English 494 -- Senior Seminar

English 494 -- Senior Seminar

National Allegory in Postcolonial Literature

Instructor: Julie Barak Phone: (970) 248-1072

Office: 445/452 Lowell Heiny Hall e-mail: [email protected]

Home Page: http://www.mesastate.edu/~jbarak Office Hours: MWF 8:00-10:00,

TR 9:30-10:30

Course Goals: 1)To explore the concept of national allegory in postcolonial literature. 2) To demonstrate competence in composing an extended reading of a text. 3) To organize and orchestrate a discussion of a text so that it both captivates an audience and stimulates audience response. 4) To share ideas about and connections between texts in class discussions.

Course Methods: The most essential method of the course will be large group discussions lead by either the instructor or by class members. Initially, we may depend upon short lectures to introduce topics to contextualize reading and discussion. In addition to these methods for discussing the literature, we will spend a fair amount of time workshopping our writing, sharing techniques, ideas, suggestions for improving, expanding and organizing our work.

Required Texts and other expenses:

Achebe, Chinua. Man of the People.

----- Anthills of the Savanah.

Ama Ata Aidoo. Our Sister Killjoy.

----- Changes: A Love Story.

Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, 2^nd edition.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Grain of Wheat.

----- Petals of Blood.

Copies of a selection of the text you choose to work with for the class.

Copies of your essay for workshopping.

One other text from the following list:

Marjorie Macgoye. The Present Moment.

----- Coming to Birth.

Rebeka Njau. Ripples in the Pool.

Sembene Ousmane. Xala.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Matagari.

Arundati Roy. The God of Small Things.

Amitav Ghosh. The Shadow Lines.

Michelle Cilff. No Telephone to Heaven.

Rosario Ferre. The House on the Lagoon.

----- Sweet Diamond Dust.

Buchi Emechita. The Joys of Motherhood.

J. Nozipo Maraire. Zenzele: A Letter for my Daughter.

V. S. Naipaul. A House for Mr. Biswas.

Okoth-Okombo. The Cannibal.

Bessie Head. A Question of Power.

Jamaica Kincaid. Annie John.

Cristina Garcia. Dreaming in Cuban.

Edwidge Danticat. The Dew Breaker.

N. Scott Momaday. House Made of Dawn.

Salmon Rusdie. Midnight’s Children.

Course Requirements and Policies:

I. 20-25 page research paper. At the beginning of the semester you will chose one author from the reading list above to work with. Your task is to develop/explain/explore how the writer develops/ uses allegory to comment on the formation/formulation of nation. Throughout the semester we'll work together to gather information, to think about your own interpretation of that information, to organize your thoughts and your research and to compose the paper. Points for the paper are distributed as follows:

A. Annotated bibliography (at least 15 sources): 15 points

B. Workable thesis statement: 5 points

C. Formal outline which details development of ideas and use of both primary and secondary sources: 15 points

D. First draft of essay: 20 points

F. Final draft of essay: 45 points

The paper is worth 50% of your final grade for the course. See note below about late work.

II. Class Presentation. A 20 minute presentation on your author/text that includes the following features:

A. A lecture organized around a theme that you think permeates the work of this particular author. Your job is to familiarize us with the author you've chosen to work with and then to "organize" our reading of the text so that we come away from it with a coherent assessment of meaning and connection to other texts and ideas we've been working with.

B. A discussion focusing on the issues and ideas presented in the text. Your job is to provoke a response from your audience and then to keep that response lively and interesting through your intelligent, energetic and thoughtful questions and comments.

C. You should supply us with a short selection (10 or so pages) by your author to read before your presentation.

The presentation is worth 20% of your grade.

III. Daily Journal.

A. Three questions about the readings/presentations/drafts.

1. Make sure you ask questions.

2. Make sure there are three of them.

3. Make sure they move beyond content to establishing or inquiring about meaning.

B. A 250 word response to the readings. Your response might include any of the following:

1. List the emotions the text evoked in you. Explain why you think you felt these emotions.

2. Copy one sentence, one line, or one phrase that struck you as especially beautiful, puzzling, enlightening, or whatever. Then discuss how and why it evoked this response.

3. Explain why you could or couldn't identify with a particular character or situation in the work.

4. Connect the ideas in this text with ideas in another text.

5. Comment on style, characterization, setting, plot, theme, use of images and figurative language, structure.

6. Explore the connections between literature and politics in a writer's work.

7. Connect the text to theory: postcolonial, postmodern, structuralist, feminist, psychological, Marxist, etc.

These questions and responses are worth 15% of your grade. Included in my assessment of these responses is how often and how cogently you use them to aid the class in discussing a work.

I. Workshop Leader. Each of you will lead the discussion about one of your classmate’s essays. Your discussion should follow the following format:

A. A discussion of what works.

B. A discussion of what needs work.

C. Questions to provoke discussion of the essay. These might include, but are not limited to, challenges to the writer’s logic, suggestions about connections the writer might make to other texts, summaries of critical or theoretical articles that you think might be useful, questions for the rest of the class about organization.

D. A marked copy of the essay marking or noting errors in style and grammar.

This activity is worth 15% of your final grade.

V. Portfolio and Survey forms for program assessment. These are due at the end of the semester. More information will follow.

Class Attendance and Participation

Show up for class. You’ve got to come to class to do well in the class. In order to share your responses and to help us construct a shared meaning of the texts we’ll read and write, you have to be here to participate in the discussions. But, because I know that life can get complicated, everybody gets three free absences. After three, you lose a third of a letter grade for each absence. (For example, if you have a B for the class but you’ve missed 5 classes, your final grade will be a C+.) You will also be penalized for coming into class late – three “lates” equals one absence.

Late Work Policy

Turn work in on time. Late work will not be accepted. I'm adamant about this. There will be no exceptions to this rule. If you don't have the writing in your hand in class on the day we're going to be working with it, you don't get credit for it -- you will receive an "F" for that assignment. Do your work ahead of time. Print your essay or response out the night BEFORE it's due. Don't wait until the last minute to dash something off. Be sure you back up all the work you do on your computer so that you have a copy on your hard drive and a copy on disk. I will not accept excuses of ANY sort for late work – computer, printer, and disk problems included.

Policies and Procedures:

Academic Misconduct. Please read the section on cheating and plagiarism in the student handbook. The consequences for cheating and plagiarism are severe, including failure for the assignment, possible failure of the course, disciplinary referral to the dean, and possible expulsion from the college. If you have questions about these violations of academic honesty, please come and see me.

Disabilities. In coordination with Educational Access Services, reasonable accommodations will be provided for qualified students with disabilities. Please contact EAS at 248-1856, or in person at 1020 Elm Ave., across the street from Monument Hall. Please meet with the instructor the first week of class to discuss accommodations for this class.

Fall Schedule

Week

Date

Assignment

Project Due

Aug 20^th

Introduction

Jameson/Ahmad/Lu Xun (handouts)

Journal Due

4-Fanon, Anderson,

Journal Due

Aug 27^th

4- Chatterjee, Brennan

Journal Due

4-Bhabha, Cairns and Richards

Journal Due

Grain of Wheat

Journal Due

Sept 03

Labor Day Break

1-JanMohamed, Said

Journal Due

1-Bhabha, Dirks, Mbembe

Journal Due

Sept 10

Petals of Blood

Journal Due

2-Achebe, Larson

Journal Due

2-Bishop, Serequeberhan

Journal Due

Sept 17

Man of the People

Journal Due

3-Said, Tiffin, Slemon

Journal Due

3-Stam and Spence, Boehmer

Journal Due

Sept 24

Anthills of the Savannah

Journal Due

9-Petersen, Katrak, Mohanty

Journal Due

9-Minh-ha, Suleri, Oyeronke Oyewumi

Journal Due

Oct 1

16-Rushdie, Hall, Said, Brah, Clifford

Journal Due

Our Sister Killjoy

Journal Due

5-Petersen and Rutherford, Achebe

Journal Due

Oct 8

5-Dash, Bhabha, Young

Journal Due

17 Dirlik, Appadurai, Gikandi, Robertson

Hardt and Negri, Mohanty

Journal Due

Changes

Journal Due

Copies of Selections from Novels due. Distributed in class.

Oct 15

Fall Break

Presentations – Read Selections

Annotated Bibliography Due

Journal Due