Required Texts:
 |
Cesaire, Aimé, Discourse on Colonialism (Monthly
Review Press), 2000. |
|
|
Cortes, Hernando Five Letters of Cortes to the
Emperor (Norton), 1991 |
|
|
Behn, Aphra, Oroonoko or, The Royal Slave, (W.W. Norton), 1973 |
|
|
Shakespeare, William, The Tempest (World's Classics)
1987 |
|
|
Todorov, Tzvetan ,Conquest of America (University of
Oklahoma Press) 1999 |
|
|
Wolf, Eric, Europe and the People Without History
(University of Calif. Press) 1999 |
|
|
Dangarembga,
Tsitsi, Nervous Conditions (Seal Press) 1989 |
Faculty
This course will be taught
jointly by Professors Robert Christopher and Monika Giacoppe of the School
of American and International Studies. They both will be available during office
hours to confer with you and will jointly evaluate all course work.
Course Description:
One of the four core courses required for the MALS program, "The
Conquest of Caliban" explores the sources of the imperatives which
led Europeans to discover "the other." We will discuss how that
process is reflected in such texts as Shakespeare's The Tempest and
others as listed above. We will examine how Europeans
construed the identity and culture of "other" peoples and how these
points of view may still influence our perceptions of non-western
cultures. Faced with the dominance of Eurocentric texts, we have
little access to the language of visions of Caliban, the "savage" of
Shakespeare's play who, when given language, uses it only to curse.
To bring a cross-cultural perspective to the acts of discovery, we
will examine works written, drawn, or painted by those who were
eyewitness to these acts. Such readings/works will help us reassess
the power of Eurocentrism to shape our perceptions of other
peoples.
Course Assignments:
In addition to regular attendance, the evaluation criteria will include:
1.) participation in class discussion each week, including at least one stint as
an assigned discussion leader of a particular text during the semester. 2.) two critical
papers (about ten double spaced pages each), one at midsemester and a
second at semester's end. In each paper you should develop your own
critical response to the body of course readings or visual materials
selected by you. The second, later paper will attempt to integrate
more of the major concepts discussed in the course as a whole. More
details as to the format and topic will be provided in advance of the
due date. After the submission of the first paper, every effort will be made for
each student to
have a personal editorial conference with both course instructors.
CLICK HERE FOR FIRST PAPER ASSIGNMENT
Web Page:
Course assignments, readings and regular updates will all appear on the
course web page which will be found under Prof. Christopher's name at the
"Faculty Web" pages on the Ramapo Intranet: http://guide.ramapo.edu/ Make sure you check the announcements page
for the latest news pertaining to the course. Links to other web
sites will be colored brown and underlined. Click the link to go to the site indicated. In many
cases, required as well as recommended reading assignments, web
exhibitions, photographs, etc. will be accessible via web links at
the course web page. You may either print the material out or read
and view it on the screen.
Note: The web page/syllabus also
lists articles and books that are recommended for further reading.
Many of these recommendations may be helpful to you in providing
background information for works that you will be discussing either
in your seminar essays or in future research projects. A central source
for readings, images and links to other websites is the
Internet History Sourcebook at Fordham University. Explore it!
|
DATE
|
COURSE
TOPICS AND READING SCHEDULE
|
| September
7 |
Organizational Meetings: Encountering Course
Materials
1. "Letter
of Christopher Columbus to Luis de Santangel, 1493";
Columbus
letter to Ferdinand and Isablella, 1503
2. Amerigo
Vespucci: "The First Voyage"
Recommended: Brief Columbus Biography & Description of Voyages;
also the Website: "Columbus
and the Age of Discovery": splendid, searchable collection
of over 1100 text articles on Columbus and the encounter of two worlds.
|
| September
14 |
The Legalization of Conquest
1. Robert A. Williams, Jr: The American Indian in Western
Legal Thought, pp. 13-93 & 108-14.
2. "The
Requerimiento"
3. "The Ordinances of Tomas Lopez."
|
| September 21 |
Interpreting Course Materials: Cultural and
Linguistic Interpretations
1. Todorov: The Conquest of America, 3-50.
2. Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions, Chapter 3,
52-85
For another reading of the "conquest" see
Serge Gruzinski, The Conquest of Mexico Cambridge UP.
Web
Exhibition: "Cultural Readings: Colonization
& Print in the Americas"
|
| September
28 |
Historical and Economic Interpretations
1. D.W. Meinig, The Shaping of America,
1-75.
2. Wolf:, Europe. and the People Without History, pp.
3-72; 101-125.
3. "The Columbian Exchange"
Recommended web article: "1491"--Atlantic
Monthly article on Ancient Native American civilizations.
|
|
October 5
|
First Encounters
1. H. Cortes, From Five Letters, Letter 2,
31-133
2. Todorov: Conquest of America, 51-123
3. The Broken Spears, ed. Miquel Leon-Portilla, 127-49.
Recommended: For a parallel history of the same conquest
period by the member of Cortes' Party, see Bernal Diaz del
Castillo, The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico, ed.,
A.P. Maudslay, NY 1956; "To the Valley of Mexico: Dona
Marina: La Malinche," in Between Worlds: Interpreters,
Guides and Survivors, Rutgers UP, 1994, 1-22.
|
|
October 12
|
Penetrations, Devastations, Interpretations
1. Guaman Poma, "Conquest of this Kingdom"
2. Cabeza
de Vaca, Adventures in the Unknown Interior of
America -- Read Preface and Proem & short Chapters
21, 22, 23, 36, 37, 38, 39, 48,49, 50, 51, 52, Afterword.
3. Popol Vuh, The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life
4. Bartolme
de Las Casa, History of the Indies
Recommended:
Rolena Adorno, Brief Biography of Poma; Brief Las
Casas Biography; Apologetic History of the Indies ;
Websites: The
Journey of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza De Vaca and a short
Biography
of Cabeza De Vaca ; Greenblatt, Kidnapping Language," in
Marvelous Possessions, 86-118
|
|
October 19
|
The Conquest of Caliban
1. Shakespeare, The Tempest
2.
Montaigne: "Of Cannibals"
3.
"Shakespeare's Use of Montaigne"
Recommended: Your are urged to read, after having read
the play, the comprehensive introduction 1-87, to The
Tempest by Stephen Orgel, editor of the text ordered for
the seminar. For a study of the larger historical and
cultural contexts for Caliban and The Tempest see A. Vaughan
and V. Mason, Shakespeare's Caliban: A Cultural
History, Cambridge UP, 1991
|
|
October 26
|
Imagining Savages, Justifying Slavery
1. Aphra Behn, Oroonoko or, The Royal Slave
2. Wolf, "The Slave Trade" from Europe and the People
Without History, 195-231
3. The Traders are Kidnapping our
People
4. First Critical Paper
Due
Recommended: A
Comprehensive British Web Site on the Slave Trade; for a classic study of the noble savage idea
in the 18th and 19th century, see Hoxie N. Fairchild, The
Noble Savage: A Study in Romantic Naturalism (1928),
Russel and Russel, 1961. Also, Winthrop D. Jordan, The
White Man's Burden: Historical Origins of Racism in the
United States, Oxford UP, 1974, 1-54; William M. Evans,
"From the Land of Canaan to the Land of Guinea..."
American Historical Review, 1980 (85), 15-43
|
|
November 2
|
Moral Narratives, Slavery and
Freedom
1.
Oludah
Equiano, The Interesting Narrative (Read all excerpts)
;
Additional Other
writings of Equiano
2. Frederick Douglas: Narrative of the Life of. Chapters
1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11
|
| November
9 |
Journey to the Center of the World 1. Conrad: Heart of Darkness
2. Hochschild:
"Meeting Mr. Kurtz"
3. Shillington: "History of Africa" |
| November
16 |
The Postcolonial Tempest
1. Cesaire, Aimé, Discourse on Colonialism, pp. 9-79
2. Ngugi wa Thiong'o, "The Language of African Literature"
in Decolonizing the Mind: Politics of African
Literature, 1986, 435-45
3.
Frantz Fanon, from Wretched of the Earth
|
| |
|
|
November 23
|
NO CLASS:
Reading & Research Recess |
|
November 30
|
Colonialism
from a Woman's Perspective
Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions
|
|
December 7
|
Eurocentrism Continued &
Final Critical Paper--DUE DATE TBA
1. Imaging the Other: Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the
North (1922)
Link
to Flaherty's Photographs
|
[The link bar feature is not available in this web]
|
