Universität Wien

130106 PS Social History of Literature (PS): Postcolonial Con-Texts. Writing Back to the Canon (2015S)

5.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 13 - Europäische und Vergleichende Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft
Continuous assessment of course work
Moodle

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 30 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

  • Tuesday 10.03. 12:20 - 13:50 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
  • Tuesday 17.03. 12:20 - 13:50 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
  • Tuesday 24.03. 12:20 - 13:50 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
  • Tuesday 14.04. 12:20 - 13:50 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
  • Tuesday 21.04. 12:20 - 13:50 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
  • Tuesday 28.04. 12:20 - 13:50 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
  • Tuesday 05.05. 12:20 - 13:50 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
  • Tuesday 12.05. 12:20 - 13:50 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
  • Tuesday 19.05. 12:20 - 13:50 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
  • Tuesday 02.06. 12:20 - 13:50 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
  • Tuesday 09.06. 12:20 - 13:50 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
  • Tuesday 16.06. 12:20 - 13:50 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
  • Tuesday 23.06. 12:20 - 13:50 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
  • Tuesday 30.06. 12:20 - 13:50 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

The re-reading and re-writing of the English "classic" texts in the 20th century became a way for the formerly colonized to resist or challenge a Eurocentric vision of the world that represented colonized peoples and cultures as marginal, inferior and dependent on the European cultures. This "writing back", "counter-discourse" or "con-texts" contest the authority of the English canon as well as the whole discursive field within which these texts operated and continue to operate in the postcolonial world. It involves the abrogation of the imperial centre within the text and the active appropriation of the language and culture of that centre. Hence, dominated literatures are characterized by subversion, hybridity and syncreticity: the language and culture of the colonizer are appropriated and used against the colonizer as an instrument of subversion and resistance to assert the value of own culture and identity.
Over the last 20 years, the study of postcolonial rewritings of the English canon has attracted considerable attention. This course will focus on the most famous examples, attempting to survey some of the distinctive characteristics of such writing.

Assessment and permitted materials

Participation and homework (20%), oral presentation (20%), argumentative essay (60%), 3,500 words, due Sept. 15, 2015

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

identify, analyse and understand key philosophical, historical, social and aesthetic issues of postcolonial literature
analyse key postcolonial works in terms of their social, historical, philosophical, and aesthetic significance
apply close reading skills to a variety of literary texts
reflect critically on the relations between primary texts and relevant secondary texts
discriminate between ideas and justify personal positions
produce well-structured, relevant arguments with an appropriate intellectual framework

Examination topics

Reading list

Primary literature:
Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God (1965)
Chinua Achebe, "The Novelist as a Teacher" (1965)
Charlotte Brönte, Jane Eyre (1847)
Aimé Césaire, Une Tempête (1968)
Aimé Césaire, "Discourse on Colonialism" (1955)
J. M. Coetzee, Foe (1986)
J. M. Coetzee, "Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe" (1985)
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899)
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719)
Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)
William Shakespeare, The Tempest (1610-1611)

Secondary literature
Ashcroft, Bill et. al., The Empire Writes Back. Routledge, 1989, 2002.
McLeod, John. Beginning Postcolonialism. Manchester University Press, 2000.
Porter, Lawrence M. "Aime Cesaire's Reworking of Shakespeare: Anticolonialist Discourse in Une Tempete." Comparative Literature Studies 32 (1995): 360-81.
Spivak, Gayatri. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason. Harvard University Press, 1999.
Watt, Ian. "Robinson Crusoe as a Myth." Essays in Criticism: A Quarterly Journal of Literary Criticism (April 1951).

Association in the course directory

BA M5

Last modified: Th 04.07.2024 00:13