140230 SE Gender and Postcolonial Critique (2011W)

Postcolonial critique is a set of diverse and interconnected theoretical approaches. Through a combination of social and cultural studies approaches, postcolonial critique seeks to uncover exclusionary structures, identify moments and spaces of agency and resistance, and to contextualize the production of knowledge and power structures in and beyond colonial and imperial endeavors. Through its keen awareness for history and geography and a substantial interest in examining the potential of subjectivity and agency, postcolonial perspectives compliment (and complicate) gender studies and feminist approaches. Both postcolonial and (some) feminist scholarship share a vested interest in analyzing the pluralities/multiplicities of overlapping and interconnected forms of dominance and oppression and in dismantling exclusionary and discriminatory practices and structures. Feminist perspectives within postcolonial critique (and vice versa) therefore provide us with a way of articulating complexities and challenging Eurocentric colonial and imperial practices and theories linked to past and present forms of domination, exploitation, invisibility, exclusion and violence. Focusing on subjectivity rather than on examining people as "objects of analysis" opens up space for contemplating practices of emancipation, resistance, liberation, subversion and refusal, thereby enabling the emergence of new perspectives capable of uncovering differences and rendering them productive. This English-taught course will discuss texts from postcolonial critique that seek to question gender norms and practices with a central focus on contextualization, rewriting histories, agency and resistance. These transdisciplinary texts will serve as a basis for employing methods of gender-specific, feminist and postcolonial critique to the course participants' current research interests.