ENGLISH 244
THE EMPIRE WRITES BACK: POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURES
Professor Elizabeth R. Baer
Gustavus Adolphus College Office Hours: M 2-4
Spring Term 2004 Confer 327 x7324
Designated Tutor: Amanda Parker ebaer@gac.edu
aparker@gac.edu
“To read a text in its historical, social and cultural contexts is to attend
to the ways it dynamically deals with the issues it raises. And in a colonial context, it is also perhaps to refute the dominant way of teaching literature as expressing lasting moral truths contradictorily deemed at once timeless
yet specifically characteristic of the colonising nation.” John McLeod
This course will be a broad survey of what has come to be called ""Postcolonial literature" i.e. literature written in English by peoples who have been dominated and marginalized by cultural imperialism, ethnocentrism, racism, and colonialism. Texts include postcolonial theory, personal narratives, drama, fiction, film, as well as canonical English literature interrogated through a postcolonial lens. We will explore the complex relationship between texts and their social context as well as such themes as identity and community, gender, migration, hybridity, and the colonized mind and self-determination.
This class meets Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:30-3:00 in Vickner 304, with occasional evening screenings of films. English 244 carries W credit as well as general education area GN credit; it also counts toward the English major for which it fulfills a genre requirement.
COURSE TEXTS:
Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre
E.M. Forster A Passage to India
Brian Friel “Translations”
Jamaica Kincaid A Small Place
Jhumpa Lahiri Interpreter of Maladies
John McLeod Beginning Postcolonialism
Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things
Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso Sea
Zadie Smith White Teeth
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
+ to read and analyze a number of postcolonial texts
+ to study postcolonial theory
+ to explore the connections between history, place, social context and literary text
+ to discuss and write about the power of texts to define and address oppression
GRADING POLICY:
Paper #1-l5%; Journal/Lexicon15%; Paper #3-20% = 50%
Class participation, attendance = 30%
Quizzes, in-class writing, oral report = 20%
Any more than three absences will affect your grade negatively.
WEEKLY TOPICS AND ASSIGNMENTS
The Tropes of Postcolonialism
February 10 Introductions
February 12 Jamaica Kincaid A Small Place
February 17 Guest Informant: Hayden Duncan
McLeod Beginning Postcolonialism Intro, Chapter 1
February 19 Screening of “A Passage to India” TBA
Paper #1 due
Colonial Discourse: “Ambivalence” and “Mimicry”?
February 24 E. M. Forster A Passage to India
February 26 McLeod, Chapter 2; discussion of film
Re-Reading Colonial Texts
March 2 Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre
March 4 Brontë, continued
March 9 Brontë, continued
March 11 McLeod, Chapter 5
Postcolonial Intertextuality: Re-Vising Colonial Texts
March 16 Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea
March 18 Essays on Rhys
Nationalist Representations
March 23 Midterm Exam
March 25 Guest Speaker: Steve Griffith on Irish History and Drama
Read McLeod 3,4
March 30 Brian Friel, “Translations”
April 1 Friel, continued
SPRING BREAK
The Phenomenon of the Indo-Anglian Novel
April 13 Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things
April 15 Roy, continued
Postcolonialsim and Gender
April 20 Jhumpa Lahiri Interpreter of Maladies
April 22 Guest Informant: Sujay Rao McLeod Chapter 6
Proposal for final paper due
Diaspora and Hybridity
Screening of “East is East” TBA
April 27 Zadie Smith White Teeth
April 29 Smith, continued
May 4 Smith, continued; McLeod, Chapter 7
May 6 Writing workshop
May 11 Oral Reports
May 13 Oral Reports Paper #2 due
May 18 McLeod, Chapter 8 CONCLUSIONS
* * *
WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS:
PAPER #1: A personal and/or autobiographical essay of 3-5 pages.
PAPER #2: A critical essay of 6-8 pages involving library research.
Format: Papers should be typed, double-spaced. Paginate your essay and give it a title. Utilize the new MLA style to give proper credit for all sources used.
Deadlines: Deadlines are FIRM. Papers are due by 5:00 p.m. at my office, Confer 327, on the date indicated, unless otherwise specified. You must request permission IN ADVANCE for an extension. No make-ups are given for missed quizzes.
JOURNAL/LEXICON: This journal is envisioned as a tool to help you read
the course books, particularly McLeod’s theory book. As you read, please enter into the journal the definitions of terms introduced by McLeod as well as notes on the major points he makes, the lists he includes, etc. This will enable you to accumulate, and use, a theoretical vocabulary for postcolonialism. I will collect this journal periodically.
IN-CLASS WRITING: We will begin some classes with free writing on the novel to be discussed that day. Such exercises are intended to provide both an opportunity for reflection and exploration of the text and to provide ideas for discussion as well as potential paper topics.
CLASS DISCUSSION LEADER:
Each student will serve as Discussion Leader for one day. You will be responsible for preparing discussion questions and topics in advance, handing in a copy of these to me at the beginning of the class, and for effectively leading a discussion of the assigned text for that day. We will have the sign up for this role on the second day of class.
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
As a student at Gustavus Adolphus College, you are a member of a community of scholars which includes 2500 students and 200+ faculty members as well as the wider national and international community of literary scholars. As seniors, you understand that the “coin of the realm” in this community is “intellectual property,” which includes knowledge, ideas, theories, speculations, publications. Stealing someone else’s ideas or published words is a serious offense: it is theft of the most valuable commodity of academia. Thus, you must be certain that any written work you submit is YOUR OWN. If you use others’ ideas or words, from printed matter or from the WEB, proper credit must be given. Please consult Diane Hacker, Section M on MLA documentation. If you have questions, please consult a tutor in the Writing Center or me. If you represent the ideas or words of others as your own, that is plagiarism. You will be reported to the Dean’s Office and may fail the course as well.
This year, Gustavus is initiating an HONOR CODE. You will find this honor code posted in class rooms, and in the Academic Bulletin and the Gustavus Guide. Your enrollment at Gustavus signals your willingness to uphold the academic honesty policy and to abide by the decisions of the joint student/faculty Honor Board. The honor code requires that you write and sign the following Honor Pledge when submitting papers, writing exams, or handing in creative work. I expect this pledge to be included and signed on all the work you do for this FTS.
"On my honor, I pledge that I have not given, received, or tolerated others' use of unauthorized aid in completing this work."