James Cook University Subject Handbook - 2024

EL3050 - Postcolonial Narratives: Writing, Place, and Identity

Subject Description

Since the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism (1979) and the onset of the culture wars, history wars, and battles of identity politics at the end of the twentieth century, postcolonialism has ballooned as an academic field of study and as a cultural field of struggle. While many of the cultural debates incited by postcolonialism as an academic field and cultural practice are complex, this course introduces several key issues related to approachable texts: place, race, home, nation, culture, story, and history. This broad approach to the field will enable students to enter these debates on their own, drawing from and contributing to the subject's focus on central concerns of postcolonialism as they are related to colonial and postcolonial historical texts, contexts, and literary theory.

Learning Outcomes

• awareness of issues of cultural difference and cultural identity, politics, history, and aesthetics, within the contested spaces of colonial and postcolonial inscription
• sound command of some of the most influential critical practices in the field, and familiarity with the work of postcolonial critics working at the intersection of cultural and feminist studies
• detailed knowledge and understanding of the set texts

Subject Assessment

• Written > Essay (including multi-draft) 1 - (30%) - Individual
• Written > Annotated bibliography - (25%) - Individual
• Written > Journal - (25%) - Individual
• Participation > Online participation - (20%) - Individual

Note that minor variations might occur due to the continuous subject quality improvement process, and in case of minor variation(s) in assessment details, the Subject Outline represents the latest official information.

Assumed Knowledge:  To undertake this subject, students must have successfully completed 12 credit points (four subjects) of level 1 study at tertiary level

Inadmissible Subject Combinations:  EL2050

Availabilities