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Spring 2001 | |
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English 412 |
Rice 109, (440) 775-8653 |
The substantive focus of this course is to read -- closely, carefully, assiduously -- individual texts (novels and essays/critical exegeses) by, arguably, two of the most important contemporary "postcolonial" writers, Coetzee and Rushdie. This focus will include sustained attention to contexts -- of historical moment, geographical location, ideological investments, critical positioning, and affiliation with other discourses, texts, and writers -- through which Coetzee's and Rushdie's work becomes, or is made, meaningful. Although there are continuities between the two (in their deployment, for instance, of parodic, allegorical, and deconstructive modes, which, in turn, links them with poststructuralist and/or postmodernist discourses), each positions himself (and is positioned) differently as well in relation to the discourses and critical formulations he draws upon or invokes, not least because of differences in location, and specific investments and self-definitions. The course will address these differences (as well as the overlaps) between the two.
Texts (available from Barnes and Nobel, Oberlin)
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Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe |
J. Nehru, The Discovery of India |
In addition to the texts above, you will need to purchase a packet of xeroxed materials, comprised primarily of interviews and essays from Coetzee's Doubling the Point, which is now indefinitely out of print, and some interviews by Rushdie that are not easily accessible. You can purchase this packet from the English department secretary in Rice 130, during office hours of 8:30-12:30 and 1:30-4:30. The packet costs $6.00. Please bring in exact amount of purchase.
The schedule below is organized by numbered units rather than dates and specifies texts (and sometimes thematic and/or conceptual frameworks through which to approach these texts) we will cover in each unit. As will become apparent in our discussions as we move back and forth between units, some texts are meaningful within other units as well and so will not be confined to the one under which they first appear.
I. This unit will address questions pertaining to what Coetzee and Rushdie imply or say about themselves as writers -- their methods, practices, interests -- through their comments on their own work and that of other writers. And it will include discussion of the contexts within which they see themselves operating, the location(s) -- cultural, social, epistemological, political -- within which they are embedded, or which they invoke as significant for their (writerly) activities. We will address the interviews numbered 1-6 by Coetzee and the interview from New Quest and from Helix by Rushdie (all in xeroxed packet) In addition, we will read the following essays by Coetzee ("Jerusalem Prize Acceptance Speech," "Confession and Double Thoughts," "Into the Dark Chamber," "Athol Fugard," "Breyten Breytenbach," Nadine Gordimer" [all in xeroxed packet]) and by Rushdie ("Introduction," "Imaginary Homelands," "Commonwealth Literature Does Not Exist," "Kipling," "V. S. Naipaul," "Nadine Gordimer" [pp. 192-195], "Rian Malan," "Gunter Grass," "Heinrich Boll" [all in Imaginary Homelands]).
II. In this unit, through our discussion of Coetzee's Dusklands, Rushdie's Midnight's Children, and a cluster of essays by them and others, we will explore the discourse of history and history as discourse as well as the related issue of representation (in both meanings of the term, as Spivak defines them -- as "portrait," that is, and as "proxy") by addressing the following questions which pertain to both subjects above: who writes/represents? from whose perspective/interests? from what vantage points? To what end? In addition to the two novels, we will read selections from Nehru's Discovery of India and consider the following essays by Coetzee ("The Novel Today," "Introduction [to White Writing]," "Idleness in South Africa" [all in xeroxed packet]), by Rushdie ("'Errata': Or Unreliable Narration," "Outside the Whale," [both from Imaginary Homelands]) and by Gyan Prakash (Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World" [in xeroxed packet]).
III. From Rushdie's "Riddle of Midnight" (in Imaginary Homelands) to The Moor's Last Sigh.
IV. The Satanic Verses as well as the following essays by Rushdie ("The New Empire within Britain," "An Unimportant Fire," "Homefront," and section 12 [all from Imaginary Homelands]) and "Multiculturalism and British Identity in the wake of the Rushdie Affair" by Talal Asad.
V. "from the position of the antagonist": narratives by and/or written from the "positionality" of women: Coetzee's In the Heart of the Country, Foe, and Age of Iron, and Rushdie's Shame. (As a digression from, or more appropriately disrupting the primary focus of this unit, we will also read selections from Defoe's Robinson Crusoe).
VI. Life and Times of Michael K
VII. Waiting for the Barabrians as well as "Into the Dark Chamber" (once again).
VIII. Disgrace
IX. The Ground Beneath her Feet
Method of Instruction
For this advanced level course, we will proceed almost entirely through discussion, in which each of you will play a very active role in generating questions/issues, setting up the terms for analysis, and responding thoughtfully and critically to the frameworks I have set up and those the other students might invoke. It is imperative you come prepared to each class, having completed your readings on time.
Paper(s)
You have the option to write either two papers (12-15 pages each) due before the spring recess (on 22nd or 23rd March) and the other at the end of the semester (May 15) or one long paper, the final draft for which will be due at the end of the semester (May 15), but a detailed proposal, including potential topic, and outline of the argument's various constituent parts, and supporting materials, for which will be due before spring recess (22nd or 23rd March). Written work will constitute 70% of the grade with class participation counting for 30%. You cannot pass the course without having completed the written work.