THE POSTCOLONIAL IN THE GLOBAL

While the earliest iterations of postcolonial theory focused on textuality and subjectivity, postcolonial studies in the last four decades has expanded to the study of material life in the settler and the former post-colonies. Research questions and analytics, paradigms and methodologies arising from postcolonial studies now provide a critical optic on contemporary globalization. This course examines recent scholarly contributions that examine institutions (of the cinema), infrastructures (of cities), networks (of music) and practices (of writing/speech). We will read a selection of seminal postcolonial theoretical texts (books and landmark essays) alongside four exemplary treatments of globalization.

Students are expected to read all the texts in “Postcolonial Theory,” including selections in the Course Reader, and at least one example from “Postcolonial Studies.”

Postcolonial Theory

Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (1952)

Ranajit Guha, Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India (1983)

Jasbir Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (2007)

Sadia Abbas, At Freedom’s Limit: Islam and the Postcolonial Predicament (2014)

Course Reader

Postcolonial Studies (pick any one)

AbdouMaliq Simone, For the City Yet to Come (2004)

Bliss Cua Lim, Translating Time: Cinema, the Fantastic, and Temporal Critique (2009)

Jason Pine, The Art of Making Do in Naples (2012)

Rey Chow, Not Like A Native Speaker (2016)