Admission requirements
Students who are interested in taking this course, but who are not admitted to one of the mentioned master programmes are requested to contact their co-ordinator of studies.
Description
When and how does culture become a form of resistance? The attempts of new states to embrace modernity and development have been complicit in fostering a homogeneous national culture that erased difference. From the policing of the aesthetic to the recreation of glorious pasts by building cities and dams, modern states have bred discontent among their citizens. Resistance to this homogenizing project has emerged in the cultural field through counter cultural production as well as in protest movements and political engagement of members of subjugated cultures.
This course brings together multiple disciplinary, theoretical and material approaches to explore how notions of culture and that of resistance interact in postcolonial contexts. Taking examples essentially from South Asia it will discuss cultural forms, institutions, interventions and theorisations that have emerged across transnational contexts during and after decolonization,
The weekly seminars will carry both conceptual and concrete case-studies. Students will be encouraged to explore multiple meanings, forms and possibilities of resistance through and in culture. The seminar will introduce students to material from South-East Asia and the Middle East, while engaging with a still broader scope of theoretical literature from the Global South, covering texts from African and Latin American studies. Moving to and fro from theory to practice, the object of the seminar is to critically examine the braiding of culture and the political in the creation of postcolonial imaginations.
Course objectives
Participants in this course will acquire the following:
-an understanding of non-Western perspectives on social and cultural theory
-improved research skills, presentation skills, composition skills, and ability to critically evaluate readings
Timetable
Check timetable
Mode of instruction
Seminar
Attendance and active participation is mandatory.
Course Load
Total course load for the course:
10 EC course:
Lectures: 28 hours
Studying literature:112 hours ( 4 hours per week)
Writing paper and preparing for class presentation: 140 hours
5 EC course:
Lectures: 28 hours
Studying literature: 56 hours ( 2 hours per week)
Writing paper and preparing for class presentation: 56 hours
Assessment method
10 EC course:
Presentation/Attendance: 40%
Guidelines will be given for the presentation.Term Paper (+/- 5,000 words): 60%
The final paper is written in two stages: a first version which will be commented on and a final version. Students who do not meet the deadline for the first version will lose the right to get comments and will only be graded based on their final version.
5 EC course:
Presentation/Attendance: 40%
Guidelines will be given for the presentation.Term Paper (+/- 1,500 words): 60% The final paper is written in two stages: a first version which will be commented on and a final version. Students who do not meet the deadline for the first version will lose the right to get comments and will only be graded based on their final version.
Blackboard
Yes, see for more info Blackboard
Reading list
tba
Registration
Registration through uSis
Registration Studeren à la carte and Contractonderwijs
Register A la carte
Register Contractonderwijs
Remarks
Contact information
Prof. Dr. N.K. Wickramasinghe
Dr.S.Sunderason