Universität Wien
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135054 PS Social History of Literature (PS): Postcolonial Con-Texts: Writing Back to the Canon (2020S)

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. 25 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

  • Monday 09.03. 15:00 - 16:30 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 16.03. 15:00 - 16:30 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 23.03. 15:00 - 16:30 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 30.03. 15:00 - 16:30 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 20.04. 15:00 - 16:30 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 27.04. 15:00 - 16:30 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 04.05. 15:00 - 16:30 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 11.05. 15:00 - 16:30 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 18.05. 15:00 - 16:30 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 25.05. 15:00 - 16:30 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 08.06. 15:00 - 16:30 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 15.06. 15:00 - 16:30 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 22.06. 15:00 - 16:30 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG
  • Monday 29.06. 15:00 - 16:30 Seminarraum 8 Sensengasse 3a 5.OG

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

The re-reading and re-writing of the English “classic” texts in the 20th century became a way for the formerly colonized to resist or challenge a Eurocentric vision of the world that represented colonized peoples and cultures as marginal, inferior and dependent on the European cultures. This “writing back”, “counter-discourse” or “con-texts” contest the authority of the English canon as well as the whole discursive field within which these texts operated and continue to operate in the postcolonial world. It involves the abrogation of the imperial centre within the text and the active appropriation of the language and culture of that centre. Hence, dominated literatures are characterized by subversion, hybridity and syncreticity: the language and culture of the colonizer are appropriated and used against the colonizer as an instrument of subversion and resistance to assert the value of own culture and identity.
Over the last 30 years, the study of postcolonial rewritings of the English canon has attracted considerable attention. This course will focus on the most famous examples, attempting to survey some of the distinctive characteristics of such writing.

Assessment and permitted materials

Final essay, 3500 words

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

• identify, analyse and understand key philosophical, historical, social and aesthetic issues of postcolonial literature
• analyse key postcolonial works in terms of their social, historical, philosophical, and aesthetic significance
• apply close reading skills 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

Examination topics

Essay topics will be given mid-semester. All topics reflect course readings.

Reading list

Primary:
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1958) and “Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” (1977)
Charlotte Brönte, Jane Eyre (1847)
Aimé Césaire, Une Tempête (1968)
J. M. Coetzee, Foe (1986)
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899)
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719)
William Shakespeare, The Tempest (1610-1611)
Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)

Secondary:
Ashcroft, Bill et. al., The Empire Writes Back. Routledge, 1989, 2002.
McLeod, John. Beginning Postcolonialism. Manchester University Press, 2000.
Tiffin, Helen. “Post-Colonial Literatures and Counter-Discourse.” Kunapipi 9(3), 1987)
Said, Edward. Orientalism. London: Keegan & Paul, 1978.

Association in the course directory

BA M5

Last modified: Th 04.07.2024 00:13