Time Schedule:
Rahul K Gairola
CHID 250
Seattle Campus
Examines a different subject or problem from a comparative framework. Satisfies the Group A major/minor requirement. Offered: AWSp.
Class description
Alternative Agencies: Strategies of Resistance in Postcolonial and Diaspora Studies
This course will introduce students to colonial discourse, postcolonial studies, and topics on diaspora and migration studies. We will read established texts, as well as new texts that seek to carve out innovative directions for postcolonial studies and its main themes. Despite our generalist introduction, our focus will be on how people of color resist traditional and neo-imperial impulses that arise from the racism and capitalism of Western powers at multiple sites. This resistance, as we shall see, is a process that forges solidarity between peoples of color while accounting for differences.
We will read selections by such renowned thinkers as Frantz Fanon, Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha, Edward Said, Aime Cesaire, Chandra Mohanty, Sara Suleri, Anne McClintock, Stuart Hall, Chinua Achebe, Laura Chrisman, and others. We will probably read 2-3 novels and/ or view 2-3 films that we will analyze along with primary readings of theoretical texts. Though I have not yet decided on these cultural texts, they may include works by: Jamaica Kincaid, Buchi Emecheta, Sam Selvon, Shyam Selvadurai, Shani Mootoo, Ngugi wa' Thiongo, Bapsi Sidhwa, Jhumpa Lahiri, Michelle Cliff, Jessica Hagedorn, Jackie Kay, Tsiti Dangarembga, Anita Desai, Salman Rushdie, and Peter Abrahams. This class is particularly well-suited for those seeking a general overview of colonial discourse and postcolonial theory, and who want to utilize that overview in exploring a specific topic of interest to them.
The questions we will together ask are: what is colonialism? How does postcolonial studies "speak back" to it? How are colonial and postcolonial studies relevant to the immediate world around us today? What are the limitations of postcolonial studies? What contributions to re-thinking postcolonial studies do diaspora and migration studies enable? How do race, class, gender, sexuality, and (dis)ability influence the ways in which we read and mull over colonial discourse and postcolonial studies? Finally, and most importantly, what are the strategies for intellectual and political resistance that these theoretical and cultural texts empower?
A final research paper and oral presentation of it will comprise the bulk of the final grade.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
