Anticolonial, Decolonial, & Postcolonial Literature & Criticism in South & Southeast Asia
Comparative Literature 167
Dr. Tanya Rawal-Jindia
“Whenever we engage in consumption or production patterns which take more than we need, we are engaging in violence.” — Vandana Shiva
Course Description
Grades
20% Participation
20% Annotated Bibliography
20% 3-Page Final Paper Intro
40% Final Paper
Week 1/Meeting 1 — April 5, 2018
Confronting the ‘post’ in postcolonial studies while coping with the current era of American Imperialism. De-/Anti-/Post- Colonial.
Week 2/Meeting 2
— April 10, 2018: Anti-Colonialism
Read: Aimé Césaire’s A Discourse on Colonialism (1950)
Meeting 3 — April 12, 2018
Screen: The Legend of Bhagat Singh (2002, Netflix)
Week 3/Meeting 4
— April 17, 2018
— Read: David Harvey’s “Freedom is Just Another Word,” from A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005).
— Read: Amartya Sen “Development as Freedom” and “The Perspective of Freedom” from Development as Freedom (1999).
Meeting 5 — April 19, 2018
— Read: Vandana Shiva’s “How Economic Growth Has Become Anti-Life.” The Guardian, 1 November 2013.
— Screen: Confessions of an Economic Hit-Man (2009, Aaptation of John Perkins’ 2004 book)
— Read: selections from Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar’s The Adivasi Will Not Dance, Stories. (2015)
Week 4/Meeting 6
April 24, 2018
—Screen: Confessions of an Economic Hit-Man (2009, Aaptation of John Perkins’ 2004 book)
— Read: selections from Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar’s The Adivasi Will Not Dance, Stories. (2015)
— Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang’s “Decolonization is not a Metaphor” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society. UC San Diego. Vol. 1, №1, 2012, pp. 1–40.
Supplemental:
— What is an FIR?
— “‘Draupadi’ by Mahasveta Devi” Translated by Gayatri Spivak (for anyone interested in the sexual violence issues introduced by Shekhar)
Meeting 7 — April 26, 2018:
— Read: “They Eat Meat!” from Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar’s The Adivasi Will Not Dance, Stories. (2015)
— Read: “On Violence” from Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth.
— Read: Vandana Shiva’s “Living Economies” from Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace
Week 5/Meeting 8
May 1, 2018: A Narrative of the Aid & Relief for the Rohingya Crisis
— Read: Marguerite Waller’s “Addicted to Virtue: The Globalization Policy-Maker”(2006).
— Read: Daw Khin Myo Chit’s “The 13-Carat Diamond” (1958)
Meeting 9 — May 3, 2018: The Fall of the Elite?
— Listen/Screen: Aung San Suu Kyi’s First Public Speech on Violence in Rakhine, September 19, 2017.
— Read: selections from Aung San Suu Kyi’s Letters from Burma (1997):
- “The Peacock and the Dragon.” Mainichi Daily News, Monday, December 25, 1995.
- “Breakfast Blues.” Mainichi Daily News Monday, January 8, 1996. Read
- “Months and Seasons.” Mainichi Daily News, Monday, February 12, 1996. Read
- “The Beautiful and the Ugly.” Mainichi Daily News, April 22, 1996. Read
- “Pay As You Go.” Mainichi Daily News Sunday, October 13, 1996. Read
Supplemental:
— Zana Fraillon’s The Bone Sparrow (Orion/Disney, 2016)
— Rangoon (2017, Netflix)
Week 6/Meeting 10
— May 8, 2018: Who Made Pol Pot?
— Read: Kampuchea Will Win! Glimpses of Kampuchea (Cambodia). Written by the Delegation of the Canadian Community League (Marxist-Leninist). 1978–1979.
— Screen: Angelina Jolie’s First They Killed My Father (2017, also on Netflix)
Meeting 11 — May 10, 2018:
— Read: Teeda Butt Mam’s “Worms from Our Skin” from Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors. Ed. Kim DePaul. 1997.
Week 7 — The Worker’s Party of Vietnam
Ho Chi Minh’s “Some Considerations on the Colonial Question” (1922); The Colonial Abyss (1923); Oppression Hits All Races (1923); English ‘Colonization’ (1923); “Wage Resistance War! An Appeal to the Vietnamese People” (1946)
Down with Colonialism
Week 8 — Afghanistan
Afghanistan and Iraq
Screen: The Patience Stone (an adaptation, 2012)
Aijaz Ahmed
Week 9 — Afghanistan/Pakistan
Week 10 — Pakistan
