Universität Wien
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135053 PS PS Social history of literature: Introduction to Postcolonial Literature and Theory (2020W)

5.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 13 - Europäische und Vergleichende Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft
Continuous assessment of course work
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. 14 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

This course will be held in presence, as far as hygienic regulations allow.

  • Monday 05.10. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 12.10. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 19.10. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 09.11. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 16.11. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 23.11. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 30.11. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 07.12. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 14.12. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 11.01. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 18.01. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 25.01. 15:15 - 16:45 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

CONTENT: Postcolonial 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. Rather than being an abstract theory, it is a dynamic discourse that emerged from the cultural and social experience of the colonial and postcolonial citizen. Through a close reading of literary texts, the course will study colonial discourse as a textual enterprise of domination and postcolonial discourse as a form of resistance against the Eurocentric assumptions of English literature and culture. It introduces the most representative English-language postcolonial authors from Africa, East Asia, the Caribbean, United States and Britain, focusing mainly on short stories and biographical essays. Literary texts will be used as the basis for the explication of key terms of postcolonial theory such as “colonial discourse”, “anti-colonial resistance”, “hybridity”, “otherness”, “linguistic appropriation” and “mimicry”. 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.
AIMS:
• identify, analyse and understand the key philosophical, historical, political and aesthetic issues of postcolonial literature
• 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

METHOD: Discussion, mini-lecture, student presentation

In case of a new wave of Covid-19 pandemic, I will hold online seminars through video-conference program.

Assessment and permitted materials

-participation and homework (30%)
-oral presentation (20%)
-EXAM (50%) on January 25
OR
-argumentative essay, 3500-4000 words (50%) to be submitted by end of March
Expected participation in class: 3 absences allowed
Expected homework: at least 6 short essays on weekly topics, app. 500-600 words
The exam will include short essay questions. Minimum requirement 50% correct answers.

The final essay should analyze at least one work (novel, play, or at least 3 short stories). You will be given a list of app. 12 essay topics to choose from. The final essay is not just a summary of what was said in the lecture. It should show your own approach to a primary work and bring original observations and/or opinions.

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

-participation and homework (30%)
-oral presentation (20%)
-EXAM (50%)
OR
-argumentative essay, 3500-4000 words (50%)
Expected participation in class: 3 absences allowed
Expected homework: at least 6 short essays on weekly topics, app. 500-600 words

The exam will include short essay questions. Minimum requirement 50% correct answers.

The final essay should analyze at least one work (novel, play, or at least 3 short stories). You will be given a list of app. 12 essay topics to choose from. The final essay is not just a summary of what was said in the lecture. It should show your own approach to a primary work and bring original observations and/or opinions.

In case of a new wave of Covid-19 pandemic, exam will be taken online.

Examination topics

-colonial and anti-colonial discourses
-postcolonial discourses
-hybridity, mimicry and migrant identities
-subalternity
-race and racism
-re-writing history and writing back
-language of anti-colonial and postcolonial writing
-anti-colonialism and feminism
-postcolonialism and feminism
-neocolonialism and globalization

Reading list

1: COLONIALISM AND ANTI-COLONIALISM

Week 1 Introduction (October 5)

Week 2 Colonial and anti-colonial discourses (October 12)
H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon’s Mines (1885) - excerpt
Karen Blixen, Out of Africa (1937) (pp. 32-42 and 254-255 and 269-271)
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, “Her Cook, Her Dog: Karen Blixen’s Africa” (1993)

Week 3 Colonial and anti-colonial discourses (October 19)
“Negro” from Enlightenment Encyclopedia (18th century)
George Orwell, “Shooting an Elephant” (1936)
Doris Lessing, “The Old Chief Mshlanga” (1951)

Background reading:
Justin Edwards, Postcolonial Literature. Introduction.

2: POSTCOLONIALISM

Week 4 What are postcolonial literatures? (November 9)
Jamaica Kincaid, “On Seeing England for the First Time” (1991)
Ama Ata Aidoo, “Maleing Names in the Sun” from The Girl Who Can and Other Stories (1997)
Salman Rushdie, “The Empire Writes Back with a Vengeance” The Times, July 3, 1982

Background reading:
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, Introduction, from The Empire Writes Back (1989)
John McLeod, Chapter 1 in Beginning Postcolonialism (2000)

Week 5 Re-placing language (November 16)
Ken Saro-Wiwa, Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English (1985) – excerpt
Gabriel Okara, The Voice (1964) – excerpt

Background reading:
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, Chapter 2 from The Empire Writes Back (1989)
Justin Edwards, Postcolonial Literature. Chapter 3: Language

Week 6 Re-writing history and writing back: Caribbean contexts (November 23)
Jamaica Kincaid, Annie John (1986) – excerpt
V.S. Naipaul, “Columbus and Crusoe” (1967)

Background reading:
C. L. Innes, Chapter 3: “Alternative Histories and Writing Back” in The Cambridge Introduction to Postcolonial Literatures in English (2007)

Week 7 Postcolonial hybridity, modernity and authenticity (November 30)
Jamaica Kincaid, Annie John (1986) – excerpt
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “African ‘authenticity’ and the Biafran experience” (2008)

Background reading:
Justin Edwards, Postcolonial Literature. Chapter 13: Hybridity
John McLeod, Beginning Postcolonialism (2000), 216-221.
Week 8 Theorizing race in postcolonialism (December 7)
Frantz Fanon, “The Fact of Blackness”, from Black Skin, White Masks (1952), pp. 1-6.
Dambudzo Marechera, “Black Skin What Mask” from The House of Hunger (1978)
Chinelo Okparanta, “Fairness” from Happiness, Like Water (2013)
Photo essay: Oxford students protest against stereotypes: http://itooamoxford.tumblr.com/

Background reading:
John McLeod, Beginning Postcolonialism (2000), pp. 110-120.
Homi Bhabha, “The Other Question: stereotype, discrimination and the discourse of colonialism”, The Location of Culture (1994), pp. 94-120.

Week 9 Postcolonialism and feminism (December 14)
Ama Ata Aidoo, Changes (1991) - excerpt
June Eric Udorie, “Can We All Be Feminists”? (2018)

Background reading:
John McLeod, Chapter 6, “Postcolonialism and Feminism” in Beginning Postcolonialism (2000)

Week 10 Theorizing language (January 11)
Chinua Achebe, “The African Writer and the English Language” (1965) from Morning Yet on Creation Day (1975)
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, “The Language in African Literature” from Decolonising the Mind (1986)
Chinua Achebe, “Politics and Politicians of Language in African Literature”, from Education of a British-Protected Child (2009)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie interview by Ada Azodo, 2007

Background reading:
John McLeod, Beginning Postcolonialism (2000), pp. 122-129.
Justin Edwards, Postcolonial Literature. Chapter 13: Hybridity

Week 11 Re-writing the world: neocolonialism and globalization (January 18)
Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place (1988)

Background reading:
Justin Edwards, Postcolonial Literature (2008), Chapters 7 (Travel) and 15 (Globalization)

Association in the course directory

BA M5

Last modified: Th 04.07.2024 00:13