Postcolonial Literature in English: (Literature of Africa, India, and the Caribbean)

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Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. [. . .]
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? (W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming” 1919)

Crick? Crack!
I’m going to tell you a story
Let’s hear it!
It’s full of lies...
Is it?
But there’s truth in it.
Good! … (Crick/Crack Club website http://www.crickcrackclub.com/CRICRACK/ARTF.HTM)

Course Description

This course addresses the cultural and literary intersections between the postmodern and the postcolonial. The two themes will be studied for the often contradictory, and always plural ways in which they characterize the cultures of contemporaneity. Several kinds of tension and overlap between the two will be examined: their resistance to the monologic meta-narratives of modernism and realism (in the arts), and orientalism (in cultural anthropology), colonialism and racism (in geopolitical history), fundamentalism and nativism (in terms of collective identity) and patriarchy (in gender relations); their celebration of dialogic marginality and intertexuality; their recuperation of the mixed modes of hybridity, parody, fantasy and allegory; their convergence and collision over poststructuralist themes; and their self-definition through the nomadic, the diasporic, and the exile. |

We will read books and watch films from Africa, the Caribbean and India. We will also study literary theory that surrounds the fictional texts.

Textbooks
Patrick Williams & Laura Chisman, eds.: Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader
Mbuelo, Mzamane. Children of Soweto. 1982.
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Editor. The Slate of Life. 1994
Dennis Walder: Post-Colonial Literatures in English: History, Language, Theory
Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart 1958
Derek Walcott: Collected Poems 1948-1984
Jamaica Kincaid: Lucy 1990
R. K. Narayan: Vendor of Sweets 1967
Salman Rushdie: Midnight’s Children 1981
Films:
Sarafina! (1992)
Rue cases nègres (1983)
Masala! (1991)

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January
12 Course introduction.
African Literature
14 Négritude & Modern African Literature: Williams & Chrisman 1-52 (Introduction, Senghor: "Negritude: A Humanism of the Twentieth Century," Frantz Fanon: "On National Culture)
19 Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart, Walder: 1-19 ("Introducing the Post-Colonial"); Williams & Chrisman, 428-434 (Achebe: "The African Writer and the English Language")
21 Children of Soweto
26 : Children of Soweto (cont); Williams & Chrisman: 244-256 (Suleri: "Woman Skin Deep: Feminism and the Postcolonial Condition")
28 Film: Sarafina! (1992)
February
2 Film: Sarafina! Walder: 42-83 ("Language" & "Theory")
Research paper proposals and annotated bibliography due.
4 *Williams & Chrisman, 66-111: Spivak: "Can the Subaltern Speak?"
9 Wole Soyinka: Wole Soyinka: The Lion and the Jewel and Madmen and Specialists
Caribbean Literature
11 Condé I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem
16 I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem (cont)
18 Film: Rue cases nègres (1983)
23 Film: Rue cases nègres (cont)
25 Scarboro, Ann Armstrong. “A Shift Toward the Inner Voice and Creolite in the French
Caribbean Novel.” Callaloo 15:1 (1992) 12-29.
2 Mid-term examination
4 Walder: 116-151 (“Caribbean and Black British Poetry"); *
9 Jamaica Kincaid: Lucy
11 *Jamaica Kincaid: Lucy (cont)
Indian Literature
23 *Williams & Chrisman: 132-171 (Said: "From Orientalism," Porter: "Orientalism and Its Problems, Ahmad: "Orientalism and After")
25 *Rushdie: Midnight’s Children
30 *Rushdie: Midnight’s Children (cont)
April
1 *Rushdie: Midnight’s Children (cont)
Watch the video, while you also examine the whole website:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/portraits_rushdie.html
6 *R. K. Narayan: Vendor of Sweets; Walder: 87-115 ("Indo-Anglian Fiction, Narayan and Sahgal")
8 *Walder: 189-209 ("After Post-Colonialism"), Williams & Chrisman: 305-323 (Loomba: "Overworlding the "Third World").
13 Film: Masala! (1991)
16 Film: Masala! (1991)
All research papers due. No extensions!
20 Oral Presentations of research papers
22 Oral Presentations of research papers
27 Oral Presentations of research papers
29 Oral Presentations of research papers
Final examination: TBA

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Books on reserve (3-day checkout):
Achebe, Chinua: Things Fall Apart PR9387.9.A3 T5 1996
Afzal-Khan, Fawsia, Cultural Imperialism and the Indo-English Novel: Genre and Ideology in R. K. Narayan, Anita Desai, Kamala Markandaya, and Salman Rushdie (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993).
Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, & Helen Tiffin, eds.: The Post-Colonial Studies Reader PR9080 .P57 1995
Ashcroft, Bill: The Empire Writes Back PR9080 .A93x 1989
Bahri, Deepika & Mary Vasudeva: Between the Lines: South Asians and Postcoloniality E184.S69 B48 1996
Barker, Francis, Peter Hulme & Margaret Iversen: Colonial Discourse, Postcolonial Theory PN56.C63 C65 1994
Boehmer, Elleke: Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors PR9080 .B64 1995
Childs, Peter & R. J. Patrick Williams: An Introduction to Post-Colonial Theory JV51 .C48 1997
Emecheta, Buchi: The Joys of Motherhood PR9387.9.E36 J6x 1979b
Gandhi, Leela: Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction JV51 .G36 1998
Gordimer, Nadine: Selected Stories PR6057.O63 S4 1975
Kincaid, Jamaica: A Small Place PR9275.A583 K5637 1988
Mohanram, Radhika & Gita Rajan: English Postcoloniality: Literatures from Around the World PR9080 .E55 1996
Mongia, Padmini: Contemporary Postcolonial Theory: A Reader PN771 .C595 1996
Moore-Gilbert, Bart, Gareth Stanton, et al.: Postcolonial Criticism PN94 .P65 1997
Moore-Gilbert, Bart: Postcolonial Theory: Contexts, Practices, Politics JV51 .M65 1997
Narayan, R. K.: The Painter of Signs PR9499.3.N3 P35
Rajan, Gita and Radhika Mohanram, eds.: Postcolonial Discourse and Changing Cultural Contexts: Theory and Criticism PN56.C63 P67 1995
Soyinka, Wole Collected Plays 2 PR9387.9 .S6 1973 v. 2
Walcott, Derek: Collected Poems 1948-1984 PR9272.9.W3 A17 1986
Walder, Dennis: Post-Colonial Literatures in English: History, Language, Theory PR9080 .W25 1998
Williams, Patrick & Laura Chisman, eds.: Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader JV51 .C73 1993