Course: POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE

Course category: LITERATURE 1

Level: BS English 8th Semester
Course Code: ENLT 465

Course Description:
Starting off in the late 1990s, the postcolonial theory and literature(s) became
increasingly popular in the early 21st century. Mainly engaging with the effects of
European colonial exercise, this course introduces literature that deals with the
construction of colonizer-colonized binary. In a larger perspective, it focuses on a broad
tendency in literary studies that has come out of a critical attention on Commonwealth
Literature and the Third World Studies in the 1980s and beyond. With its aim to analyse
the consequences of European colonisation, this course is based on the study of some
seminal and significant postcolonial literary texts (selected poetry, drama and fiction)
from around the world. The discussions generated in the classroom will introduce the
students to the colonial project of “civilizing” the third world and let them see how the
colonial experience shaped literature as a result of military, political, social and cultural
encounters between the colonizers and the colonized. Though Edward Said’s Orientalism
(1978) is regarded as one of the founding texts of postcolonial theory, the term itself and
its recognition as an academic discipline are the products of the late 1980s and early
1990s. Misleading as the term seems to be, ‘postcolonial’ does not refer to the period
after the independence of the former European colonies, but to the time when
colonization itself started. Geographically, the term refers to a vast trajectory of the
(native) cultures affected by the Western agenda and apparatus from the beginning of
colonisation to the present times of global diaspora. With a responsibility to deal with the
vexing questions of why America and Canada are usually not treated as postcolonial
countries, and how it breaks with Commonwealth Literature, postcolonial literature (and
theory) also attempts to demonstrate that centre-periphery relationship is much more
complex than it usually sounds. Moreover, this course highlights the issues of
mis(representation) of the native cultures and languages in the colonial discourse and the
primacy of the Western cultures and languages. Therefore, it introduces texts produced
worldwide that engage with decolonizing strategies and showcase anti-colonial
resistance. The students in turn will become conversant with the critical jargon and be
able to read the postcolonial texts by focusing on the relevant literary devices and
techniques.
Course Objectives:
The objectives to achieve through this course are:

 To introduce the students to the popular field of postcolonial studies and how it has
impacted English literary studies
 To familiarize students with effects of European colonization on the cultures, languages,
and ways of life in the colonized world
 To develop in students an understanding of the key concepts and terms related to the
postcolonial studies through a reading of the relevant texts.
  To let the students see how the postcolonial argument relates with the contemporary
realities, issues, and debates in terms of the privileged and the underprivileged in the
contemporary world
 To acquaint the students with how the colonial context shaped their Pakistani identities
and what role they can play as scholars to write back to the first world

Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs):

This course aims to have the following learning outcomes:

 The students will develop an understanding of the field of postcolonial studies.

 They will be able to identify the postcolonial issues and conflicts through the reading of
the texts
 This course will enable them to properly situate their own literature, culture, and history
in terms of the workings of power.

Course Contents:

Introduction: Teachers will introduce postcolonial studies/literature, its key concepts,

and the course contents and discuss the origin and development of postcolonial studies as
an academic discipline in two to three lectures.

Poetry

Jackie Kay My Grandmother

Nourbese Philip Discourse on the Logic of language (Teaching this poem also
requires the class to watch the poet read this poem on YouTube)
Derek Walcott A Far Cry from Africa
Agha Shahid Ali Country without a Post Office (Postcard from Kashmir)
Mahmoud Darwish Identity Card (Trans. From the Arabic by Denny Johnson-Davies)

Drama
Derek Walcott Dream on Monkey Mountain (Play)

Mid Term Examination

Novel

Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart

Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso Sea
V. S. Naipaul A Bend in the River (General overview)

End Term Examination

 Optional Texts:
Wole Soyinka The Strong Breed
Manjula Padmanabhan Harvest (Drama)
Hellen Tiffin Post-Colonial Literatures and Counter-Discourse (from The
Post-Colonial Reader)
Jamaica Kincaid A Small Place (Excerpted in The Post-Colonial Reader)
Frantz Fanon The Fact of Blackness (from The Post-Colonial Reader)
Graham Huggan Decolonizing the Map (from The Post-Colonial Reader)
Dennis Lee Writing in Colonial Space (from The Post-Colonial
Reader)
Pantomime (Play)
Wole Soyinka A Dance of the Forests (Play)
Jack Davis Honey Spot (Play)
Athol Fugard “Master Harold”… and the Boys (Play)
Rohinton Mistry Tales From FirozshaBaag (1987), a short story collection
Ngugi wa Thiong’o Devil on the Cross (Novel)
Rizwan Akhtar From Empire’s Days in Lahore (Poem)
Sujata Bhatt Search for My Tongue (Poem)
Thomas Macaulay Minutes on Indian Education (from The Post-Colonial
Reader)
Gauri Viswanathan The Beginning of English Literary Study in British India
(from The Post-Colonial Reader)
Raja Rao Language and Spirit (from The Post-Colonial Reader)
Ngugi wa Thiong’o On the Abolition of the English Department (From The
Post-Colonial Reader)
Jayanta Mahapatra The Abandoned British Cemetery at Balasore (poem)

N.B.

 Teachers may set short assignments and term papers from optional authors and texts.
However, the Mid & End-term question papers and quizzes shall be set from the core
text(s). They may also let the students explore texts beyond this course outline for their
term papers.
 Core texts should not be used for class presentations. Presentations may not be scheduled
in the first five weeks of the semester. Teachers may ask the students to make
presentations on optional texts or texts outside the course outline.
 In view of any potential time constraint or emergency, the respective course coordinators
from the main campus will decide on the course contents/core texts for the end-term
examination. They will consult relevant faculty of regional campuses in this regard prior
to the approval of HoD main campus.

Recommended Books:
Akhtar, Rizwan. Lahore, I Am Coming. Punjab University Press, 2017.
Ali, Agha Shahid. The Veiled Suite: The Collected Poems. Penguin Books, 2009.
Ashcroft, Bill., Griffiths, Gareth., & Tiffin, H. The Empire Writes Back. Routledge, 1989.
 ------, editors. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Routledge, 1995.
------. Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts. Routledge, 1998.
Bhabha, H. K. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.
Fanon, F. The Wretched of the Earth. (C. Farrington, Trans.) New York: Grove
Weidenfield, 1963.
Innes, C. L. The Cambridge Introduction to Postcolonial Literature in English.
Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Loomba, A. (1998). Colonialism/ Postcolonialism. London: Routledge.
Macaulay, Thomas. “Minutes on Indian Education”. In Bill Ashcroft, et al, editors. The
Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Routledge, 1995. pp. 428-30.
Mahapatra, Jayanta. “The Abandoned British Cemetry at Balasore.” In A Whiteness of
Bone: Selected Poems. Viking, 1992.
Philip, M. NourbeSe, “Discourse on the Logic of Language”, She Tries Her Tongue, Her
Silence Softly Breaks.Wesleyan University Press, 2014. pp. 30–33.
Rao, Raja. “Language and Spirit”. In Bill Ashcroft, et al, editors. The Post-Colonial
Studies Reader. Routledge, 1995. pp. 296-297.
Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. London: Routledge.
Said, E. W. (1994). Culture and Imperialism. London: Vintage Books.
Satpathy, Sumanyu, editor. Southern Postcolonialisms: The Global South and the ‘New’
Literary Representations. Routledge, 2009.
Soyinka, Wole. The Strong Breed. In Collected Plays. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press,
1973.
------. The Strong Breed. In Gilbert, Helen, editor. Postcolonial Plays: An Anthology,
2001, pp. 52-68.
Spivak, G. (1988). Marxism and Interpretation of Culture: Can the Subaltern Speak? (C.
Nelson, & L. Grossberg, Eds.) Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Bhatt, Sujata. “A Different History”.
https://pchujman.cumbresblogs.com/2013/09/16/postcolonial-poetry/. Accessed on 23
July, 2023.
Viswanathan, Gauri. “The Beginning of English Literary Study in British India”. In Bill
Ashcroft, et al, editors. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Routledge, 1995. pp. 431-37.
Thing’o, Ngugi wa. “On the Abolition of the English Department”. In Bill Ashcroft, et al,
editors. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Routledge, 1995. pp. 438-42.

Assessment:
Total marks: 100
Mid Term: (Marks: 30)
Class Participation/ presentation/ project: (Marks: 20)
End Term: (Marks: 50)