Lisa Pollard 228 Morton Hall
HST 562 962-3300
pollardl@uncw.edu Office Hours: MW 11-12; M 4-6 and by appointment
Global Seminar: Europe and the World Outside: From Travel to Empire to post-Colonialism
The goal of this seminar is to familiarize students with a body of literature that examines Europe’s view of and relationship to non-Western people in the period spanning Europe’s initial expansion into the New World through the post-colonial era. That literature has, over the course of the last three decades, interrogated the various ways in which Europeans (and Americans) came to “know,” categorize and rule over those they categorized as “others.” In addition to using technology to dominate non-Western peoples, this body of scholarship posits that Westerners created bodies of knowledge through which they viewed the world outside and on which they drew to create the discursive systems that under-girded the Western imperial project. Our jobs over the course of the semester will be twofold. To begin with, we will read the “top ten” (top eleven, actually) texts that have served to define the field of colonial studies over the past generation, examining the various ways in which scholars have accounted for the relationship between power and knowledge. Then, students will be asked to produce a research paper based on primary sources produced by a Western nation (or by institutions within a Western nation) in which an “other” (women, indigenous peoples, non-Whites, laborers, peasants, subalterns) or in which an “other’s” institutions were defined and categorized. By semester’s end, students will have acquired a theoretical framework within which primary-source materials can be placed and interpreted.
Required reading:
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: Volume 1
Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions
*Edward Said, Orientalism, chapter 1.
Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes
Timothy Mitchell, Colonizing Egypt,
Daniel Headrick, The Tools of Empire
Phillipa Levine, Gender and Empire
Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism
Aime Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism,
Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe
Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question
*This reading will be available on Blackboard.
Course requirements:
Attendance and participation: The success of a seminar depends on the willingness of its members to attend class prepared to engage in serious and thoughtful discussion of the day’s readings. Participation (not attendance) will be evaluated as part of one’s final grade; thus, skipping class will have a negative effect on one’s final grade as there will be far fewer opportunities to make qualitative contributions to the seminar.
Assignments: (All written assignments must be typed, double-spaced, 12-point font and conform to one-inch margins on all sides). Please note that all assignments are due at the beginning of the class. I will not accept work from students who skip class and attempt to turn in their assignments at a later time. I will not accept any electronically-submitted papers. No exceptions.
Each student is expected to complete a 25-page research paper.
Each student is expected to complete a bibliographic assignment as part of the process of thinking and writing about this topic. The assignment includes a two-page prospectus and a preliminary bibliography. Students should aim to include 15 secondary sources (including, of course, the materials we read for class) and an equal number of primary sources.
All students are responsible for completing the assigned readings and will hand in a one-page typed “comment” that addresses each week’s reading assignment. These written comments will be collected at the beginning of the class period.
Each student will also serve as a discussant for one class period. As part of this assignment, each student is responsible for making a brief presentation (10 minutes) of the day’s reading assignment and for preparing between 4 to 6 open-ended, thought-provoking questions based on the day’s readings.. The intent of this assignment is to encourage interpretation rather than summarization of the readings. Student commentary should focus on one or two key points raised by the author(s) while the prepared questions should focus on the thesis, evidence, and conclusions of the work under review for the day.
Evaluation of students:
The research paper, will count for 50% of the final grade. The paper will be due on Wednesday, December 8, 2010.
The bibliographic assignment is limited to a two-page prospectus and a preliminary bibliography. It is worth 15% of your final grade, and will be due on October 11, 2010.
A four- to six-page review essay, on three secondary sources from your preliminary bibliography, will be due on November 8, 2010. It is worth 15% of the final grade.
Oral participation, written commentaries, presentations, discussion questions will all contribute to 20% of your final grade.
Discussion and Reading Schedule:
August 23 : Introduction to the course.
Reading for August 30: Foucault, The History of Sexuality
August 30: Discussion: Discourse. Power. Knowledge. What does sex have to do with global history?
Reading for September 13: Since we will skip a Monday for Labor Day, let us double the reading.
Read Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions, and Said, Orientalism, introduction and chapter 1
September 13: Discussion: Marvel, imagination, discourse, power.
Reading for September 20: Pratt, Imperial Eyes
September 20: Discussion: Intersecting discourses. Imagination and response.
Reading for September 27: Mitchell, Colonising Egypt
September 27: Discussion: Imposing discourse.
Reading for October 11: Headrick, The Tools of Empire
Bibliographic assignment due on October 11 at the beginning of class.
October 11: Discussion: What are the tools of empire as Headrick describes them? How does his approach presage later approaches? How does it differ? How do we reconcile material and cultural approaches to history?
Reading for October 18: Levine, Gender and Empire, chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 9
October 18: Discussion: Gender and history
Reading for October 25: Said, Culture and Imperialism, chapters 1, 2 and 3
October 25: Discussion: Culture and imperialism
Reading for November 1: Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism
November 1: Discussion: How do the colonized respond?
Reading for November 8: Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, introduction, chapters 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 and epilogue
Review essay due on November 8 at the beginning of class
November 8: Discussion: What does it mean to “provincialize” Europe? What does it do to the certainties of imperial logic?
Reading for November 15: Cooper, Colonialism in Question, parts I and II
November 15: Discussion: Whither colonial studies?
Reading for November 22: Cooper, Colonialism in Question, part III and Said, Culture and Imperialism, chapter 4.
November 22: Discussion: Possibilities and dead ends.
Your final paper will be due by 7 p.m. Wednesday, December 8, 2010