UMass Boston

Course Overview

Description

This course introduces student to the diversity of literary, philosophic, and political topics addressed by postcolonialism. Drawing on a wide range of texts, we will pursue the following avenues of inquiry: What do we mean by the term "Empire"? How has the reach of Empire been historically constructed, critiqued in fiction, and/or sustained through narrative: What forms of identity are available to individuals who have been displaced, either through personal choice or random (and often tragic) circumstance? And, finally, how "post" is postcolonialism? To answer these and related questions, this course will further explore the different experiences of colonization, decolonization, and postcolonial culture and politics during the twentieth century in South Africa, Nigeria, Jamaica, India, Australia, and Northern Ireland. Taking a transdisciplinary approach, we will conduct inquiries into the nature of sociopolitical and cultural conditions that characterize current or former colonies, the diverse registers in which these conditions are discursively articulated, and the modes, spaces, and politics of their (re)production, circulation, and consumption. Some themes this course will address include the psychology of colonization and settlement; violence and decolonization; constructions of the "Other" by imperial center; hybrid cultural formations wrought by the impacts between colonizer and colonized. Taking the above statement by Ghosh as instructive, this course will also seek to interrogate the idea that culture is a coherent or self-contained whole; thus, the final portion of this class will address themes of travel, immigration, and concepts of the diaspora, homeland, and exile by attending to the "new" cosmopolitanism.

Prerequisites

ENGL 200 or 201 or 202