiong’o. “The Language of African Literature,” from his Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. London, Nairobi, Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1986. pp. 4-33.
- Walcott, Derek. “The Caribbean: Culture or Mimicry?” Journal of InterAmerican Studies and World Affairs 16 (1974): pp. 3-13.
- Clifford, James. “On Orientalism.” [Originally in History and Theory 19 (1980): pp. 204-223.] From his The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge: Harvard Univ Press, 1988, pp. 255-276.
- Fox, Richard G. “East of Said,” in Michael Sprinker, ed., Edward Said: A Critical Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992. pp. 144-156.
- Asad, Talal. “Introduction,” to his edited book Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter. London and Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Ithaca Press and Humanities Press, 1973, pp. 9-19.
- Clifford, James. “On Ethnographic Authority,” from his The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge: Harvard Univ Press, 1988, pp. 21-54.
- Said, Edward W. “Representing the Colonized: Anthropology’s Interlocutors.” Critical Inquiry 15 (1989): 205-225.
- Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. “Anthropology and the Savage Slot: the Poetics and Politics of Otherness.” In Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present, ed. Richard G. Fox. Santa Fe, New Mexico: School of American Research Press, 1991, pp. 17-44.
- Geraldine Heng. “ ‘A Great Way to Fly’: Nationalism, the State, and Varieties of Third-World Feminism.” In Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures. Ed. M. Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Talpade Mohanty. NY: Routledge, 1997, pp. 30-45.
- Amina Mama. “Sheroes and Villains: Conceptualizing Colonial and Contemporary Violence Against Women in Africa.” In Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures. Ed. M. Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Talpade Mohanty. NY: Routledge, 1997, pp. 46-62
- Ahmad, Aijaz. “Jameson’s Rhetoric of Otherness and the ‘National Allegory’.” Social Text 17 (Spring, 1987): pp. 3-25.
- Shohat, Ella. “Notes on the “Post-Colonial".” Social Text 31/32 (1992): 99-113.
- Dirlik, Arif. “The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global Capitalism.” Critical Inquiry 20.2 (Winter, 1994): 328-356.
- Buell, Lawrence. “American Literary Emergence as a Postcolonial Phenomenon.” American Literary History 4.3 (1992): 411-442.
- Sharpe, Jenny. “Is the United States Postcolonial? Transnationalism, Immigration, and Race.” Diaspora 4.2 (Fall,1995): 181-199.
- Taylor, William. “The Logic of Global Business: An Interview with ABB's Percy Barnevik.” Harvard Business Review March-April 1991: 91-105.
- Wolff, Larry. “Voltaire's Public and the Idea of Eastern Europe: Toward a Literary Sociology of Continental Division.” Slavic Review 54.4 (Winter,1995): 932-942.
- Susan Layton, “Nineteenth Century Russian Mythologies of Caucasian Savagery.” Russia’s Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700-1917. Ed. Daniel R. Brower and Edward J. Lazzerini. Bloomington: U of Indiana Press, 1997: 80-99.
- Moore, David Chioni. “Atrocities in Bulgaria or the Congo of King Leopold or Wherever; or, Is the Post in Post-colonial the Post in Post-Soviet?”, draft, 2000.
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POSTCOLONIAL THEORY
International Studies / Political Science 62
Macalester College, Spring 2000
Prof. David Chioni Moore
Coursepak prepared by Beckwith Copy, Edina & St. Paul, MN
all permissions secured
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Final Paper Assignment:
I.S. 50.01: Postcolonial Theory and Criticism
D. C. Moore, April 13, 2000
Length:Twelve (maximum fourteen) pages. Note format requirements on syllabus.
Due:Sunday, May 10, by 2 pm under my office door, Carnegie 303.
Theme:Seven choices.
Important Note: a one-page, single-spaced prospectus for your final paper will be due in class on Monday, April 27th. This prospectus should give a working title, describe the basic question to be addressed, the likely texts which will be mobilized, and a general sense of the intended flow of discussion. I will respond by email to these prospectuses within 24 hours, helping you hone your topic and your approach to it.
In the course of our semester, we have taken up many of the classic early statements of postcolonial theory, and then engaged numerous specific or more focused contemporary questions or themes within postcolonialist discourse. For the final paper, therefore, I wish to afford you some choice. Select one of the following five options:
1.Expand on your midterm (Edward Said in dialogue) paper, to a total length of 15-17 pages. Bring into consideration the texts from, and issues involved in (e.g. feminism, anthropology, etc.), at least two additional weeks of the course. I will expect that your midterm paper will serve more as the seed for, rather than the verbatim first seven pages of, the expanded final paper.
2.This question is for those with a particular affinity for a given place-time in the world. Choose some area of the world, or place in time, which we have not yet considered in our readings on postcolonial theory (e.g., not sub-Saharan Africa relative to Europe, not Australia, not Walcott’s Caribbean). Is it postcolonial? Why or why not? What gains in understanding can (or cannot) be made from application of this term to the place-time in question?
3.A more general question. What is at stake in the continual desire of scholars to expand the geographic (and, in some cases, temporal) range of what counts as “postcolonial”? Should criteria be set up to assess the validity of such extensions? If so, what should they be? And if not, then what does the term “postcolonial” designate?
4.The “Dirlik” or “globalization” question. Arif Dirlik suggests that postcolonial theory as currently constituted is inadequate for understanding the new world of late capitalism, flexible production, etc. Engineer an appropriate “postcolonial response” to the new world, drawing on but also transforming or extending the classic statements or considerations.
5.When does the post-colonial end? That is, when can a place or nation once rightly termed post-colonial begin no longer to term itself as such? Engage substantially with various of the course texts in your paper.
6.Practice vs. theory in postcolonial theory. In the course of our semester we have seen a shift from writing about colonialism (e.g. Césaire, Fanon), to writing about disciplines confronting colonialism (e.g. Asad), to writing about writing about post-colonial theory (e.g. Shohat, Dirlik). Or perhaps not. Sketch out a history, account, or critique of this development in the major texts.
7.Make me an offer. Does there exist a question or issue — theoretical or applied — that’s been sticking in your craw all semester, or has developed slowly as the course has developed, and now demands a response? If so, you may address this question, subject to topic approval and proposal review by the instructor, on/as your final paper.
Some general notes:
As before, careful planning, judicious quotation from the texts and then analysis of those quotations, and multiple drafts and rewriting will be central to your success.
For some of the topics, a certain amount of outside research will, of course, be required. However, this is not, repeat not a fully fledged “research paper.” Though appropriate amounts of outside information would need to be brought in to assess, for example, the postcolonial status of the moon after Neil Armstrong’s 1969 landing, major points will not be scored merely by the amassing of facts about this event.
Rather, what will be important here will be the various theoretical implications of the facts in question, and a working-through of our various complex course texts. To what extent do these “facts” benefit from the insights of our various theorists, and/or to what extent are our various theorists or theories challenged by the new facts or situations?
Remember that if you treat one of the fictional works we have grappled with this semester, it is improper to take the fictional characters only as “real.” In other words, while it may be useful to consider, say, Jimmie Blacksmith as an example of the situation of the in-betweener in turn-of-the-century Australia, it is alsoabsolutely incumbent upon you to understand that Jimmie is also a statement made in about 1970 by a white Australian writer. So, read not only Jimmie, but the configuration of Jimmie — how he is put together, what he may or may not represent. Likewise, attention to the form (style, voice, mood, rhetoric, etc.) of any of the texts you treat — in their overall guise and also in the individual passages you may work with — will also be important.
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