Course specifications
Course Description:
The course introduces the students to the field of postcolonial studies and its leading figures. It primarily intends to examine the effects of colonization on formerly and currently colonised societies. The major areas of the course envelop power dynamics, colonial legacies, identity formation, cultural hybridity, diaspora and decolonization movements across disciplines, particularly history and literature.
Course Objectives: The major objectives of this modular course are:
- To get insights into the field of postcolonialism and its pioneering figures.
- To analyse critically the impact of colonialism on (previously and currently) colonized communities.
- To spot and critically analyse Eurocentric perspectives in today’s world.
- To apply the postcolonial theory in reading and analyzing literary texts.
Prerequisites: The students should have :
- General background on the history of Western colonialism and its impact on third world countries.
- General background on literary theory and criticism.
Course Programme (Outline):
1.Postcolonialism : An introduction
2.Major figures of the field
3.Postcolonial literary theory
4.Edward Said’s Orientalism
4.1. Theoretical influences on Said’s Orientalism
4.1.1. Michel Foucault
4.1.2. Erich Euerbach
4.1.3. Antonio Gramsci
5. Postcolonial literature
6. Postcolonial Criticism
7.Identity in postcolonial literature
8.The novel and colonialism
9.Language and colonialism
10.Magical Realism in postcolonial literature
11.Postcolonial Feminism
12.Feminist theory and Postcolonial criticism
Classroom Policies:
*Formal lecturing
* Extended presentations
Evaluation Method:
Written examination
Bibliography and Suggested Resources:
1. Achebe, Chinua . (1958). Things Fall Apart. London: Heinemann
2.Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin (eds) .Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies (London; New York, Routledge, 1998).
3.Anderson-Imbert, "'Magic Realism'in Spanish American Fiction," The International Fiction Review, 1, 1 (January 1975), 1-7
4.Bhabha, Homi, The Location of Culture (London; New York: Routledge, 1994).
5.Fanon, Frantz, The Wretched of the Earth. Trans Constance Farrington. (London: Penguin Classics, 2001).
6.Fanon, Frantz, Black Skin, White Masks. Trans Charles Lam Markmann. (London: Pluto Press, 1952).
7.Ghandi, Leela, Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998).
8. Hall, Stuart, and Paul du Gay, eds, Questions of Cultural Identity (London: Sage, 1996).
9. Holst Petersen, Kirsten and Anna Rutherford, A Double Colonization: Colonial and Post Colonial Women’s Writing (Mundelstrup, Denmark: Dangaroo Press, 1986).
10.Mohanty, Chandra Talpade et al. (eds) Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991).
11. Salman Rushdie. Midnight's Children. New York :Modern Library, 2003.
12. Said, Edward, Culture and Imperialism (London: Chatto and Windus, 1994)
13.Said, Edward, Orientalism (London: Penguin, 1978).
14. Wa Thiong’o, Ngũgĩ, Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers, 1981).
15. Loomba, Ania, Colonialism/Postcolonialism (London; New York: Routledge, 1998).
16.Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1988), pp. 271-313.
17. Young, Robert, Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction (Blackwell, 2002).