Morales-Franceschi, Eric
R 12:30 PM
Park Hall 0061
ENGL 6695 Postcolonial Topics: The Epic of Liberation
In this course, we will critically assess the ways in which postcolonial and Caribbean writers have narrated and aesthetically rendered that most seductive of desires, namely liberation. To this end, we scrutinize the mythoi, tropes, and modes of “emplotment” used to tell the story of liberation and what emancipatory desires and ethical addresses they embody (as well as foreclose). Drawing on essays, theater, poetry, film, and posters, we situate our inquiry in dialogue with the Haitian, Cuban, and Grenadian revolutions in hopes to tease out the criteria by which to theorize a “decolonial aesthetic.”
Students will have the option to write a series of shorter analytic pieces or a fuller-length term paper. The seminar, moreover, will be honored with a visit from postcolonial theorist and critic Shalini Puri (University of Pittsburgh), who will join us in late Spring for a class session and give a public lecture on the Grenada Revolution.
Readings:
Hannah Arendt, On Revolution
Hayden White, “The Historical Text as Literary Artifact”
Gayatri Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”
Derek Walcott, What the Twilight Says [selections]
CLR James, The Black Jacobins
David Scott, “The Tragedy of Colonial Enlightenment”
Roberto Fernández Retamar, “Calibán”
Aimé Césaire, A Tempest
Michelle Cliff, “Calibán’s Daughters”
Humberto Solás, Lucía
Shalini Puri, The Grenada Revolution in the Caribbean Present
Chandra Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes Revisited”
Edouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation
Nick Nesbitt, Caribbean Critique [selections]
Selections of poetry from Nicolás Guillén, Nancy Morejón, Merle Collins