TEACHING
The University of Western Ontario
London Canada
Colonial and Postcolonial Literature and Culture: Representing India
2008: Graduate Course
UC 377
Tuesday and Thursday 10-3
Instructor: Nandi Bhatia
Office: UC 57
Telephone: 679-2111 x85817
Office hours: by appointment
e-mail: nbhatia2@uwo.ca
This course examines literary and cultural texts that address Britain’s longstanding engagement with India since the transfer of power from the East India Company rule to the British Crown in 1858 until independence-Partition in 1947, and beyond. Focusing on a variety of texts that reconstruct the complex relationship between colonialism and culture from gendered, national and class perspectives, and diverse geographies of migration ranging from plantations to Partition, we will develop a multi-locational approach to this cultural archive that emerged in response to the empire’s interaction with its colonial populations. We will also address how the formalistic features foreground a politics that speaks to the various ruptures, crossovers and literary influences that resulted from the colonial experience, and enable investigation of topics and issues such as subalternity, mimicry, exile, home, community, nation, and diaspora.
Texts to be bought: (From the Bookstore)
Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands
V.S. Naipaul, The Enigma of Arrival
E.M. Foster, A Passage to India
Bapsi Sidhwa, Cracking India
Tom Stoppard, Indian Ink
Other:
In Course-Pack Available from InPrint
Requirements and Assignments:
- Consistent and vigorous participation in class (20%)
- Class Presentation. Each student will give a short presentation on an aspect of the readings assigned for the day (20%)
- Film Review. A review of a film (2 pages) from the course. Due on June 5 (10%)
- Final essay (approximately 20 pages). Your aim should be to work towards presenting the paper at a conference. (50%) Due on August 1.
Detailed Course Schedule:
Week 1
May 6
May 8 |
Introductions
Stephen Slemon, “Post-Colonial Critical Theories” [Grad Office]
Vijay Mishra, “What is Post(-)Colonialism?” [Grad Office]
Anne McClintock, “The Angels of Progress: Pitfalls of the term ‘Post-colonialism’” [Grad Office]
Ranajit Guha, “Preface” and “On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India,” [Grad English Office]
Edward Said, “From Orientalism ” [Graduate English Office]
Vinay Dharwadker, “Orientalism and the Study of Indian Literatures” [Grad Office]
Kipling, “The Man Who Would be King” [Grad Office]
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Week 2
May 13
May 15 |
A Passage to India
Jenny Sharpe, “The Unspeakable Limits of Rape”
Screen Shakespeare Wallah
STUDENT PRESENTATION
T.B. Macaulay, “Minute on Indian Education” [CP]
Gauri Vishwanathan, Masks of Conquest, “The Beginnings of English Literary Study in British India” [CP]
Jyotsna Singh, “Shakespeare and the ‘Civilizing Mission’” [CP]
Poonam Trivedi, “Folk Shakespeare”[CP]
Harish Trivedi, Shakespeare in India: Colonial Contexts” [CP]
Discussion of Sakespeare Wallah
STUDENT PRESENTATION
Introduction to the 1947 Partition
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Week 3
May 20
May 22
May 23
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Urvashi Butalia “Community, State and Gender: Some Reflections on the Partition of India.” [CP]
Pandey, “The Imperialist Distortion of the Partition of India”
Bapsi Sidhwa, Cracking India
“Toba Tek Singh”
STUDENT PRESENTATION
Vijay Mishra, “The Diasporic Imaginary: Theorizing the Indian Diaspora” [CP]
Avtar Brah, “Diaspora, Border and Transnational Identities” [Grad English Office]
Aijaz Ahmad, “Ideologies of Class, Languages of Immigration” [CP]
“South Asians in post-imperial Britain: decolonisation and imperial legacy” [Grad office]
Rushdie, “Imaginary Homelands” in Imaginary Homelands, 9-21
Hanif Kureishi, Borderline [Grad Office]
Mala Pandurang, “Conceptualizing Emigrant Indian Female Subjectivity: Possible Entry Points” [CP]
Rukhsana Ahmad, “Song for a Sanctuary” [CP]
Hall, “Conclusion: The Multi-Cultural Question” [CP]
STUDENT PRESENTATION
STUDENT PRESENTATION
CLASS IN UC 282
Screen Gurinder Chadha, I’m British But…
Discussion of Gurinder Chadha’s I’m British But…
Sanjay Sharma, “Noisy Asians or ‘Asian Noise’?” [CP]
Zuberi. “Documented/ Documentary Asians: Gurinder Chadha’s I’m British But…and the Musical Mediation of Sonic and Visual Identities” [Grad Office]
STUDENT PRESENTATION
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Week 4
June 3
June 5 |
Screen Gandhi (Write a book Review and present in class on June 5)
Rushdie, “The New Empire within Britain” in Imaginary Homelands
Discussion of Gandhi/ reviews
Indian Ink
Antoinette Burton. “India, Inc.? Nostalgia, Memory and the Empire of Things.”
In British Culture and the End of Empire. Ed. Stuart Ward. UK: Manchester University Press, 2001. 217-232. [Grad Office]
STUDENT PRESENTATION
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Week 5
June 10
June 12 |
V.S. Naipaul. The Enigma of Arrival
Satender Nandan, “The Adventure of Indenture: A Diasporic Identity” [CP]
STUDENT PRESENTATION
Screen Continuous Journey
Sharon Pollock, The Komagatamaru Incident [Grad Office]
Radhika Mongia, “Race, Nationality, Mobility: A History of the Passport”[Grad Office]
Makarand Paranjpe, “One Foot in Canada and a Couple of Toes in India: Diasporas and Homelands in South Asian Canadian Experience” [CP]
Bharati Mukherjee, “The Management of Grief”[CP]
Himani Bannerjee, “On the Dark Side of the Nation: Politics of Multiculturalism and the State of Canada” [Grad English Office]
STUDENT PRESENTATION
STUDENT PRESENTATION
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Week 6
June 17
June 20 |
Presentation of final paper topics
Screen Dilwale Dulhaniya le Jayenge
CLASS IN UC 282
Guest Lecture/ discussion
Mishra, “Bombay Cinema and Diasporic Desire” [Grad Office] |
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