CMNS 424-4
COLONIALISM, CULTURE AND IDENTITY
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Prerequisites: 75 credit hours including CMNS 221 or 223; and 2 CMNS upper division courses; and CGPA of 3.00 or higher – or Instructor’s permission.
Course Description:
This seminar explores the way scientific and artistic discourses during the colonial period have shaped the identities of members of contemporary disaporic and racialized communities. The course introduces different theories of “racial” subjugation that draw on the work of Gramsci (ideology and hegemony) and Foucault (disciplined subjects) as well as psychoanalytic texts (the Other) and concludes by questioning the significance of identity for former colonies and racialized groups undergoing reconciliation and redress. The course does not just focus on “negative” representations of “racialized” groups as inferior, primitive threats to civilization or on the constitution of passive, disciplined subjects through anthropological discourses. Students will also critically explore debates and innovative cultural strategies specific to People of the First Nations, the Black diaspora and Asian Canadian communities. Special attention will be paid to their contributions, especially by feminists, concerned with domination, the cultural effects of violence and challenging normative conventions in the areas of voice, sexuality and language.
Required Readings/Texts: A courseware package is available from the SFU Bookstore. There will also be a few on-line articles.
Grading: Attendance 5%
Participation 10%
Seminar Presentations 15%
1st Written Assignment (1500 words, due week 6) 20%
2nd Written Assignment (1500 words, due week 10) 20%
Essay (3750 words; approx. 15 double-spaced pages) 30%
The School expects that the grades awarded in this course will bear some reasonable relation to established university-wide practices with respect to both levels and distribution of grades. In addition, the School will follow Policy T10.02 with respect to "Intellectual Honesty," and "Academic Discipline" (see the current Calendar, General Regulations Section).
Plagiarism is a serious infraction. It is a form of dishonesty where you take credit for the work, in particular, the research, conducted by someone else.
It includes failing to refer to the source of the ideas and contextual information in your assignment.
It also includes failing to indicate when you have made direct quotations, which amounts to presenting statements made by a published author as if they were your own.
Attendance & Participation:
a) Attendance: (5%) Half a mark will be deducted from a total of five marks for each class that you miss starting in the second week.
b) Participation: (10%) Your mark will be based on the quality of your contributions. For example, the following will be considered: the extent to which your questions and comments are informed by the readings; the effort taken to understand the course material, for example, by asking questions of clarification; identifying the limitations of the articles; and questioning the applicability of the conclusions.
Seminar Presentations: (15%). Students in the class are responsible for giving presentations on the weekly readings. Depending on the number of the students enrolled, you will give from three to five presentations (one solo and the others in groups). While you need to demonstrate (1) comprehension of the reading, your presentation should focus on (2) analyzing the argument and discussing the issues raised by the reading. Bring copies of your presentation outline for everyone in the seminar. Find an example to illustrate one of the main concepts or problems discussed in the article (examples from video clips, newspapers, magazines advertisements, excerpts from novels, websites, etc.). Ensure that you systematically identify how your example illustrates the concept or problem.
Written Assignments:
First Written Assignment: (20% due Week 6)
Second Written Assignment: (20% due Week 10)
Essay: (30%)
Style Guides: For all your written assignments, refer to the style guide for APA or MLA on SFU library’s webpage: http://www.lib.sfu.ca/researchhelp/subjectguides/cmns/cmns.htm
I. “RACIAL” DISCOURSES: CONQUEST, COLONIZATION, POPULATION MANAGEMENT
WEEK 1: DE/COLONIALIZING KNOWLEDGE AND OTHER CULTURES
1. Smith, Linda Tuhiwai, (1999)“Imperialism, History, Writing and Theory” in Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, Zed Books: 19-39.
2. Said, Edward (1971) Orientalism. New York: Vintage: pp.31-60.
Extra Readings
Shohat, Ella and Robert Stam (1994) “Formations of Colonist Discourse” in Unthinking Eurocentricism: Multiculturalism and the Media, New York: Routledge
WEEK 2: THE POWER OF NOMENCLATURE: RE-ORDERING AND RE-DEFINING REALITY
*** Hand out Assignment #1***
3. Todorov, Tzetan (1987) The Conquest of America, New York: Harper and Row, pp. 14-50.
4. Comaroff, Jean and John Comaroff (1992) Ethnography and the Historical Imagination, San Francisco: Westview Press, pp. 235-263.
Extra Readings: (Library Reserve) On Methods of Textual and Discursive Analysis:
Sturken, Marita and Lisa Cartwright (2001) Practices Of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
WEEK 3: THE ARTS AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES: SEXUAL DESIRE, DEVIANCE AND THE PROBLEM OF “RACIAL OTHERS”
5. Green, David (1984) “Classified Subjects: Photography and Anthropology: the Technology of Power,” Ten 8, #14, pp. 30-37.
6. Gilman, Sander L. (1985) “Black Bodies, White Bodies: Toward
an Iconography of Female Sexuality in Late Nineteenth Century Art,
Medicine and Literature” in Henry Louis Gates, Jr. “Race,”
Writing, and Difference, Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
pp. 223-261.
7. Achebe, Chinua (1988) “An Image of Africa: Racism in
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” in Hopes and
Impediments: Selected Essays 1965-1987, Oxford: Heinemann
International,
pp. 1-19.
Extra Readings
Miles, Robert (1989) Racism. London and New York: Routledge, pp.11-40.
Fair, Jo Ellen and Lisa Parks (2001) “Africa On Camera: Television News Coverage and Aerial Imaging of Rwandan Refugees”, Africa Today vol. 48, no. 2: pp. 35-57.
WEEK 4: TRAUMA, THE UNSPEAKABLE: TESTIMONY AND HEALING
9. Langer, Lawrence, L. 1991. “Deep Memory: the Buried Self”. In Holocaust Testimonials: the Ruins of Memory. London: Yale University Press, pp. 1-38, esp. pp. 1-24.
Extra Readings
Caruth, Cathy (1996) Unclaimed Experience: Trauma Narrative and History, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
Radstone, Susannah and Katherine Hodgkin (2003) Contested Pasts: the Politics of Memory, New York: Routledge.
II. STRUGGLES TO RECLAIM HISTORY AND IDENTITY
*** Assignment #1*** DUE
10. Fanon, Frantz (1967) Black Skins, White Masks, New York: Grove, pp. 17-40.
11. Memmi, Albert(1965)The Colonizerand the Colonized,
New York: Orion Press. pp.19-44,
79-89.
Extra Readings: Feminist Critiques of Fanon
Alessandrini, Anthony C. (ed) (1999) Frantz Fanon: Critical Perspectives. New York : Routledge.
Sharpley-Whiting, T. Denean (1998) Frantz Fanon: Conflicts and Feminisms. Lanham, Md. ; Oxford : Rowman & Littlefield.
WEEK 6: COLONIAL VIOLENCE: WRITING AGAINST THE IMAGINARY INDIAN
12. Canada (1996) “The Indian Act,” Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Volume I, Ottawa: Government of Canada, pp. 248-314.
a) http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sgm9_e.html
b) http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/rpt/lk_e.html
13. Crosby, Marcia (1991) "Construction of the Imaginary Indian"
in Stan Douglas (ed) The Vancouver Anthology: the Institutional
Politics of Art, Vancouver: Talon Books,
pp. 267-294.
*** Assignment #1 Return*** ***Hand out Assignment #2***
14. Anderson, Kim (1997) “Reclaiming Native Space in Literature/ Breaking New Ground: An Interview with Armstrong, Jeannette,” West Coast Line 23 (31/2), pp. 49-65.
15. Van Camp, Richard (2000) “Mermaids” in Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm and Josie Douglas (eds) Skins: Contemporary Indigenous Writing. Wiarton, Ont.: Kegedonce Press, pp. 33-43.
16. Walsh, Andrea (2002) “Visualizing Histories: Experiences of Space and Place in Photographs by Greg Staats and Jeffrey Thomas”, Visual Studies, 17:1, pp. 37-51.
Extra Readings
Francis, Daniel (1992) The Imaginary Indian: the Image of the Indian in Canadian Culture, Vancouver: Arsenal Press.
Moses, Daniel David and Terry Goldie (1999) An Anthology of Canadian Native Literature in English. New York: Oxford University Press.
Culture Studies (1995) Volume 9, Issue 1 Special Issue on First Nations (this issue of the journal has articles by key Canadian authors).
WEEK 8: NEW VOICES: CRITICAL IDENTITIES AND COMMUNITIES
18. Torres, Lourdes (1998) “The Construction of Self in U.S. Latina Autobiographies” in Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson (eds) Women, Autobiography, Theory: a Reader, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, pp. 276-287.
19. McClintock, Anne (1997) “No Longer a Future Heaven: Gender, Race and Nationalism” in Dangerous Liaisons, University of Minnesota Press: pp. 89-112.
III. PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES: INSIDE AND OUT
WEEK 9: CRITICAL INTERVENTIONS: QUESTIONING THE ORTHODOXIES OF NEW IDENTITIES
20. Mercer, Kobena (1994) “Black Masculinity and the Sexual Politics of Race: True Confessions (with Isaac Julien); Racism and the Politics of Masculinity; AIDS, Racism and Homophobia; Engendered Species” in Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies, New York: Routledge, pp. 131-170.
21. Hooks, Bell (1990) “Reflections on Race and Sex”, Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics, Toronto: Between the Lines, pp. 57-77.
Extra Readings
Hall, Stuart (1996) “New Ethnicities” in Houston A. Baker, Jr., Manthia Diawara and Ruth H. Lindeborg (eds) Black British Cultural Studies: A Reader. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, pp. 163-172.
Walcott, Rinaldo (1997) Black Like Who? Writing Black Canada.
Toronto: Insomniac Press,
pp. 53-69.
Gilroy, Paul (1993) The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Carby, Hazel V. (1982) “White Woman Listen! Black Feminism and the Boundaries of Sisterhood” in Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham (ed) The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 70s Britain, London: Hutchinson, pp. 212-236.
Philips, Norbese (1992) Frontiers: Essays and Writings on Race and Culture, Toronto: Mercury Press, pp. 26-46, 110-133.
WEEK 10: TALKING/WRITING ACROSS FRAGMENTATION OF SPACES AND IDENTITIES
***Assignment #2 DUE***
22. Miki, Roy (1998) “Redress: a Community Imagined” and “Can I See Your ID?” in Broken Entries: Race, Subjectivity and Writing, Toronto: Mercury Press, pp. 203-215, 216-224.
23. Oikawa, Mona (2002) “Cartographies of Violence: Women, Memory and the Subject(s) of “Internment” in Sharene Razack (ed) Race, Space and the Law: Unmapping White Settler Society, Toronto: Between the Lines: pp. 71-98.
24. Ifekwunigwe, Jayne O. (1999) Scattered Belongings: Cultural Paradoxes of “Race,” Nation and Gender, pp. 50-70, 88-109.
25. Narayan, Kirin (1993) "How Native Is 'Native' Anthropology?" American Anthropologist 95 (3) (1993), pp. 671-686.
Extra Readings
Perry, Adele (2001) “The Prevailing Vice: Mixed Race Relations” in On the Edge of Empire: Gender, Race and the Making of British Columbia. University of Toronto, pp. 48-78.
Roy, Ananya (2001) “Epilogue: ’The Reverse Side of the World’: Identity, Space, Power” in Nezar AlSayyad (ed) Hybrid Urbanism: On the Identity Discourse and the Built Environment, Con. Praeger, pp. 229-245.
WEEK 12: RECONCILIATION AND REDRESS? NEO-COLONIALISM IN A TRANSNATIONAL WORLD?
26. Scheper-Hughes (2004), “From Undoing: Social Suffering and the Politics of Remorse in South Africa” in Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Philippe Bourgois (eds) Violence in War and Peace Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 459-467.
27. Mamdani, Mahmood (2004) “From When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism and the Genocide in Rwanda” in Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Philippe Bourgois (eds) Violence in War and Peace Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 468-474.
28. Soyinka, Wole (2004) “From The Burden of Memory: The Muse of Forgiveness” in Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Philippe Bourgois (eds) Violence in War and Peace Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 475-477.