Anuradha Needham (English) x 8571

Steven Volk (History) x8522

MWF: 12:00 - 1:15 (King 239)

Syllabus on the Internet: http://www.oberlin.edu/~svolk/367f01syllabus.htm

Course Info: http://cinfo.oberlin.edu

Electronic Reserve: http://eres.cc.oberlin.edu

      Narrating the Nation is an interdisciplinary, intensive seminar which offers an analysis of the narratives through which nationalisms -- both official and alternative -- acquire (or are denied) credibility and authority. This discussion-centered class will examine the nationalisms of Latin America, the Caribbean, and South Asia with particular reference to those of Argentina and Mexico, India and Pakistan. Narrative theor(ies) as deployed in and by the disciplines of History and English literary studies provide the overarching critical methodologies for interdisciplinary analysis. Our concern in this course is both thematic and methodological -- particularly as concerns epistemological challenges of History and literary criticism and the manner in which each can be made to push the other to greater insights.

The course is offered for four hours of credit (two in History; two in English). You will be expected to keep up with a large amount of reading, and to attend class regularly. Attendance will be taken and unexcused absences noted. As students in a seminar, you will be expected to engage actively in class discussions; part of your grade (30%) will involve your participation in class. You should speak to one of the instructors if you find that there is some constraint to your active participation and engagement with the materials and the class members.

COURSE FORMAT: In general, and once we have finished with some introductory materials, the course will run as a discussion class. All students are expected to form into small study/presentation groups of 3-5 students each at the beginning of the semester. These groups will serve as study groups and will also be assigned specific weeks in which to serve as discussion leaders. Classes will always run (unless further advised) on Mondays and Wednesdays. Fridays will be used for further discussion in smaller groups, for videos, or for other approaches to the material.

REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: As noted above, you will be required to keep up with the reading and to attend class regularly. There are two 12-15 pages, due on October 19 and by December 20, respectively. You will be expected to turn in drafts of these papers prior to the final paper. If you turn in a paper late without the permission of one of the instructors, your grade will be decreased one grade step (e.g., from a B+ to a B) for each day it is late. The two papers will make up 70% of your grade (35% each). As noted, class participation accounts for the remaining 30%.

Thomas Benjamin, La Revolución: Mexico's Great Revolution as Memory, Myth, and History (Austin: University of Texas Press), 2000.

Urvashi Butalia, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition on India (Durham: Duke University Press), 2000.

Michelle Cliff, Abeng (New York: Plume), 1995.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The General in His Labyrinth , paperback reprint ed. (NY: Penguin USA), 1991.

Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines (South Asia Books), 1998.

Florencia Mallon, Peasant and Nation: The Making of Post-Colonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press), 1994.

Salman Rushdie, Shame (London: Picador), 2000.

Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children (New York: Penguin USA), 1995.

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Facundo: Or, Civilization and Barbarism, trans. Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, intro. Ilan Stavans (New York: Penguin Books), 1998.

Sara Suleri, Meatless Days (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1991.

NOTE: Articles in the Syllabus marked with an (*) will be available in a course reader for purchase.

Wed. Sept. 5: Introduction

Fri., Sept. 7, Mon., Sept. 10: Questions of Methodology and Epistemology: Historians, Cultural Critics, and the Production and Organization of Knowledge

Readings: David William Cohen, "The Production of History," in The Combing of History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 1-23. (*)

Florencia Mallon, Peasant and Nation: The Making of Post-Colonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994), Chapter 1.

Hayden White, "Foreword: Rancière's Revisionism," in Jacques Rancière, The Name of History. On the Poetics of Knowledge (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), pp. vii-xix. (*)

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "The Post-modern Condition: The End of Politics?" in Sarah Harasym, ed., The Post-Colonial Critic. Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (New York: Routledge, 1990), 17-34. (*)

J.M. Coetzee, "The Novel Today" (*)

Wed., Sept. 12; Fri., Sept. 14: Theorizing the Nation

Readings: From John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith, ed., Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994): Introduction and Part I (Stalin, Weber, Deutsch, Geertz, Giddens, Connor), pp. 3-13, 21-46; Part II (Kedourie, Gellner, Gellner, Nairn, Hobsbawm), pp. 47-83; Part IV (Kohn, Greenfeld), pp. 162-171.

From Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, Becoming National. A Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). Introduction (3-37); Renan (41-55); Smith (106-130); Balibar (132-149); Duara (151-177).

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (NY and London: Verso), 1991. Chs. 1-6 (pp. xi-111).

NOTE: The three books above (Hutchinson and Smith, Eley and Suny, and Anderson) are on reserve in the library. You should familarize yourselves with many of the articles in these volumes, particularly the articles noted above. You will want to split up the reading of these articles among members of your study groups.

Partha Chatterjee, "Whose Imagined Community?" The Nation and its Fragments. Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 3-13. (*)

Stuart Hall, "Cultural Identity and Diaspora," in Jonathan Rutherford, ed., Identity: Community Culture, Difference (London: Lawrence Wishart, 1990), pp. 222-237. (*)

Partha Chatterjee, "Nationalism as a Problem in the History of Political Ideas," in Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World. A Derivative Discourse (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1986), pp. 1-35. (*)

Sudipta Kaviraj, "Imaginary Institution of India," Subaltern Studies VII. Writings on South Asian History and Society (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993): 1-39. (*)

Sept. 17, 19, 21: Latin American Independence: Imagining Europe in America

Reading: Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Facundo: Or, Civilization and Barbarism, trans. Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, intro. Ilan Stavans (New York: Penguin Books), 1998.

Juan Facundo Quiroga

Sept. 24, 26, 28: 19th Century Latin America: Alternative Nationalisms: Democratic Patriarchy in Mexico

Reading: Florencia Mallon, Peasant and Nation: The Making of Post-Colonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994), Chs. 2-5, 7.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Deconstructing Historiography" (*)

Oct. 1, 3, 5: Mexico Rewrites the Nation: Representing Revolutionary Mexico

Reading: Thomas Benjamin, La Revolución: Mexico's Great Revolution as Memory, Myth, and History (Austin: University of Texas Press), 2000.

Steven S. Volk, "Frida Kahlo Remaps the Nation," Social Identities 6:2 (June 2000): 165-188. (*)

Oct. 8, 10, 12: History, Historiography, and National Narration: García Marquez

Reading: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The General in His Labyrinth (NY: Penguin USA, Paperback Reprint edition (September 1991).

Simon Bolivar

Oct. 15, 17, 19: Catch up, individual meetings, preparation of papers First Paper: Due by 4:30 PM on Oct. 19.

Oct. 22-26: FALL BREAK

Oct. 29, 31; Nov. 2: Representing Subaltern Histor(ies)

Reading: Michelle Cliff, Abeng (New York: Plume), 1995.

Ranajit Guha, "Small Voice of History" (*)

Nov. 5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 16: From the "Position of the Antagonist": Migrants and Women

Reading: Salman Rushdie, Shame (London: Picador), 2000.

Anuradha Dingwaney Needham "Re-playing the Indian Subcontinent: Salman Rushdie's Methods of Critique," Ch. 2 of Using the Master's Tools (New York: St. Martin's Press), 2000 (*).

Sara Suleri, Meatless Days (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1991.

Nov. 19, 21: Histor(ies) of India

Reading: M. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj (edition and pages to be assigned).

Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India (Delhi: Oxford Univ. Press, 1946), pages to be assigned.

Optional: Gyan Prakash, "Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World: Perspectives from Indian Historiography," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 32:2 (April 1990): 383-408.

Nov. 26, 28, 30: (Re-)writing (histories) of India

Salman Rushdie

Reading: Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children (New York: Penguin USA), 1995.

Rushdie, "The Riddle of Midnight," and "Errata" (*)

Dec. 3, 5, 7: A (no longer) Suppressed Narrative of the Indian Nation

Reading: Urvashi Butalia, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition on India (Durham: Duke), 2000.

Dec. 10, 12, 14: A Critique of (Indian) Nationalism

Reading: Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines (South Asia Books), 1998.

Second Paper: Due by 7:00 PM on December 20.