RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY PROGRAM IN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

Comparative Literature 519:01: “Postcolonial Readings of Colonialism in the Americas” Professor Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel Office hours: Mondays at the Institute for Research on Women (160 Ryders Lane, Douglass College) 1:00-2:00 p.m. or College Ave Student Center by appointment e-mail: [email protected] Class time: Wednesdays 3:00-6:00 p.m. Room: Comp Lit seminar Room, 195 College Ave. CAC

Course description This course reviews a series of theoretical and cultural debates that take Latin American and Caribbean colonialism as a point of departure to reconsider advantages and pitfalls of postcolonial studies. The main contention of the course is that after the intense debate against the applicability of postcolonial studies to Latin America (Klor de Alva, Coronil, Mignolo, and Adorno), there is a new generation of scholars who are proposing postcolonial readings of colonial discourses. The course will develop its argument in three complementary directions. First, it will provide a general definition of colonialism, coloniality and postcolonialism (Osterhammel ,Said, Spivak, Bhabha, Loomba, Young and Quijano). Then, we will address the ways in which these debates have been inflected in two different geographical areas that share an extended period of colonialism, that in some cases includes more than one form of imperial domination: the Caribbean and Latin American Tierra Firme (1493- 1700) and the Postcolonial Anglo, French and Hispanic Caribbean (1930-2000). Finally, each one of these colonial experiences will be examined through cultural representations and symbolical productions to propose an alternative canon of postcolonial narratives that can be studied in a comparative framework. Some of the primary texts that we will read include the following authors: Cristóbal Colón, Hernán Cortés, El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Cirilo Villaverde, Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, Jamaica Kincaid, Eduoard Glissant, Lourdes Casal, Erika López, and Rodney Morales. (Course open to advanced undergraduates as Comp Lit 397:01)

Texts: Most readings available on Sakai, electronic reserve. The following books are also required readings and are available at the Rutgers Library or at www.amazon.com or www.barnesandnoble.com:

Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism. : Routledge, 2005. ISBN-10: 0415350646 /ISBN-13: 978-0415350648. $18.00

Paul Gilroy, Postcolonial Melancholia. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. ISBN-10: 023113455X /ISBN-13: 978-0231134552. $15.75

Cirilo Villaverde, Cecilia Valdés or El Angel Hill. Translation Helen Lane. Edition, Introduction and notes by Sibylle Fischer. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN-10: 0-19-514395-7 /ISBN-13: 978-0-19-514395-9. $29.99

Frantz Fanon, Black Skins, White Masks. Translation by Richard Philcox. New York: Grove Press, 2008. ISBN-10: 0-8021-4300-8 /ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-4300-6. $11.20

Erika López, Flaming Iguanas. Simon & Schuster, 1998. ISBN-10: 068485368X /ISBN-13: 978-0684853680. $15.20

Evaluation:

Class attendance and participation 10% 5 short reaction papers on primary readings 30% Oral presentations in class of key recent publications in postcolonial studies 10% Critical review of one session of the Caribbean Philosophical Association Conference held on September 29-October 1, 2011 10% Final paper proposal due on November 9 10% Oral presentation of final project 5% Final 20-25 page paper due on January 17 25%

Requirements for graduates:

1. Five brief “reflexiones” (1-2 pages, double spaced) written in English and typed. Each “reflexión” will be a commentary on the discursive strategies developed in one of the primary texts. 2. Each student will lead part of one or two of the class sessions by summarizing the main points of a critical text not read by the whole class as well as by proposing an analysis of the primary text being discussed at the time of her/his presentation. Each presentation should include an exposition of the main points of the student’s interpretation of the texts (15-20 minutes), followed by a group discussion of the thesis of this oral presentation (10-15 minutes). Each presenter should prepare a handout outlining or summarizing the reading as a collaborative exercise with the other members of the class 3. Students are expected to attend one of the sessions of the 3-day conference held at Rutgers by the Caribbean Philosophical Association on September 29-October 1, 2011. After the conference, each student will prepare a 2-4 pages critical review of one of the sessions of the conference, linking the presentations with the debates discussed in class. 4. One final paper proposal will be submitted by November 9 with a preliminary bibliography and an exposition of the main thesis that will be explored in the final paper. No final paper will be accepted if this proposal is not presented by the tenth week of classes. 5. An oral presentation of the final paper proposal for discussion in the class to be done during the last two sessions of the course. 6. A 20-25 page final paper due on January 17. Students should hand in papers as hard copies, delivered in person or via regular mail before or on January 17 at: Professor Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel Comparative Literature 195 College Avenue Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey New Brunswick NJ 08901

Course Syllabus:

September 7: Intro: What is Postcolonial Theory? Lourdes Casal, “The Founders” (sakai) Stuart Hall, “When Was ‘the Postcolonial’? Thinking at the Limit.” The Postcolonial Question: Common Skies/ Divided Horizons. Eds. Ianin Chambers and Lidia Curti. New York: Routledge, 1996. (sakai) Bill Ashcroft, Introduction and Chapter 1, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literature. (sakai) Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel, “Postcolonialism” (sakai)

September 14- no class. Make up class at the end of semester (Dinner party)

Beyond Anglo Postcolonialism: Case studies: I. Colonial Latin America

SEPTEMBER 21: Colonial Encounters? Christopher Columbus, Diary of First Voyage, selections (sakai) Columbus/Colón, Letters, Cartas (sakai) Zamora, “Gender and Discovery” (sakai) Greenblatt, “Marvelous Possesions” (sakai) Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, Cap. 1.1 Reflexión #1

Topics for Oral Presentations: Osterhammel, Colonialism, Chapters 1-2 (sakai)

Hulme, “Introduction,” “Columbus and the Cannibals,” Colonial Encounters (sakai)

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 21, 2011, 7:00 P.M. Performance by Erika Lopez (Monster Girl Media) The Welfare Queen, a one-woman show Loree Dance Theater, 70 Lipman Drive, Douglass Campus, Rutgers-New Brunswick

Thursday, September 22, 2011, 4:30 p.m. (Reception at 4 p.m.) Erika Lopez (Monster Girl Media) * “The Making of Monster Girls: Media Making and the Intersections of Art, Race, Class & Ethnicity” Ruth Dill Johnson Crockett Building, 162 Ryders Lane, Douglass Campus, Rutgers- New Brunswick, starting at 4:30 p.m

SEPTEMBER 28-Power and Narration Hernan Cortés, “Second Letter” (sakai) José Rabasa, “Dialogue as Conquest: Mapping Spaces for Counter-Discourse” (sakai) Negri and Hardt, “The Dialectics of Colonial Sovereignty.” Empire. (sakai) Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, Cap. 1.2

Topics for Oral Presentations: Osterhammel, Colonialism, Chapters 3,4, 8 (sakai)

Bhabha, “Of Mimicry and Man” and “The Other Question”, The Location of Culture, Ch. 3-4. (sakai)

E. Said, Introduction, Orientalism (sakai)

OCTOBER 5: Indigenous Textualities and the Impossible Latin American Postcoloniality Inca Garcilaso. Book 1/ Book 8 Laura Catelli (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Argentina) visits class. Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel, Chapter 1: “Colonial Texts as Minority Discourse.” From Lack to Excess. (sakai) Barbara Fuchs, “Lettered Subjects.” (sakai) Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, Cap.2.1 Suggested reading: Laura Catelli, “Los hijos de la conquista/ otras perspectivas sobre el «mestizo» y la traducción a partir de El nueva corónica y buen gobierno de Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala” Reflexión #2

Topics for Oral Presentations: Adorno, Rolena. "Reconsidering Colonial Discourse for Sixteenth- and Seventeenth- Century Spanish America". Latin-American-Research-Review 28.3 (1993): 135-45. (sakai)

Mignolo, "Colonial and Postcolonial Discourse: Cultural Critique or Academic Colonialism?" Latin American Research Review 28.3 (1993): 120-34. (sakai)

Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak? (sakai)

OCTOBER 12 (class meets at 4 p.m. the Ruth Dill Johnson Crockett Building, 162 Ryders Lane, Douglass Campus) Michelle Stephens (English and Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies, Rutgers-New Brunswick) “‘No Woman No Cry’: Bob and Rita Marley, Jamaican Decolonization, and the Black (Hetero)Sexual Relation”

Suggested Readings: Michelle Stephens, “Marley, LLC: Copyrighting the Legend?”in Bob Marley Tribute Issue of Review: Literature and Art of the Americas 81, Fall 2010. (sakai) Michelle Stephens, “Babylon’s ‘Natural Mystic’: The North American Music Industry, the Legend of Bob Marley, and the Incorporation of Transnationalism.” Cultural Studies (April 1998), 139-67. (sakai) Lacan, “From Love to the Libido” and “The Subject and the Other: Alienation,” Four Fundamental Concepts. (sakai) Jared Sexton's "There is not (interracial) sexual relationship)" Amalgamation Schemes. (sakai)

October 19: Baroque Colonialities Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez (sakai) Romance 51 Sor Juana (sakai) Buscaglia Salgado, “The Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez and the Duplicitous Complicity Between the Narrator, The Writer, and the Censor.” Dissidences: Hispanic Journal of Theory and Criticism 1.1 (2005): 1-42. (sakai) Yolanda Martínez San Miguel, From Lack to Excess, Chapter 5. (sakai). Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, Cap.2.2 Reflexión #3 Topics for Oral Presentations: Klor de Alva, “The Postcolonization of the Latin American Experience” (sakai)

Fernando Coronil, “Elephants in the Americas?: Latin American Postcolonial Studies and Global Decolonization” (sakai)

Fernando Coronil, “After Empire” (sakai)

II. Extended Colonialism in the Caribbean Archipelago

October 26: Coloniality of Race: From Castas to Mulataje Magali Carrera, Chapter 3: “Envisioning the Colonial Body.” Imagining Identity in New Spain. Race, Lineage, and the Colonial Body in Portraiture and Casta Paintings. (sakai) Ruth Hill, “Between Black and White: A Critical Race Theory Approach to Caste Poetry in the Spanish New World.” (sakai) Cirilo Villaverde, Cecilia Valdés. pp. 1-245. Doris Sommer, “Sab C’est Moi,” Foundational Fictions (sakai) Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, Cap.3.1 Topics for Oral Presentations: Sibylle Fischer, “Introduction,” Modernity Disavowed. (sakai) Aníbal Quijano, “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism and Latin America” Nepantla 1.3 (2000): 533-580. (sakai)

November 2: Beyond the Nation and the Script of the Tragic Mulatta Cirilo Villaverde, Cecilia Valdés. pp. 246-491. Sybille Fischer, “Cuban Antislavery Narratives and the Origins of Literary Discourse,” Modernity Disavowed (sakai) Vera Kuzinstki, “Introduction: Cuban Color” and Chapter 1: “Imperfect Bodies.” Sugar Secrets: Race and the Erotics of Cuban Nationalism Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, Cap.3.2 Topics for Oral Presentations: Silvio Torres Saillant, Preface and Introduction, An Intellectual History of the Hispanic Caribbean (sakai) Gema R. Guevara, Inexacting Whiteness: Blanqueamiento as a Gender-Specific Trope in the Nineteenth Century”, pp. 105-128. (sakai)

November 9: Négritude and Negrismo Césaire, Notebook of a Return to the Native Land (sakai) Negrista Poetry- Luis Palés Matos, Nicolás Guillén (sakai) Jerome Branche, “Negrism. Modernism, Nationalism, and a Palesian Paradox,” in Colonialism and Race in Luso-Hispanic Literature. (sakai) Badiane, “Negrismo and Négritude.” The Changing Face of Afro-Caribbean Cultural Identity.” Victor Figueroa, “Leaving the Native Land: Resistance and Negotiation in Aimé Césaire,” Not at Home in One’s Home. (sakai) Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, Conclusion Final Paper Proposal Topics for Oral Presentations: Aime Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism

Ramón Grosfoguel, "Cultural Racism" and Colonial Caribbean Migrants in Core Zones of the Capitalist World-Economy” (sakai)

III. Postcoloniality and Its Discontents November 16: Coloniality of Diaspora Frantz Fanon, Black Skins, White Masks. Nelson Maldonado-Torres, “Recognition From Below: The Meaning of the Cry and the Gift of the Self in the Struggle for Recognition,” Against War. (sakai) Gordon Lewis, “Through the Zone of Nonbeing: A Reading of Black Skin, White Masks…” (sakai) Paul Gilroy, Postcolonial Melancholia, pp. 1-57. Reflexión #4 Topics for Oral Presentations: Bernabé, Chamoiseau and Confiant, In Praise of Creoleness/Eloge a la creolite (sakai)

Jacky Dahomay, “Cultural Identity versus Political Identity in the French West Indies“ (sakai)

November 21: Writing from the Place of Abjection Kincaid, A Small Place. (sakai) V.S. Naipaul, Reading and Writing. (sakai) Paul Gilroy, Postcolonial Melancholia, pp. 57-86. Jane King, “A Small Place Writes Back” Callaloo 25.3 (2002): 885-909. (sakai) Dennis Walder, “V. S. Naipaul and the Postcolonial Order: Reading In a Free State” Recasting the World: Writing after Colonialism. Ed. Jonathan White (ed.) Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1993. 82-119. (sakai) Topics for Oral Presentations: Shalini Puri, Introduction and Chapter 1, The Caribbean Postcolonial (sakai)

Suzanne Gauch, “A Small Place: Some Perspectives on the Ordinary.“ Callaloo 25.3 (2002): 900-919. (sakai)

November 30: Antillanité, Poetics of Relation Glissant, Poetics of relation, pp. 13-95. (sakai) Carine Mardorossian, “From Fanon to Glissant: a Martinican Genealogy” Bonnie Thomas, “Glissant and the Art of Memory.” (sakai) Adlai Murdoch, “Introduction. Conceptualizing Creoleness: French Caribbean “Postcolonial” Discourse.” Creole Identity in the French Caribbean Novel. Paul Gilroy, Postcolonial Melancholia, pp. 87-120 Reflexión #5 Topics for Oral Presentations: Mabel Moraña, Enrique Dussel, and Carlos Jáuregui, eds. “Introduction.” Coloniality at Large, Duke UP, 2008.

Richard Serrano, “Introduction.” Against the Postcolonial (sakai)

Kris Rampersad, “Dominica[n]-born scholar disputes key regional thinkers” (sakai)

December 7: Writing Beyond the Caribbean Postcolonial Archipelago: Hawai’i, and More Rodney Morales, selection short stories from The Speed of Darkness. (sakai). Erika Lopez, Flaming Iguanas: An Illustrated All-Girl Road Novel Thing. Erika López, selections from The Girl Must Die. (sakai) Lawrence LaFountain Stokes, “Erika López TransAmerican Road Trip: From to ,” Queer Ricans (sakai) Maritza Stanchich, “'Borinkee' in Hawai'i: Rodney Morales Rides the Diaspora Wave to Transregional Imperial Struggle” Writing Off the Hyphen: New Perspectives on the Literature of the Puerto Rican Diaspora. (sakai) Paul Gilroy, Postcolonial Melancholia, pp. 121-151. Topics for Oral Presentations: Campa, Roman De La. " On Latin Americanism and the Postcolonial Turn " (sakai)

PMLA, ”The End of Postcolonial Theory?” (May 2007). (sakai)

Carol Queen Interviews Erika López. “Hot Tomato.” (sakai)

Sara Cooper, “Burning Down the Canon: Queer Family and Queer Text in Flaming Iguanas” Ciberletras, 2007. (sakai)

Second Midterm for Undergraduates due on Tuesday December 20, 2011 by noon.

December 9 or 16- Dinner @ 296 Easton Avenue @ 6 p.m. Presentation of final projects. CONFIRM DATE during the first two weeks of classes.

Final Paper due: Tuesday January 17.