Postcolonial Theory DMT- Opleiding Portugees Studiepunten: 7,5 ECTS Code: 200200266 Niveau: 3 Blok: 3; 2010/2011 Soort: Context http://postcolonial-theory-utrecht.blogspot.com/

FINAL ESSAY QUESTIONS Please choose one of the following questions and write an essay that tries to answer it. Make sure that you present a developed and coherent argument and that you provide appropriate references to all cited materials. Essays should be about ten pages long or 3,000 words. They should be submitted printed in the mailbox in Trans 10 by April 8, 2011. And digitally as well (by 24:00), to my address: P.R.deMedeiros@uu.nl. Digital versions alone not accepted. Please read the guidelines available in the blog carefully. 1. The terms “postcolonial” and “postcolonial studies” are subject to much debate. For some, they should imply a privileging of the study of cultural forms stemming from former European colonies, for others it relates primarily to a questioning of the relations of power inherent in colonial relations. Using several (at least two) of the essays contained in the Postcolonial Studies Reader please explain the main lines of the controversy, making explicit what your views are. 2. Postcolonial Studies have not only established themselves firmly as a field of academic studies, they also have been adopted within other disciplines. Making use of three essays contained in the Postcolonial Studies Reader please explain how a postcolonial perspective can be useful in studying various cultural and societal formations. 3. Many scholars in Postcolonial Studies come from literary studies. However, within other fields, such as history, anthropology, political science, women’s studies, to name just a few, a postcolonial perspective is also relevant. Please explain in detail how postcolonial studies can be relevant in your own field of study, taking care to base your argument on some of the essays contained in the Postcolonial Studies Reader. 4. In this seminar we necessarily took a look at a very limited number of cultural representations (novel and film). However, the number of literatures (or other cultural forms) that would benefit from being analyzed from a postcolonial perspective is very large. Choose one literature, or one text (or film), that is especially relevant to you and analyze it from a postcolonial perspective. 5. In Postcolonial studies issues of power and its representations are very important. Please develop an argument in which you consider how the study of power relations is influential in postcolonial studies (consider referring back to Foucault as one source often cited by several of the essayists included in the Postcolonial Studies Reader).

6. Race, ethnicity, gender, social class, all these are important factors to consider when analyzing postcolonial conditions. Please develop an essay in which you consider either one of these terms specifically, or their interrelation, from a postcolonial perspective, taking care to reflect on some of the relevant essays contained in the Postcolonial Studies Reader. 7. What might one understand by the term “Postcolonial Europe”? In which way do current events in Europe allow us to speak of postcolonial conditions in Europe? In writing your essay be careful to back up your positions not only with references to concrete situations but also with a discussion of the essays by Tony Judt (‘Ill Fares the land’) and Elleke Boehmer (“Postcolonial Writing and Terror’). 8. Choose one contemporary novel (in either Dutch, English, French, Portuguese or Spanish) and analyze it from a postcolonial perspective, that is, taking into consideration the ways in which the text problematizes relations of power directly or indirectly related to colonial situations. In doing so please be careful to explicitly take into consideration (and cite properly) existing scholarship on that novel as well as theoretical essays you may refer to from the Postcolonial Studies Reader. 9. In Postcolonial Studies, the relations between different groups of people, between an “us” and the “others” is of special relevance. In the seminar the film Caché (Hidden) was used as a platform for an exploration of those relations taking into consideration current aspects of French society. Please write an analytical essay (avoiding plot summarizing) in which you consider how that film explores those relations, what use it makes of existing stereotypes, what it presents as ‘norms’, how it intervenes in current debates about integration, how it deals with questions of ethnic alterity, and with gender relations. Please also consider the film’s genre, a thriller, in terms of the opportunities it creates (or not) for rethinking societal issues. 10. Perhaps you would like to work on a question of your own design that better lets you explore the issues discussed in the seminar in relation to your other studies. In that case please submit a proposal (one paragraph to one page) by e-mail for approval. Should you choose this option please keep in mind that one of the criteria for approval and subsequent grading will be the extent to which your proposed essay fits in with the purposes of the seminar and with the readings made available in the Postcolonial Studies Reader and elsewhere during the seminar. Please resist the temptation to simply adapt a paper from another course.