Universität Wien
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135032 PS Literary Theory (PS): Postcolonial Literary Theory (2023W)

5.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 13 - Europäische und Vergleichende Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft
Continuous assessment of course work

Es findet ein begleitendes Tutorium statt.
Moodle

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 25 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

  • Monday 02.10. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 09.10. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 16.10. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 23.10. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 30.10. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 06.11. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 13.11. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 20.11. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 27.11. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 04.12. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 11.12. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 08.01. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 15.01. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 22.01. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 29.01. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

Content (Inhalt): Postcolonial literary theory, which developed in the 1980s, has been central in transforming comparative literature studies from a Eurocentric to a more global discipline. By contributing new methods and instruments to Comparative Literature, it has not only expanded comparative opportunities but also re-framed the questions around which literature is discussed, redefining identity, literariness, and inter-literary relations. Its focus on social relations, cultural exchanges, economies of knowledge and power, which emerged from the experience of the colonial and postcolonial citizen, has changed the way we read literature and other cultural expressions. Through a close reading of literary and visual texts (films, images), the course will study colonialism as a textual enterprise of domination and postcolonialism as a new discursive practice of speaking about these phenomena. It introduces the most representative English-language postcolonial writers and theorists from Africa, East Asia, the Caribbean, United States and Britain, showing how literary texts have been the source of postcolonial literary theory. In addition, we will look at how postcolonial theory has been adopted for theorizing postcommunist contexts and how this has given rise to new concepts. The texts will be used as the basis for the explication of key terms of postcolonial theory such as “hybridity”, “otherness”, “linguistic appropriation”, “mimicry”, “ambivalence”, “self-colonization”, “dislocation”, “minority and subaltern cultures”, “orientalization”, “transnationalism”. The texts are roughly chronologically subdivided into these topics: imperial (colonial) writing, anti-colonial discourses, racial discourses, theorizations of linguistic resistance, postcolonial historical revisionism, feminism and postcolonialism, hybrid identities, migrancy and displacement, neo-colonialism and globalization.

Goals (Ziele):
• identify, analyse and understand the key aspects, contexts and the practice of postcolonial literary theory
• apply close reading skills and critical thinking to a variety of literary texts
• reflect critically on the relations between primary texts and relevant secondary texts
• discriminate between ideas and justify personal positions
• produce well-structured, relevant arguments with an appropriate intellectual framework

Assessment and permitted materials

-homework- 5 short response essays on weekly topics, app. 600 words each (20%)
-participation in class discussion (10%)
-oral presentation and leading discussion (20%)
-seminar paper, 3500 words (50%)

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

minimum requirements:
-regular attendance
-participation in class
-submitting homework essays on time
-5 short response essays (20%)
-oral presentation and discussion leading (20%)
-seminar paper (50%). Topics will be given to choose from. Minimum requirements and assessment criteria for the final essay:

1) Contents (in particular detection of the central points; clear formulation, structure and organization of the argument, supported with evidence from primary and secondary sources; the ability to read text closely and interpret both form, content and context; the ability to reflect critically on the relations between primary and relevant secondary texts, instead of just citing secondary texts as a source of authority and interpretation; correctness of methodology; originality; creativity 60%

2) Format (esp. layout, formatting, and citation practice): 20%

3) Language (particularly scholarly terminology and correct use of technical terms; clear and understandable language; correct spelling, grammar, and sentence composition; style): 20%

In all three areas at least 50% of the points must be achieved in order to obtain credit. The mark breakdown is as follows:

(1) 90-100 %
(2) 80-89 %
(3) 65-79 %
(4) 50-64 %
(5) 49 -0 %

Examination topics

colonial and anti-colonial discourses
orientalism
postcolonial re-reading of imperial writing
writing back to the centre
re-reading and re-writing English literature
neocolonialism and globalization in literature

Reading list

Primary literature:
Rudyard Kipling, Kim (1901)
Jamaica Kincaid, “On Seeing England for the First Time” (1991)
Chinua Achebe, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” (1977)
Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place (1988)
Jamaica Kincaid, Annie John (1985)
Karen Blixen, Out of Africa (1937) (pp. 32-42 and 269-271)
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, “Her Cook, Her Dog: Karen Blixen’s Africa” (1993)
Salman Rushdie, “The Empire Writes Back with a Vengeance”(1982)
P. L. Travers, Mary Poppins (1934)
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1814)
William Shakespeare, The Tempest (1610-1611)
Michel de Montaigne, Of Cannibals (1580)
Aimé Césaire, Une Tempête (1968)
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719)
J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan; Or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up (1904)

Secondary literature:
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back (1989)
John McLeod, Beginning Postcolonialism (2000)
Peter Barry, Beginning Theory (1995)
Edward Said, Orientalism (1978)
Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (1990)
Justin Edwards, Postcolonial Literature (2008)
Peter Childs, Postcolonial Theory and English Literature (1999)

Films:
Kim (1950)
Mansfield Park (1999), dir. Patricia Rozema
The Tempest (2010), dir. Julie Taymor
Peter Pan (1953)

Association in the course directory

BA M3

Last modified: We 03.07.2024 15:05