ENGLISH 305

Post-Colonial Perspectives: Literature of the Developing World

(This course meets GE Area “C” and Diversity and Common Ground Requirements)

Goals:  The main aim of this course is for us to have a good time getting acquainted with some works in English that, for various reasons, have tended to get ignored by English departments.  But that simple description makes the whole project seem a lot more disinterested and a lot less complicated than it really is.  For the books (and movies and plays and poems) we’ll be looking at and talking about don’t simply exist in a vacuum of universally agreed-upon Great Literature (capital G, capital L) to which they’ve been belatedly admitted.  Rather, they all have fairly complex cultural and political relationships to two of the cultures—British and American—that invented the very concept of “Great Literature.” 

Many argue that the centuries-long domination of the globe by Britain and the other European colonial powers (and more recently, by the United States) was directly responsible for the present-day global economic and political pre-eminence of the West (or the North, depending upon how you look at it).  And if “First World” nations have come out of the 20th century on top, then the peoples and regions they colonized didn’t—to put it mildly—fare quite as well:  their land and natural resources were stolen, their cultures were suppressed and altered, and their countries were placed in a dependent relationship with the industrialized world that has proven hard to transform, even in a putatively “post”-colonial era.  Moreover, many of the Third World’s most intractable disputes are to a great extent legacies of imperial cartography and of a colonial politics that relied on the orchestrated perpetuation of ethnic ill-will.

But the news isn’t all bad.  Colonized peoples may have had alien languages and cultures imposed on them, for instance, but they also adapted those cultural and linguistic impositions as tools of anti-colonial resistance and postcolonial nation-building.  And part of their figurative “profit” on having acquired such tools is (to quote Shakespeare’s Caliban) that they “know how to curse”—and a whole lot more.  That is, African, South Asian, Caribbean and Pacific peoples have taken English and its established literary forms, denatured and transformed them through infusions of local languages and cultures, and appropriated them for their own uses.  In the process, sometimes deliberately and sometimes incidentally, they’ve challenged Western aesthetic assumptions, produced some of the most exciting literature of the last century, and fundamentally transformed the whole notion of “English.”  It’ll be our job here to begin to understand some of the ways in which they’ve done that.

Work:  there will be times—sometimes entire classes—when I will need (or at least claim) to tell you some true facts.  But for the most part, I’m expecting you to be enthusiastic learners who are willing to explore this territory both independently and coöperatively.  Here’s one way to do that:  on six occasions of your choice (out of eleven opportunities), you’ll e-mail a 400-word (minimum) response on the week’s reading to our internet listserv (hsu-engl305-1@redwood.humboldt.edu), which is simply an e-mail address that automatically relays a copy of anything it receives to each member of the class.  I realize that an unhappy combination of technological glitches, user unfamiliarity, Luddite resistance and general inconvenience often conspires to rob this tool of its full potential for pooling knowledge and building community.  But I’m asking you to give the old college try, and make it work.  This is best way I know of to force yourself to gather your thoughts about a text and begin articulating them.  So, um…what exactly do I mean by a “reading response”?  Look for a separate, long-winded handout.  For now, let me stick to theory and logistics.

Whenever you choose to write a response, you must post it no later than 4:00 p.m. on the date specified in the calendar (below), so that people have a fighting chance to digest it before class the next day.  As a basic precaution:  save a copy of your posting in your “sent messages” folder, and always print out a hard copy for yourself, too (in case it gets lost in cyber-space).  Bring this with you to class so you can refer to it or read from it.  Unless there’s been a system-wide network failure or a documented problem in your computer lab, late responses will count against you in grading.  Missing responses may result in a failing grade.  If, by some critical point in the semester, you’ve decided that you’re hopelessly behind in your reading responses—or merely dissatisfied with the results you’ve been getting—you may, either in advance or after the fact, buy your way out of two (2) of them by substituting a formal midterm essay.  Approach me any time between Tuesday, October 10 and Thursday, November 9, and I’ll provide you with a choice of questions, each of which will give you an opportunity to think and write about several texts in relation to one another and around some common theme. 

Collectively, these responses—which, though informal, should still be thoughtful, not slapdash—may constitute a kind of discussion in and of themselves, especially if some folks are moved enough to post follow-up responses later on.  But sometimes we may bring what goes on on-line into the classroom, as well, and your electronic pixels and bits may become starting points for in-class discussion.  To that end, everyone should try to at least glance at other folks’ posts before class (believe me, you’ll often find some brilliant ideas there), but those who’ve opted not to write on any given occasion should consider themselves responsible for taking special care in their reading—i.e., for thinking about how these responses “talk” to each other, and how they might suggest an agenda for the next day’s discussion.  A class session can be a lot more interesting if you’ve had a chance to read, hash over, and maybe even respond to what other folks are thinking before you all sit down in a room together. 

While what I’ve described above may be the primary use of the class listserv, it’s not the only one.  I’ll occasionally use it to send official communiqués (e.g., reading or study questions, logistical changes or cancellations, afterthoughts or announcements I forgot to make in class), so get in the habit of checking your e-mail daily.  You, meanwhile, are strongly urged to enhance and augment what goes on in real classroom space by continuing it, at your leisure, in cyberspace, during the 165 hours of the week that class doesn’t meet.  You may post an unofficial response of any length whenever you want to—and you should of course use the listserv to carry on spontaneous discussion about our assigned texts, about gripes or questions you might have, or about something someone said or neglected to say in class.

So, to enumerate your basic responsibilities (and how they count towards your final grade) more formally:

We can talk more about these requirements, if we need to, as the semester progresses.  There may occasionally be possibilities for extra credit that I’ll discuss upon request.

Texts:  Since this is an introductory survey of a rather large field, the booklist looks pretty heavy, but they’re all great reads.  There are seven (!) books you should pick up at the HSU Bookstore or anywhere else you can find them:

·                     Percy Mtwa and Mbongeni Ngema, Woza Albert! (Methuen)

·                     Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, expanded edition (Heineman)

·                     Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions (Seal Press)

·                     Emile Habiby, The Secret Life of Saeed (Readers International)

·                     Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place (Plume)

·                     Salman Rushdie, Shame (Holt)

·                     Hanif Kureishi, My Beautiful Laundrette (Faber)

If you’re really strapped for cash, try local and/or online used booksellers, check the library, share a book or two with a friend, or ask me if I have an extra copy to lend you. 

For those with enough gumption (and deep enough pockets) to enhance their cultural, political and theoretical understanding of things postcolonial, I also highly recommend the following very handy reference:

·         Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies (Routledge).  This text is recommended, not required, so I’ve asked the bookstore to order only a few copies; let me know if they’re running out.  I can also point you towards a number of very good books in Postcolonial Studies held by the HSU library.

There are two additional texts available only on the class Web Page:

·         A course reader (a collection of essays, stories and essential background readings, some required, most highly recommended); and

·         Word Sound Have Power, an anthology of Jamaican dub poems (a required multimedia text for which you need the RealAudio plug-in)

Since much of the material in these two collections is copyrighted, and since copyright owners have lately adopted (and zealously enforced) an extremely uncharitable position as to what constitutes “fair use” for educational purposes, you’ll be prompted to enter a username and a password (found in the print copy of your syllabus; e-mail me if you've mislaid it) to view it.  If you’re not web-literate, I’ll gladly provide some basic tutoring.

Grading:  Here’s where the oppressive substructure of my seemingly benign classroom shows through.  Since they force the system on me, I make my letter grades conform to official guidelines: “A” gets tacked onto truly stunning and outstanding work; “B” work goes (qualitatively) beyond mere course requirements; and “C” is standard and normal—i.e., it meets the basic course requirements in every way.  “D” is worthy of credit but substandard, and I guess we all know what “F” means.  If you’re taking this class S/N, you need the equivalent of a “C” to pass.  I don’t expect to give any incompletes.

I’ll read and respond to all of your work, and I’ll be happy to meet with you at any time to talk about your progress and prospects.  If you’re getting behind in the class, feeling like you’re not “getting” something, or just having an unspecified problem either mild or severe, don’t sit around fretting and cowering:  come and talk to me without delay.

CALENDAR

     (Danger! Highly volatile—subject to change!)

N.B.:  The greater part of any reading response should address the relevant “major” work(s) for the week, but I’ll be endlessly impressed if you find intelligent ways to relate the “supplemental” reserve readings to your discussion, as well.

ALL FINAL COURSEWORK DUE NO LATER THAN 12:40 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21ST.