Form 2B

City University of Hong Kong

Information on a Course offered by Department of English with effect from Semester B in 2014/ 2015

Part I

Course Title: Postcolonial

Course Code: EN6509

Course Duration: 1 semester

Credit Units: 3

Level: P6

Medium of Instruction: English

Prerequisites: Nil

Precursors: Nil

Equivalent Courses: Nil

Exclusive Courses: Nil

Part II

Course Aims

This course will focus on twentieth and twenty-first century postcolonial in English, including texts from countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South and East Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean. Texts will be examined within their historical contexts, and discussions will address issues such as identity, literary form, notions of exile, hybridity, migration, and definitions of “nation.” The course will invite students to reflect on how the intersection of language and literature influences shifting cultural and social situations. By focusing on the interdisciplinary context of postcolonial literature, students will learn how literature functions in various societies, and will examine texts from creative and critical perspectives.

Course Intended Learning Outcomes (CILOs) Upon successful completion of this course, students should be able to:

No. CILOs Weighting (if applicable) 1. Evaluate and examine the historical and theoretical contexts of colonialism and in Anglophone world literatures 2. Recognize formal elements in postcolonial literature such as genre, structure, style, and theme. 3. Understand and discuss the social and cultural influences of postcolonial literary texts 4. Apply critical thinking and research skills to generate creative and critical responses to texts from linguistic, literary, and socio-cultural perspectives

Teaching and Learning Activities (TLAs) (Indicative of likely activities and tasks designed to facilitate students’ achievement of the CILOs. Final details will be provided to students in their first week of attendance in this course)

CILO TLAs Hours/week No. (if applicable)

1 Lectures about key concepts related to the special topic in English Literary Studies

2 Assigned reading related to the special topic

2-4 Workshops and discussions related to the special topic in English Literary Studies

3-4 Short critiques and final research paper

Assessment Tasks/Activities (Indicative of likely activities and tasks designed to assess how well the students achieve the CILOs. Final details will be provided to students in their first week of attendance in this course)

CILO Type of Assessment Tasks/Activities Weighting (if Remarks No. applicable)

CILO 1- Response Papers 40% 4 Students will be asked to write critical, creative, or reflective essays on specific topics throughout the semester

CILO 1- Presentation and Discussion 20% 4 Students are required to actively contribute to classroom discussions and debates. They will also be asked to do one formal presentation on a topic relevant to the course.

CILO 1- Final paper 40% 3 Students are required to write one substantial final research paper on the topic of the course

Grading of Student Achievement: Refer to Grading of Courses in the Academic Regulations for Taught Postgraduate Degrees. Grading pattern: Standard (A+, A, A-…F). Grading is based on student performance in assessment tasks/activities.

Assessment form: Individual written assignments

Grade A+, A, or A- Grade B+, B, or B- Grade C+, C, or C- Grade D Grade F

 The topic is  The topic is  The topic is  The topic is  The topic is highly extremely well- competently adequately sketchily presented inadequate in its presented and presented and very presented and is and analysed presentation and is analysed; well analysed; analysed inadequately very badly  All relevant  The information is reasonably well; presented; analysed; information is sufficiently  Only part of the  Only limited  Very limited or excellently covered; information is information is inaccurate covered;  The purpose of covered; included; information is  The purpose of analysing and  The purpose of  The purpose of included; analysing and presenting the analysing and analysing and  The purpose of presenting the material is presenting the presenting the analysing and material is achieved; material is material is not presenting the completely  Style and tone are partially achieved; fully achieved at material is not achieved; appropriate  Style and tone are all; achieved in any  Style and tone are somewhat  Style and tone are way; highly appropriate inappropriate  Style and tone are appropriate completely inappropriate

Part III

Keyword Syllabus Colonialism, postcolonialism, new literatures in English, , , African literatures in English, South in English, Singaporean literature in English, Philippine literature in English, , Caribbean literature, , autobiography, , drama, hybridity, postmodernity.

Recommended Reading The course coordinator will choose required texts at the beginning of the semester. The following is a selection of recommended theoretical texts:

Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-colonial Literatures. Routledge, 1989. Barthet, Stella B. Shared Waters: Soundings in Postcolonial Literatures. Rodopi, 2009. Bery, Ashok. Cultural Translation and Postcolonial Poetry. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Boehmer, Elleke. Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors. Oxford University Press, 1995. Chew, Shirley and David Richards, eds. A Concise Companion to Postcolonial Literature. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Cornwell, Gareth. The Columbia Guide to South in English since 1945. Columbia University Press, 2010 Cranston, C.A. and Robert Zeller, eds. The Littoral Zone: Australian Contexts and their Writers. Rodopi, 2007. Durix, Carole. An Introduction to the New Literatures in English: Africa, Australia, New

Zealand, and the South Pacific. Longman France, 1993. Edwards, Justin D. Postcolonial Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008 Featherstone, Simon. Postcolonial Cultures. Edinburgh University Press, 2004. Francia, Luis H., ed. Brown River, White Ocean: An Anthology of 20th Century Philippine Literature in English. Rutgers University Press, 1993. Gikandi, Simon. The Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English since 1945. Columbia University Press, 2007 Gopal, Priyamvada. The Indian Novel in English: Nation, History and Narration. Oxford University Press, 2009. Harrison, Nicholas. Postcolonial Criticism: History, Theory, and the Work of Fiction. Polity, 2003. Heywood, Christopher. A History of . Cambridge University Press, 2000. Huddart, David. Postcolonial Theory and Autobiography. Routledge, 2008. Huggan, Graham. Australian Literature: Postcolonialism, Racism, Transnationalism. Oxford University Press, 2007. Huggan, Graham. The Postcolonial Exotic: Marketing the Margins. Routledge, 2001. Hutcheon, Linda. Splitting Images: Contemporary Canadian Ironies. Oxford University Press, 1991 Jabbar, Naheem. Historiography and Writing Postcolonial . Routledge, 2009. Kanakaganayakam, Chelva. Moveable Margins: The Shifting Spaces of Canadian Literature. TSAR, 2005. Kertzer, Jonathan. Worrying the Nation: Imagining a National Literature in English Canada. University of Toronto Press, 1998. Krishnaswamy, Revathi and John C. Hawley, eds. The Postcolonial and the Global. University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Lim, Shirley. Nationalism and Literature: English Language Writing from the Philippines and Singapore. New Day Publishers, 1993. Lim, Shirley. Writing Southeast Asia in English Against the Grain: Focus on Asian English Language Literature. Skoob Books, 1994. Lindfors, Bernth. Black African Literature in English. Zell, 1989. Lionnet, Françoise. Postcolonial Representations: Women, Literature, Identity. Cornell University Press, 1995. McLeod, John, ed. The Routledge Companion to Postcolonial Studies. Routledge, 2007. Mehrotra, Arvind. History of in English. Hurst & Company, 2003 Moore-Gilbert, Bart. Postcolonial Life-Writing: Culture, Politics, and Self-Represenatation. Routledge, 2009. Moss, Laura, ed. Is Canada Postcolonial: Unsettling Canadian Literature. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2003. Newell, Stephanie. West African Literature: Ways of Reading. Oxford University Press, 2006. Pierce, Peter, ed. The Cambridge History of Australian Literature. Cambridge University Press, 2009. Punter, David. Postcolonial Imaginings: Fictions of a New World Order. Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. Ross, Robert L., ed. International Literature in English: Essays on the Major Writers. Garland, 1991. Sanga, Jaina, ed. South Asian Literature in English: An Encyclopedia. Greenwood Press, 2004 Sheckels, Theodore F., ed. The Lion on the Freeway: A Thematic Introduction to Contemporary South African Literature in English. Lang, 1996. T.J. Cribb, ed. Imagined Commonwealths: Cambridge Essays on Commonwealth and

International Literature in English. Macmillan Press, 1999. Talib, Ismail S. The Language of Postcolonial Literatures: An Introduction. Routledge, 2002. Thieme, John. Postcolonial Con-texts: Writing Back to the Canon. Continuum, 2001 Viola, André. New Fiction in English From Africa: West, East, and South. Rodopi, 1994