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Colonialism and its Dissed Contents:
An Introduction to Postcolonial Theory

Professor Priya Joshi
English 100.10, Fall 2001
Tu, Th 12:30-2:00, 255 Dwinelle
Office Hours: Tu, 2:15-4:30 & by appointment

Office: 451 Wheeler Hall
Email: pjoshi@socrates.berkeley.edu
Phone: 510-642-2377

The Course

In this seminar, we will explore the theories and fictions that characterized the encounter between the European metropolis and its colonial peripheries during the very long nineteenth century that has somehow lingered into the twentieth. The literary works we will read from England, Ireland, Martinique, and India come from metropolitan novelists writing empire as well as figures from the former colonies writing back to the center. These literary readings comprise approximately half of our course. They will frame our inquiry by providing the case studies to help us scrutinize and evaluate postcolonial theory, that critical impulse that has had such a profound impact on literary studies in the last quarter century. The theoretical and historical readings on our list come from a number of foundational texts in the field that will help us understand and complicate the following topics: the politics of culture; the psychology of colonialism; imperialism and popular representation; refusing and resisting empire; narrating territories; aestheticizing empire; inventing the Other; imagining nationalism. In no way do these readings claim to survey postcolonial theory: rather, their selection and organization (into six thematic modules) is intended as an introduction to the methods and approaches that this area of inquiry has made available to literary and cultural studies.

The Requirements

In keeping with the research and methods mandate of English 100, we will make at least one class trip to Doe and/or Bancroft Libraries in order to prepare to write a major research paper. Class requirements include vigorous and constructive seminar participation, one 10-minute oral presentation, 2 short essays, and a longer paper (10-12 pages) involving research that is due the last day of class (Thursday, December 6th). There will be no mid-term or final exam.

The Texts (all available from the ASUC Bookstore on campus)

H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines (Oxford)
Rudyard Kipling, Kim (Penguin)
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin; ed. Seamus Deane)
Aimé Césaire, A Notebook of a Return to the Native Land (photocopy);
Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism
Edward Said, Orientalism
A Reader available at Krishna Copy on University at Shattuck (phone: 540-5959)

The Fine Print

As I see it, our main goal in this class is to learn something about empire and to enjoy ourselves as we do so. A seminar such as ours will flourish if we all respect the following common-sense policies. Please do not hesitate to speak with me immediately if you encounter difficulties with any aspect of this class. I work closely with the staff of the Disabled Students' Office to help my students when they need it. Therefore, if you have a disability that requires particular attention, please inform me of it at the very earliest so that I can make arrangements to accommodate your needs.

• Attendance: Please come to class on time prepared to discuss the day's readings. If, for some reason, you are unable to attend our meeting, please inform me in advance by phone or email. This is simply being courteous and does not count as documenting an absence. Please be prepared to document all absences; undocumented absences will count against your grade as follows: 3 or more undocumented absences will lower your grade one full notch (from A to B, etc.), while 5 will fail you.
  
  
• Grades: Each paper will be weighted equally toward your final grade. You may rewrite ONE of your first two papers provided you discuss the revision with me first. Your grade for the assignment will be that of the revision, even if it is lower than the first draft, so do please use the revision as an opportunity to rethink your assignment carefully. Use the MLA format for all papers, and be sure to type papers in a legible (i.e., 10- or 12-point) font including a title, date, professor's name, and staple on all your work. All work must be submitted at the beginning of class on the date it is due. I have developed a liberal rewrite policy which does not penalize you for turning in a paper that may not reflect your full potential while offering you the opportunity of improving it (and your grade) with my input. I urge you to avail of it. Because this policy is both fair and generous, I will not extend paper deadlines unless you have a documented emergency.
  
  
• Late Papers: Barring this, if you still turn in a paper late, it will be marked down a third of a grade (from A to A- and so on) for each calendar day it is late AND you will forfeit the opportunity of a rewrite on that assignment. Papers that are not turned in at the beginning of class will be marked late by a day and penalized as above.

• Participation: This class will be most fun and rewarding if each of us assumes responsibility for it. Knowledge such as the kind we are trying to advance is not proprietary, and to this end, I will expect each and every student to participate actively and constructively in all our discussions. Since the generous exchange of ideas is as central to learning as breathing is to living, I do not institute a formal discussion grade per se; doing so would be akin to grading you for each breath you take. However, past experience in seminars indicates that there is up to a 10% "fudge-factor" that comes into play when computing grades: students who are constructive participants almost always receive it, while those who remain largely silent generally do not.

• Listserv: In order to facilitate intellectual discussion and an exchange of information germane to our class, all members are required to subscribe to the course listserv. I will be posting information on readings, deadlines, and material of mutual course interest on it, and I encourage you to do so as well. The list is unmoderated, which means that as listowner I do not "approve" or "reject" postings. What you post will immediately get distributed to all subscribers of the list. I, therefore, expect each of us to adhere to common-sense standards of courtesy in our postings. I fully encourage you to disagree and debate postings on the list, but I hope you will do so with consideration.

Subscribing to the course listserv:

In the body of your message, please write only the following:

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Schedule of Readings
Readings marked with an * can be found in the Course Reader

I. Empire and the Politics of Representation

8/28 Welcome and Introduction
8/30 Edward W. Said, Orientalism, Part 1 (pp. 1-112)

9/4 Orientalism, Part 3 and concluding essay
9/6 *Eric Hobsbawm, "Inventing Traditions"

9/11 H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines
9/13 Haggard, King Solomon's Mines
*Anne McClintock, "Race, Money, and Sexuality," from Imperial Leather

9/18 Rudyard Kipling, Kim
9/20 Kipling, Kim;

III. Educating Desire: The Psychic Life of Power

9/25 *Thomas Babington Macaulay, "Minute on Indian Education"

*Karl Marx on India

*Bernard Cohn, "Representing Authority in Victorian India"

9/27 Ashis Nandy, Intimate Enemy, ch. 1

10/2 Paper #1 due; Nandy, Intimate Enemy, ch. 2
10/4 Library Visit (meet in Room 350C Moffitt Library)

IV. Mastering the Mother Tongue: Reading and Writing in "His" Language

10/9 James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
10/11 Joyce, Portrait
*Gauri Viswanathan, "The Beginnings of English Literary Study in British India"

10/16 Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism
10/18 *Chinua Achebe, "The African Writer and the English Language;
*Ngugi wa Thiong'o, "The Language of African Literature"

10/23 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, ch. 1,
10/25 Fanon, Wretched of the Earth, chs. 3, 4, 5

V. Talking Back

10/30 Paper #2 due; Aimé Césaire, A Notebook of a Return to the Native Land
11/1 Césaire, A Notebook of a Return to the Native Land

11/6 *Gayatri Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak?"
11/8 *Homi Bhabha, "Of Mimicry and Man," and "Signs Taken for Wonders"

VI. Self and Other: Braided Histories

11/13 *Mary Louise Pratt, "Notes on the Contact Zone" [get full title]
11/15 *Dipesh Chakrabarty, "Postcolonialism and the Artifice of History"

11/20 *Anne McClintock, "The Angel of Progress: Pitfalls of the term 'Postcolonialism'"
11/22 Thanksgiving Holiday, No Clas

11/27 Student Conferences
11/29 Student Conferences

12/4 Concluding Remarks
12/6 Final Paper Due