RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY

PROGRAM IN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

Comparative Literature 397:01: “Postcolonial Readings of Colonialism in the

Americas”
Professor Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel
Office hours: Mondays at the Institute for Research on Women (160 Ryders Lane,
Douglass College) 1:00-2:00 p.m. or College Ave Student Center by appointment
e-mail: yolamsm@rci.rutgers.edu
Class time: Wednesdays 3:00-6:00 p.m.
Room: Comp Lit seminar Room, 195 College Ave. CAC

Course description
This course reviews a series of theoretical and cultural debates that take Latin
American and Caribbean colonialism as a point of departure to reconsider
advantages and pitfalls of postcolonial studies. The main contention of the course is
that after the intense debate against the applicability of postcolonial studies to Latin
America (Klor de Alva, Coronil, Mignolo, and Adorno), there is a new generation of
scholars who are proposing postcolonial readings of colonial discourses. The course
will develop its argument in three complementary directions. First, it will provide a
general definition of colonialism, coloniality and postcolonialism (Osterhammel ,Said,
Spivak, Bhabha, Loomba, Young and Quijano). Then, we will address the ways in
which these debates have been inflected in two different geographical areas that
share an extended period of colonialism, that in some cases includes more than one
form of imperial domination: the Caribbean and Latin American Tierra Firme (1493-
1700) and the Postcolonial Anglo, French and Hispanic Caribbean (1930-2000).
Finally, each one of these colonial experiences will be examined through cultural
representations and symbolical productions to propose an alternative canon of
postcolonial narratives that can be studied in a comparative framework. Some of the
primary texts that we will read include the following authors: Cristóbal Colón, Hernán
Cortés, El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Sor Juana Inés
de la Cruz, Cirilo Villaverde, Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, Jamaica Kincaid, Eduoard
Glissant, Lourdes Casal, Erika López, and Rodney Morales.
(Course open to advanced undergraduates as Comp Lit 397:01)

Texts:
Most readings available on Sakai, electronic reserve. The following books are also
required readings and are available at the Rutgers Library or at www.amazon.com or
www.barnesandnoble.com:

Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism. New York: Routledge, 2005. ISBN-10:

0415350646 /ISBN-13: 978-0415350648. $18.00

Paul Gilroy, Postcolonial Melancholia. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.
ISBN-10: 023113455X /ISBN-13: 978-0231134552. $15.75

Cirilo Villaverde, Cecilia Valdés or El Angel Hill. Translation Helen Lane. Edition,
Introduction and notes by Sibylle Fischer. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
ISBN-10: 0-19-514395-7 /ISBN-13: 978-0-19-514395-9. $29.99

Frantz Fanon, Black Skins, White Masks. Translation by Richard Philcox. New York:
Grove Press, 2008. ISBN-10: 0-8021-4300-8 /ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-4300-6.
$11.20
Erika López, Flaming Iguanas. Simon & Schuster, 1998. ISBN-10: 068485368X
/ISBN-13: 978-0684853680. $15.20

Comparative Literature Learning Goals:

These student learning goals have been developed by the Program in Comparative
Literature for its respective majors, minors, and for non-majors who take these
courses as electives:

1. Students will demonstrate familiarity with a variety of world literatures as well

as methods of studying literature and culture across national and linguistic
boundaries and evaluate the nature, function and value of literature from a
global perspective.
2. They will demonstrate critical reasoning and research skills; design and
conduct research in an individual field of concentration (such as literary
theory, women's literature, post colonial studies, literature and film, etc);
analyze a specific body of research and write a clear and well-developed
paper or project about a topic related to more than one literary and cultural
tradition.
3. They will demonstrate competency in one foreign language and at least a
basic knowledge of the literature written in that language.

Course Learning Goals:

1. Students will learn key terms in colonial and postcolonial debates, such as
colonialism, postcolonialism, coloniality of power, coloniality of diaspora,
intracolonial migrations, extended colonialism, archipelago studies and
racialization, in order to be conversant in debates about colonialism,
coloniality and postcolonialism in the insular Caribbean and Latin America.
2. Students will become familiar with the insular Caribbean geopolitical history.
3. Students will read key literary texts from Latin America and the French, Anglo
and Hispanic Caribbean to analyze the representation and articulation of
colonial discourses from 1492 until the present.
4. Students will learn writing skills, through essay exams written in class,
workshops conducted during class time to work on peer-editing of their
essays, and by writing and re-writing the short “reflexiones” on the primary
texts analyzed in class.
5. The course will also cover a basic historical chronology for Latin America and
the Caribbean from the 15th century until the present, with focus on the
problematic consolidation of national states in a neocolonial and postcolonial
context, as well as other forms of political association with former/actual
metropolis in order to understand the process of extended colonialism that
has been prevalent in the insular Caribbean.
6. Students will learn how to conduct historically grounded analysis of literary,
visual and performative cultural manifestations.
7. Students will learn how to do literary analysis by doing close-reading
exercises in class, in exams, and in short papers written at home.
Evaluation:

Class attendance and participation 10%

3 short reaction papers on primary readings 30%
Midterm 15%
Critical review of one session of the Caribbean Philosophical
Association Conference held on September 29-October 1, 2011 10%
Final Exercise on day of Final Exam 15%
Final 10 page paper due on December 7 20%
Thesis and preliminary bibliography 5% (October 26)
Draft 5% (November 16)
Final Paper 10% (December 7)

Requirements:

1. Three brief “reflexiones” (1-2 pages, double spaced) written in English and typed.
Each “reflexión” will be a critical commentary or close-reading of the primary
literary text to be discussed in class on the date the exercise is due. If a rewrite is
needed, the student must complete the revision of each “reflexión” before the
deadline for the next written exercise, or the rewrite will not be graded. Rewrites
will only be accepted if the first version of the essay was handed in on time.
2. One midterm.
3. One partial test will be administered as a final exam via email and due on
Tuesday December 20 by noon. Please do not make vacation plans that conflict
with this date. Exam can only be re-scheduled if all the students in the class agree
to hold the test on an earlier date.
4. One 10-page page research paper that will be prepared throughout the semester.
A list of suggested texts for the final paper is included in the class syllabus.
Students will choose a topic, define a thesis and inform the instructor by October
12. Each student must find a secondary bibliography relevant to the topic of the
paper with a minimum of 5 entries (including at least two journal articles and two
book chapters) by October 26. Students will hand in a first draft of the essay on
November 16, and a final version of the essay during the last week of classes.
5. Attendance and participation are expected. Students should come to each class
having read the assigned texts and ready to participate in the discussion.
Participation will be graded based on attendance, active intervention in class,
quizzes, and preparation of short assignments that will be presented in class (such
as oral reports on some of the critical readings, as well as on some of the primary
literary and audiovisual materials studied in the course). Participation grade will be
lowered 10% after 3 absences with no medical excuse or a letter from the dean.
Three late arrivals are equivalent to one absence.
6. Papers, quizzes, assignments and exams should be completed by the dates
announced in the syllabus. There will be no make-ups for any of the class
assignments, and in case of illness students must provide a medical excuse or a
letter from the dean to request any extensions or make-ups.
7. Students are expected to attend one of the sessions of the 3-day conference held
at Rutgers by the Caribbean Philosophical Association on September 29-October 1,
2011. After the conference, each student will prepare a 2-3 pages critical review of
one of the sessions of the conference, linking the presentations with the debates
discussed in class.
8. Plagiarism is not allowed in class. If a student uses any ideas from another person
without properly acknowledging the sources used, the evaluation of her/his work
 will be suspended and his case will be referred to the University’s administration.
Plagiarism is understood as follows:

Plagiarism is the representation of the words or ideas of another as one's

own in any academic exercise. To avoid plagiarism, every direct quotation
must be identified by quotation marks or by appropriate indentation and
must be properly cited in the text or in a footnote. Acknowledgment is
required when material from another source stored in print, electronic, or
other medium is paraphrased or summarized in whole or in part in one's
own words. To acknowledge a paraphrase properly, one might state: "to
paraphrase Plato's comment . . ." and conclude with a footnote identifying
the exact reference. A footnote [or endnote] acknowledging only a directly
quoted statement does not suffice to notify the reader of any preceding or
succeeding paraphrased material. Information which is common knowledge,
such as names of leaders of prominent nations, basic scientific laws, etc.
need not be footnoted; however, all facts or information obtained in reading
or research that are not common knowledge among students in the course
must be acknowledged. In addition to materials specifically cited in the text,
only materials that contribute to one's general understanding of the subject
may be acknowledged in the bibliography.

Plagiarism can, in some cases, be a subtle issue. Any questions about what
constitutes plagiarism should be discussed with the faculty member (4).

For more information, see the following video:

http://library.camden.rutgers.edu/EducationalModule/Plagiarism/

Course Syllabus:

September 7: Intro: What is Postcolonial Theory?

Lourdes Casal, “The Founders” (sakai)
Bill Ashcroft, Introduction and Chapter 1, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and
Practice in Post-Colonial Literature. (sakai)
Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel, “Postcolonialism” (sakai)

Further reading:
Stuart Hall, “When Was ‘the Postcolonial’? Thinking at the Limit.” The Postcolonial
Question: Common Skies/ Divided Horizons. Eds. Ianin Chambers and Lidia Curti.
New York: Routledge, 1996. (sakai)

September 14- no class. Make up class at the end of semester (Dinner party)

Beyond Anglo Postcolonialism: Case studies:

I. Colonial Latin America

SEPTEMBER 21: Colonial Encounters?

Christopher Columbus, Diary of First Voyage, selections (sakai)
Columbus/Colón, Letters, Cartas (sakai)
Zamora, “Gender and Discovery” (sakai)
Reflexión #1

Topics for Oral Presentations:

Osterhammel, Colonialism, Chapters 1-2 (sakai)
Hulme, “Introduction,” “Columbus and the Cannibals,” Colonial Encounters (sakai)

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 21, 2011, 7:00 P.M.

Performance by Erika Lopez (Monster Girl Media)
The Welfare Queen, a one-woman show
Loree Dance Theater, 70 Lipman Drive,
Douglass Campus, Rutgers-New Brunswick

Thursday, September 22, 2011, 4:30 p.m. (Reception at 4 p.m.)

Erika Lopez (Monster Girl Media) *
“The Making of Monster Girls: Media Making and the Intersections of Art, Race, Class
& Ethnicity”
Ruth Dill Johnson Crockett Building, 162 Ryders Lane, Douglass Campus, Rutgers-
New Brunswick, starting at 4:30 p.m  

SEPTEMBER 28-Power and Narration

Hernan Cortés, “Second Letter” (sakai)
Negri and Hardt, “The Dialectics of Colonial Sovereignty.” Empire. (sakai)

Topics for Oral Presentations:

Osterhammel, Colonialism, Chapters 3,4, 8 (sakai)

Bhabha, “Of Mimicry and Man” and “The Other Question”, The Location of Culture,
Ch. 3-4. (sakai)

E. Said, Introduction, Orientalism (sakai)

OCTOBER 5: Indigenous Textualities and the Impossible Latin American Postcoloniality

Inca Garcilaso. Book 1/ Book 8
Barbara Fuchs, “Lettered Subjects.” (sakai)
Laura Catelli (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Argentina)
visits class.

Topics for Oral Presentations:

Adorno, Rolena. "Reconsidering Colonial Discourse for Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-
Century Spanish America". Latin-American-Research-Review 28.3 (1993): 135-45.
(sakai)

Mignolo, "Colonial and Postcolonial Discourse: Cultural Critique or Academic

Colonialism?" Latin American Research Review 28.3 (1993): 120-34. (sakai)

Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak? (sakai)

Suggested reading:
Laura Catelli, “Los hijos de la conquista/ otras perspectivas sobre el «mestizo» y la
traducción a partir de El nueva corónica y buen gobierno de Felipe Guaman Poma de
Ayala”

OCTOBER 12 (class meets at 4 p.m. the Ruth Dill Johnson Crockett Building,
162 Ryders Lane, Douglass Campus)
Michelle Stephens (English and Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies, Rutgers-New
Brunswick)
“‘No Woman No Cry’: Bob and Rita Marley, Jamaican Decolonization, and the Black
(Hetero)Sexual Relation”

Suggested Readings:
Michelle Stephens, “Marley, LLC: Copyrighting the Legend?”in Bob Marley Tribute
Issue of Review: Literature and Art of the Americas 81, Fall 2010. (sakai)
Michelle Stephens, “Babylon’s ‘Natural Mystic’: The North American Music Industry,
the Legend of Bob Marley, and the Incorporation of Transnationalism.” Cultural
Studies (April 1998), 139-67. (sakai)
Final Paper Topic for Undergrads

October 19: Baroque Colonialities

Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez (sakai)
Romance 51 Sor Juana (sakai)
Yolanda Martínez San Miguel, From Lack to Excess, Chapter 5. (sakai).
Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, Cap.2.2
Reflexión #2

Topics for Oral Presentations:

Klor de Alva, “The Postcolonization of the Latin American Experience” (sakai)

Fernando Coronil, “Elephants in the Americas?: Latin American Postcolonial Studies

and Global Decolonization” (sakai)

Fernando Coronil, “After Empire” (sakai)

Midterm Exercise for Undergraduates.

II. Extended Colonialism in the Caribbean Archipelago

October 26: Coloniality of Race: From Castas to Mulataje

Magali Carrera, Chapter 3: “Envisioning the Colonial Body.” Imagining Identity in
New Spain. Race, Lineage, and the Colonial Body in Portraiture and Casta Paintings.
(sakai)
Cirilo Villaverde, Cecilia Valdés. pp. 1-245.
Doris Sommer, “Sab C’est Moi,” Foundational Fictions (sakai)

Topics for Oral Presentations:

Sibylle Fischer, “Introduction,” Modernity Disavowed. (sakai)
Aníbal Quijano, “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism and Latin America” Nepantla 1.3
(2000): 533-580. (sakai)
Final Paper Thesis and 5 entry-bibliography for undergrads (5%)

November 2: Beyond the Nation and the Script of the Tragic Mulatta
Cirilo Villaverde, Cecilia Valdés. pp. 246-491.
Sybille Fischer, “Cuban Antislavery Narratives and the Origins of Literary Discourse,”
Modernity Disavowed (sakai)

Topics for Oral Presentations:

Silvio Torres Saillant, Preface and Introduction, An Intellectual History of the
Hispanic Caribbean (sakai)
Gema R. Guevara, Inexacting Whiteness: Blanqueamiento as a Gender-Specific
Trope in the Nineteenth Century”, pp. 105-128. (sakai)
November 9: Négritude and Negrismo
Césaire, Notebook of a Return to the Native Land (sakai)
Negrista Poetry- Luis Palés Matos, Nicolás Guillén (sakai)
Badiane, “Negrismo and Négritude.” The Changing Face of Afro-Caribbean Cultural
Identity.”
Topics for Oral Presentations:
Aime Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism

Ramón Grosfoguel, "Cultural Racism" and Colonial Caribbean Migrants in Core Zones
of the Capitalist World-Economy” (sakai)

III. Postcoloniality and Its Discontents

November 16: Coloniality of Diaspora
Frantz Fanon, Black Skins, White Masks.
Gordon Lewis, “Through the Zone of Nonbeing: A Reading of Black Skin, White
Masks…” (sakai)
Draft of Final Paper for Undergrads (5%)

Topics for Oral Presentations:

Bernabé, Chamoiseau and Confiant, In Praise of Creoleness/Eloge a la creolite
(sakai)

Jacky Dahomay, “Cultural Identity versus Political Identity in the French West Indies“
(sakai)

November 21: Writing from the Place of Abjection

Kincaid, A Small Place. (sakai)
V.S. Naipaul, Reading and Writing. (sakai)
Jane King, “A Small Place Writes Back” Callaloo 25.3 (2002): 885-909. (sakai)
Dennis Walder, “V. S. Naipaul and the Postcolonial Order: Reading In a Free State”
Recasting the World: Writing after Colonialism. Ed. Jonathan White (ed.) Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins, 1993. 82-119. (sakai)  

Topics for Oral Presentations:

Shalini Puri, Introduction and Chapter 1, The Caribbean Postcolonial (sakai)

Suzanne Gauch, “A Small Place: Some Perspectives on the Ordinary.“ Callaloo 25.3
(2002): 900-919. (sakai)

November 30: Antillanité, Poetics of Relation

Glissant, Poetics of relation, pp. 13-95. (sakai)
Carine Mardorossian, “From Fanon to Glissant: a Martinican Genealogy”
Bonnie Thomas, “Glissant and the Art of Memory.” (sakai)
Reflexión #3

Topics for Oral Presentations:

Mabel Moraña, Enrique Dussel, and Carlos Jáuregui, eds. “Introduction.” Coloniality
at Large, Duke UP, 2008.

Richard Serrano, “Introduction.” Against the Postcolonial (sakai)

Kris Rampersad, “Dominica[n]-born scholar disputes key regional thinkers” (sakai)

December 7: Writing Beyond the Caribbean Postcolonial Archipelago: Hawai’i,

California and More
Rodney Morales, selection short stories from The Speed of Darkness. (sakai).
Erika Lopez, Flaming Iguanas: An Illustrated All-Girl Road Novel Thing.
Lawrence LaFountain Stokes, “Erika López TransAmerican Road Trip: From
Philadelphia to San Francisco,” Queer Ricans (sakai)
Maritza Stanchich, “'Borinkee' in Hawai'i: Rodney Morales Rides the Diaspora Wave
to Transregional Imperial Struggle” Writing Off the Hyphen: New Perspectives on the
Literature of the Puerto Rican Diaspora. (sakai)  

Topics for Oral Presentations:

Campa, Roman De La. " On Latin Americanism and the Postcolonial Turn " (sakai)

PMLA, ”The End of Postcolonial Theory?” (May 2007). (sakai)

Carol Queen Interviews Erika López. “Hot Tomato.” (sakai)  

 
Sara Cooper, “Burning Down the Canon: Queer Family and Queer Text in Flaming
Iguanas” Ciberletras, 2007. (sakai)  

10 page Final Paper Due for Undergrads (10%)

Second Midterm for Undergraduates due on Tuesday December 20, 2011 by noon.

December 9 or 16- Dinner @ 296 Easton Avenue @ 6 p.m. Presentation of final

projects. CONFIRM DATE during the first two weeks of classes.