This course addresses the study of the literature of people who live in post-colonial countries, and their daily struggle to maintain and to obtain recognition of their rights. The authors of the assigned texts confine the everyday experiences of pre-colonial, colonial, and post colonial life to the pages of novels, short stories, et al., creating some of the most culturally diverse literature written in English. Thus, we will analyze the literature of societies structured in dominance during the colonial era that today are restructuring in spite of these dominant tendencies, e.g. Southern Africa. To this end I want us to consider the meaning of “human security” as a “space where men ” as well as women may behave differently ; we will discuss together characters and plots read from the assigned texts, as we identify male and female activity that occurs outside the status quo. This will require us to define human security as a gendered imagining and compare it with state and patriarchal security. “In a very general sense, the interactions between Europe and the societies it has colonized in the modern period” (www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Intro.html) are more than imperialism or a pre-planned stage of free market capitalism. These interactions center themselves on the social/spatial practices of colonized peoples before, during, and after colonialism. Social/spatial practices constitute cultural production that develops from its everyday actions, which often go unseen and un-remarked, except in the novels, drama, and poetry of colonized peoples. The study of African literature, film, and drama enables one to analyze cultural displacement, appropriation, and reconciliation as possible cultural legacies of colonialism.
Educational Objectives
· Learns actively by participating in learning activities and taking responsibility for his or her learning
· Thinks critically through reasoning, ingenuity and knowledge in examining issues or solving problems
· Communicates clearly by articulating ideas or and using multiple forms of communication
· Uses and manages information effectively and responsibly
· Develops diverse awareness of the human experience interpersonally, culturally, historically and globally
· Understands human rights as human security
· Defines:
o human security
o state security
o patriarchal security
o traditional security
o gendered security
· Compares state and patriarchal security to gendered security
· Discusses “security’’ as a fluid idea that is interpreted differently by various people/institutions
· Identifies those differences as they occur in assigned readings
Required Texts for Course
Plaatje, Sol T. Mhudi. ISBN 9780143185406
http://amzn.com/0143185403
Etherington, Norman. “A False Emptiness: How Historians May Have Been Misled by Early Nineteenth Century Maps of South-eastern Africa”, Imago Mundi 56:1: 67-86.
Mackaness, William A. "Automated cartography in a Bush of Ghosts." Cartography and Geographic Information Science. American Congress on Surveying & Mapping. 2006. HighBeam Research. 15 Oct. 2010 <http://www.highbeam.com>.
El-Sadaawi, Nawal. Woman at Point Zero ISBN 0-86232-1107
Interview with Nawal el Saadawi: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/video/2010/apr/26/nawal-el-saadawi-female-circumcision or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1brUb7Yezw8
Adicie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Purple Hibiscus. ISBN-13- 9781400076949
Oha, Anthony C. "Beyond the Odds of the Red Hibiscus: A Critical Reading of Chimamanda Adichie's Purple Hibiscus." The Journal of Pan African Studies (Online). Itabari Zulu. 2007. HighBeam Research. 15 Oct. 2010 <http://www.highbeam.com>.
Lectures and Assignments will be posted weekly!!! Enjoy this blog course
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