Note: This website provides supplemental resources for your learning. All course activities will be conducted through canvas.
Announcements
All Course announcements will be posted on Canvas
Weekly Livestream Links:
We will use Canvas for our weekly meetings.
Texts and Discussion for the Current Week
Things Fall Apart
Understanding Things Fall Apart from a Postcolonial perspective: VIDEO
Livestream Archive (Recorded lecture links)
Resources and Readings for Next Week
Recorded Video/ Audio Resources:
Time: Live ONLINE Class Sessions:
Section 005: T, TR: 3:30-4:50 PM
Office Hours: by appointment
Office: Language 408D
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Introduction
This course introduces you to some of the major world/postcolonial authors. The postcolonial cultural production can be roughly divided into three overlapping phases: the works produced during the contact phase, the native responses to colonialism, and the postcolonial cultural production both from the global periphery and the diasporic authors. Postcolonialism is a dynamic, expansive, and contested field of literary study involving a high degree of multidisciplinarity and theoretical innovation. This course will also introduce you to the early and current debates of the field and possibilities of the field in the future. We will pay special attention to the current state of high capital and neoliberal globalization and the artistic and critical responses being offered in resistance. We will read these texts of the global periphery not simply as crystallized versions of the cultures that they attempt to represent, but also use them as points of departure into a study of the larger power structures within which these texts are produced. In doing so we will also question our own place and privileged location within the academy and imagine the possibilities of making our work commensurate with the acts of semiotic and material resistance being offered to the reigning power structures by the cultures of the global south in the spirit of what Gramsci describes as the organic intellectuals. Using printed texts and film, this course will introduce you to the current global negotiation of power, the articulation of native resistance to the imperatives of globalization, and the native attempts at achieving social justice. In doing so we will also touch upon the role of the nation-state within the current climate of neoliberal globalization and the global war on terror, the politics of the diasporic cultural production, and the possibilities of rhizomatic global popular alliances.
Required Texts:
Class Reader
Occasional handouts/Course Reserves. [HO/RES]
Course Policies and Requirements:
Students are expected to be prepared for class: This involves reading the assigned texts, and contributing their views in a collegiate and stimulating way. Attendance to online live sessions is mandatory.
Distribution of Points:
Response Journals 100 Points
Mid-Term Exam 400 Points
Participation 100 Points
Final Exam 400 Points
Total 1000 Points
Response Journals (100 Points):
Every week you will turn in a journal (through Canvas) responding to the readings assigned for the week. The journal should be minimum two pages, double-spaced, font 12 Times. Following are some, but not all, questions you may consider:
What does the text say about gender, race, ethnicity, class, nation, or power and what are your views about it?
Did you agree or disagree with the text’s politics? why?
What is the text critiquing?
How can we relate this text to contemporary realities?
Does this text raise the question of justice? If so, how and for whom? • Does the text provide a politics for a better future?
How does the form compare to the metropolitan techniques of creative production? (For creative writing majors)
Mid-Term Exam (400 Points)
The Mid-term will be given in the eighth week. The exam will include four essay questions. I will give you a comprehensive study guide a week before the exam.
Final Exam (400 Points)
A cumulative final exam will be due on the date mentioned in the UNT exams program. I will give you the questions a week in advance and the take-home exam answers will be due through Canvas portal on the due date.
Class Participation (100 Points)
As this is a discussion format class, your thoughtful participation in online classes is essential to the success of the class. I encourage collegiate, open, and thought-provoking questions.
Attendance
You are expected to attend the online class sessions regularly. You will be in the danger of failing the course if you miss more than FOUR class sessions.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is against the law, and will result in automatic failure in the course. Simply stated, plagiarism is when you try to pass anyone else’s work as your own or if you turn in your own work written for another class.
Please review UNT Policy on Academic Integrity for details.
ADA
If you have a disability, please contact the campus ADA office and bring me the necessary documentation. I will try my best to accommodate you if you need any special instruction or assistance.
SENATE BILL 11 (“CAMPUS CARRY”). Students must read UNT’s policy on concealed handguns on campus, which I’ve posted on Blackboard (or see http://campuscarry.unt.edu/untpolicy.) Here I note that 1) only licensed persons may legally carry handguns on campus, and 2) this right only authorizes the licensed carrying of “handgun[s], the presence of which is not openly noticeable to the ordinary observation of a reasonable person.” Per policy, if a gun is “partially or wholly visible, even if holstered,” it’s not legal on campus, whether or not it’s licensed. I report all illegal activities to the UNT police, regardless of their nature.
“ACTIVE SHOOTER SITUATIONS.” All students should be aware of UNT’s guidelines for responding to “active shooter situations” (seehttp://emergency.unt.edu/get-prepared/Active-Shooter).
Grading Scale:
A 900-1000
B 830-899
C 739-829
F Less than 600 Points
Weekly Schedule
Week One
Introduction to the course.
In-Class diagnostic Journal
New Terms: Center/periphery, Colonialism, Imperialism, Third World
Readings:
“Introduction” 1-34
“In the World.” (97-99). Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden.” (100).
Readings:
Achebe, “An Image of Africa,” (101-107), Frantz Fanon, “ Black Skin White Masks,” (138-140) “From Wretched of the Earth” (107-110).
Week Two
New Terms: Binarism, Othering, Going native
Class Discussion: “ In the World.” Kipling.
Readings:
Achebe, “An Image of Africa,” (101-107), Frantz Fanon, “ Black Skin White Masks,” (138-140) “From Wretched of the Earth” (107-110).
Week Three
Class Discussion:
Achebe, “An Image of Africa,” (101-107), Frantz Fanon, “ Black Skin White Masks,” (138-140) “From Wretched of the Earth” (107-110).
New Terms: Diaspora, Discourse
Readings:
Aime Cesaire, “A Tempest,” (111), Chinweizu, “Decolonizing the . . .” (114), Ngugi “Creating space . . .” (117-121)
Week Four
Class Discussion: Aime Cesaire, “A Tempest,” (111), Chinweizu, “Decolonizing the . . .” (114), Ngugi “Creating space . . .” (117-121)
New Terms: Hybridity, Hegemony, Dominance
Readings:
P’bitek (167), Head, “The Deep River,” (286)
Week Five
Class Discussion: P’bitek (167), Head, “The Deep River,” (286)
New Terms: Native, Nativism
New Terms: Authenticity, Social Darwinism
Readings:
Mahfouz, “Zaabalawi,” (803), Rifaat, “My World of the Unknown,” (247), Darwish, “Identity Card (136)
Week Six
Class Discussion: Mahfouz, “Zaabalawi,” (803), Rifaat, “My World of the Unknown,” (247), Darwish, “Identity Card (136)
New Terms: Subaltern, Appropriation, Abrogation
Readings:
Mukherjee, “A Wife’s Story,” (306), Hossain, “Sultana’s Dream,” (122).
Week Seven
Class Discussion: Mukherjee, “A Wife’s Story,” (306), Hossain, “Sultana’s Dream,” (122).
New Terms: Agency, Mimicry
Readings: Narayan, “A Horse and Two Goats,” (143), Naipaul, “Our Universal Civilization,” (304).
Week Eight
Class Discussion: Narayan, “A Horse and Two Goats,” (143), Naipaul, “Our Universal Civilization,” (304).
Mid Term
Readings:
Marquez, “ A Very Old Man . . .” (174), Fuentes, “The Prisoner of . . .” (178).
Week Nine
Class Discussion: Marquez, “ A Very Old Man . . .” (174), Fuentes, “The Prisoner of . . .” (178).
New Term: Magic Realism
Readings:
Readings: Rushdie “The Courter” (289), Desai “The Farewewll Part” (278), Cisnerros “Never Marry a Mexican” (312)
Week Ten
Class Discussion:Readings: Rushdie “The Courter” (289), Desai “The Farewewll Part” (278), Cisneros “Never Marry a Mexican” (312)
New Terms: Neoimperialism, Militarization, Corporatization.
Reading
Things fall Apart
Week Eleven-Sixteen
Class discussion: Things Fall Apart (TFA)
