Universität Wien

140412 VO+UE VM4 -VM5 - Encountering development in colonial and postcolonial imaginations (2015S)

Continuous assessment of course work

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. 25 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

Monday 16.03. 14:00 - 16:00 (ehem. Seminarraum Internationale Entwicklung Afrikawissenschaften UniCampus Hof 5 2Q-EG-05)
Monday 23.03. 14:00 - 16:00 (ehem. Seminarraum Internationale Entwicklung Afrikawissenschaften UniCampus Hof 5 2Q-EG-05)
Monday 13.04. 14:00 - 16:00 (ehem. Seminarraum Internationale Entwicklung Afrikawissenschaften UniCampus Hof 5 2Q-EG-05)
Monday 20.04. 14:00 - 16:00 (ehem. Seminarraum Internationale Entwicklung Afrikawissenschaften UniCampus Hof 5 2Q-EG-05)
Monday 27.04. 14:00 - 16:00 (ehem. Seminarraum Internationale Entwicklung Afrikawissenschaften UniCampus Hof 5 2Q-EG-05)
Monday 04.05. 14:00 - 16:00 (ehem. Seminarraum Internationale Entwicklung Afrikawissenschaften UniCampus Hof 5 2Q-EG-05)
Monday 11.05. 14:00 - 16:00 (ehem. Seminarraum Internationale Entwicklung Afrikawissenschaften UniCampus Hof 5 2Q-EG-05)
Monday 18.05. 14:00 - 16:00 (ehem. Seminarraum Internationale Entwicklung Afrikawissenschaften UniCampus Hof 5 2Q-EG-05)
Monday 01.06. 14:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum SG3 Gender-Studies, Sensengasse 3, Bauteil 1
Monday 08.06. 14:00 - 16:00 (ehem. Seminarraum Internationale Entwicklung Afrikawissenschaften UniCampus Hof 5 2Q-EG-05)
Monday 15.06. 14:00 - 16:00 (ehem. Seminarraum Internationale Entwicklung Afrikawissenschaften UniCampus Hof 5 2Q-EG-05)
Monday 22.06. 14:00 - 16:00 (ehem. Seminarraum Internationale Entwicklung Afrikawissenschaften UniCampus Hof 5 2Q-EG-05)
Monday 29.06. 14:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum SG2 Internationale Entwicklung, Sensengasse 3, Bauteil 1

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

This course is approaching the history of development in the 20th century by tales and stories that connect to it. It explores memories and representations of the development encounter in literature and film, and examines how popular narrative worlds interact with institutional discourses of development. The term ‘development encounter' was coined by Arturo Escobar (1991) who described it both as a continuation and a substitution of the colonial encounter. The encounter with ‘development' as a concept and as a field has not only been productive in terms of creating a series of policies and practices such as development planning, for instance, or development aid. It has also produced its own medial forms, cultures, specific languages and epistemologies. How are concepts and practices of development culturally represented? How is ‘development’ presented as practice and ideology, if looked at through narratives created in popular culture, fiction and film?

Assessment and permitted materials

Regular attendance; participation in discussions; small assignments; oral presentation; short essay (approx. 7 pages).

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

The course aims to create awareness for the role of cultural representations in discourses of development. It encourages students to work with fiction, art and popular culture as a source of knowledge in development studies and provides them with a methodological and theoretical background for that purpose.

Examination topics

Introduction; presentation and discussion of set reading; close reading and analysis of development narratives in fiction, film and popular media based on theoretical approaches from literary studies, postcolonial studies, gender studies, and media and memory studies.

Reading list

Reading (secondary literature):
Achebe, Chinua. ‘The Truth of Fiction.’ Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays 1965-1987. London: Heinemann, 1988. 95105.
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. ‘The Danger of a Single Story.’ TEDGlobal 2009. 2009. 18:49.
Culler, Jonathan. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
De vries Pieter. ‘Don’t Compromise Your Desire for Development! A Lacanian/Deleuzian Rethinking of the Anti-Politics Machine.’Third World Quarterly 28/1, 2007, 2543.
Erll, Astrid, and Ann Rigney, eds. Mediation, Remediation, and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2012.
Escobar, Arturo. Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Grillo, R. D., and R. L. Stirrat, eds. Discourses of Development: Anthropological Perspectives. Explorations in Anthropology.Oxford; New York: Berg, 1997.
Hacker, Hanna. Queer entwickeln: Feministische und postkoloniale Analysen. Wien: Mandelbaum, 2012.
Hunt, Nancy Rose. ‘Between Fiction and History: Modes of Writing Abortion in Africa.’ Cahiers d’études africaines [en Ligne] 186 (2007): 225.
Lewis, David, Dennis Rodgers, and Michael J. V. Woolcock, eds. Popular Representations of Development: Insights from Novels, Films, Television and Social Media. London; New York: Routledge, 2014.
Nederveen Pieterse, Jan. Development Theory. 2nd ed. London; Thousand Oaks; New Delhi; Singapore: SAGE Publications, 2010.

Association in the course directory

VM4, VM5

Last modified: Mo 07.09.2020 15:35