English 361

HISTORY, NATION, AND GENDER IN POST-COLONIAL NARRATIVES

Spring 1999	Anuradha Dingwaney Needham
Tu,Th 1:30-2:45	109 Rice Hall
	Office hours: Tu,Th 10:00-11:00;
	12:15-1:30 & by appt.
	Phone: 775-8653 (office)
	774-1230 (home)

Through a variety of recent theoretical formulations about historiography, nationalism, and gender (and about the integral connections that obtain between them), this course will examine several narratives of nation from the so-called Third World. Addressing both "official" and "alternative" nationalisms, "dominant" and "subaltern" historiographies, and the fundamental place of gender in narratives of nation, this course will focus particularly on the rhetorical strategies through which certain views (and stories) of nationalism, gender, and history acquire persuasive force.

Texts: (Available from the Co-op)

Ama Ata Aidoo, Our Sister Killjoy

Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments

Michelle Cliff, Abeng and No Telephone to Heaven

C.L.R. James, Beyond a Boundary

Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India

Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children and Shame

Sara Suleri, Meatless Days

Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid, Eds., Recasting Women

In addition, there is a packet of xeroxed materials that you can purchase from the English Department Secretary, Linda Pardee, Rice 130, M-F 8:30 am-4:00 pm. The cost is $4.00. Please bring exact amount.

Tentative Schedule:

Feb. 9:	Introduction: details about the course, readings, and papers.
Feb. 11, 16, 18:	Questions of Methodology and Epistemology: Historians, Literary and Cultural Critics and the Production and Organization of Knowledge. Readings from the packet: Cohen, "The Production of History," White, "Foreword: Rancière's Revisionism," Spivak, "The Post-Modern Condition," Prakash, "Writing Post-Orientalist Histories," and Chatterjee "Whose Imagined Community?" (The Nation and its Fragments)
Feb. 23, 25:	The Discovery of India
March 2, 4:	Midnight's Children
March 9, 11, 16, 18:	Gender and the Writing of History and of the Nation Readings: Sangari and Vaid, "Introduction" (Recasting), Spivak, "Woman in Difference" (xerox), Chakravarty, "Whatever Happened to the Vedic Dasi?" (Recasting), Chatterjee "The Nation and Its Women," and "Women and the Nation." (The Nation and its Fragments), Guha, "The Small Voice of History" (xerox), Lalitha and Kannabiran, "That Magic Time" (Recasting)
	Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University, will give a talk entitled "Cultural Studies" on March 15, 1999 at noon. Please plan on attending this talk.
March 18:	PAPER 1 DUE
	SPRING BREAK
March 29, April 1:	Shame
April 6, 8:	Meatless Days
April 13, 15:	Beyond a Boundary
April 20, 22:	Abeng
April 27, 29:	No Telephone to Heaven
May 4, 6:	Our Sister Killjoy
May 11, 13:	Concluding discussions, wrap-up, evaluations
May 18:	PAPER 2 DUE

You will write two papers (12-15 pages each) in which you will present a sustained, well-developed argument organized around a central, coherently stated thesis. You should make your critical assumptions explicit and, as far as possible, reflect on those assumptions in the course of your essay. You are encouraged (though not required) to show me early drafts of your papers for comments. You may revise final drafts as well for a better grade. You will also keep a journal where you will jot down your "responses" to every text we will read in class. During class discussion, I will call upon various students arbitrarily to read from journal entries. This way, hopefully, I will ensure that everyone comes prepared, and everyone is called upon to participate in class discussion. At the end of a two- or three-week period, I will look through the entries. The journal will not be graded.

Paper 1 due: March 18

Paper 2 due: May 18

Papers must be submitted on the dates they are due. You will be penalized a grade per day (e.g., lowered from B to B-) for unexcused late submissions. You can ask for extensions, but only by contacting me before the date the paper is due.

Lectures will be kept to a minimum and class will proceed mainly through discussions to which every student must contribute. This will require you to do your reading on time, to assiduously jot things down in your journals, and come prepared to participate intelligently and provocatively in class discussions.

Papers 1 and 2 will count for 70% of the grade (35% each); your participation in class discussion will count for the remaining 30%. You cannot pass the course unless you have completed all your written work.