Postgraduate Course: Neo-imperialisms (ENLI11137)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The course will invite students to look at various ways in which life is made fragile and precarious by what might be called the 'neo-imperialisms' of the contemporary globalized world. It will include writing and film from and/or about South Africa, Ghana, India, the UK, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay.
*This course is taught jointly with undergraduate students and consequently postgraduate places are limited |
| Course description |
According to Michel Agier, ¿the world today is confronted with the sustained evidence of precarious lives¿. This course will look at various ways in which life is made fragile and precarious by what might be called the ¿neo-imperialisms¿ of the contemporary globalized world, and will include writing and film from and/or about South Africa, Ghana, India, the UK, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay. The emphasis will be on creative responses to oppression and marginalisation¿the role of the imagination (such as constructing fantasies of ¿the other¿) in propagating forms of violence, and also in marking out ¿other passages¿ (in Judith Butler¿s words) out of cycles of oppression and injury. In particular, the course will ask students to consider the extent to which the various positions and theories offered by postcolonial studies can provide a viable frame for thinking about representations of current or recent geopolitical situations, such as conservation and environmental stress, increased people movement, the 'war on terror', the power of international corporations, and the postcolonial city.
Seminar Schedule
1. Introduction to the ¿colonial present¿ (selected essays provided by the tutor)
2. J.M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians
3. Aye Kwei Armah, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born
4. Mahasveta Devi, Imaginary Maps
5. Indra Sinha, Animal¿s People
6. Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak / Brian Turner, Here, Bullet
7. Bahman Ghobadi (dir), Turtles Can Fly / Hassan Blasim, The Madman OF Freedom Square
8. Essay completion week
9. Imtiaz Dharker, The Terrorist at My Table
10. Nadine Gordimer, Get a Life
11. The postcolonial city: Bombay/Mumbai ¿ Danny Boyle (dir), Slumdog Millionaire/ ¿Kama¿ in Vikram Chandra, Love and Longing in Bombay/ selected essays & extracts provided by the tutor
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
In addition to the skills training common to all English Literature Honours courses (essay writing, independent reading, group discussion, oral presentation, small-group autonomous learning) this course will aim to develop in students the ability to:
a) articulate (in written and oral forms) a considered, informed sense of the breadth and range of postcolonial writing, theory and contexts;
b) evaluate a range of key concepts in postcolonial studies, particularly in terms of their relevance to current neo-imperial contexts and their application to the primary texts;
c) deploy an appropriate critical vocabulary for the discussion of film;
d) demonstrate the ability to work with interdisciplinary material in addition to literature and film, such as theoretical, historical and sociological sources;
e) articulate how their own thinking and research agenda has developed;
f) reflect constructively on good learning practice.
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Reading List
Background Bibliography
Agamben, Giorgio, State of Exception. Trans. Kevin Attell. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Bauman, Zygmunt, Wasted Lives: Modernity and its Outcasts. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004.
Benhabib, Seyla, The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents and Citizens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2004.
Butler, Judith, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London and New York: Verso, 2004.
Farrier, David, Postcolonial Asylum: Seeking Sanctuary Before the Law. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011.
Gilroy, Paul, After Empire: Melancholia or Convivial Culture? London and New York: Routledge, 2004.
Huggan, Graham and Helen Tiffin, Postcolonial Ecocriticism. London and New York: Routledge, 2010.
Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri, Empire. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 2000.
--, Multitude. London: Hamish Hamilton, 2004.
Loomba, Ania, et.al., (eds.) Postcolonial Studies and Beyond. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2005.
McLeod, John (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Postcolonial Studies. London and New York: Routledge, 2007.
Wilson, Janet, et.al. (eds.) Rerouting the Postcolonial: New Direction for the New Millenium. London and New York: Routledge, 2010.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Special Arrangements |
Jointly taught with undergraduate students (ENLI10331)
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| Keywords | NI |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr David Farrier
Tel: (0131 6)50 3607
Email: David.Farrier@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Sophie Bryan
Tel: (0131 6)50 3030
Email: Sophie.Bryan@ed.ac.uk |
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