This comparative seminar explores theoretical developments, debates, and discourses in post/decolonial studies through a focus on key concepts, critical terms, and 鈥榰ntranslatables鈥欌�攊ncluding the words 鈥榩ostcolonial鈥� and 鈥榙ecolonial鈥� themselves. It combines 鈥榗lassic鈥� interventions, foundational in postcolonial studies, by authors such as Aim茅 C茅saire and Frantz Fanon, with influential recent writings by writers such as Saidiya Hartman and Fran莽oise Verg猫s. Emphasis will be placed on African and Caribbean thought in French, but with attention paid to other linguistic and cultural traditions; the politics and poetics of translation and untranslatability; the relationship of decolonial theory to literary studies and aesthetics; decolonial ecologies; the Black Atlantic as a theoretical and cultural-historical paradigm; and debates around cultural heritage and restitution. All readings will be made available in English, but students are encouraged to read in the original wherever possible.
Session topics will include:
鈼� Decolonization, decolonizing & decoloniality
鈼� Blackness, n茅gritude & cr茅olit茅
鈼� The 鈥楤lack Atlantic鈥� and the 鈥榓fterlife of slavery鈥�
鈼� Ecological thinking
鈼� Return, repatriation, restitution, reparation
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There will be significant opportunities for student presentations, in which a broader range of cognate topics will be explored.
Preliminary Reading:
C茅saire, Aim茅, Discours sur le colonialisme (Pr茅sence Africaine, 1955); Discourse on Colonialism, trans. Joan Pinkham (NYU/Monthly Review, 2000)
C茅saire, Suzanne, The Great Camouflage: Writings of Dissent (1941鈥�1945), trans. Keith Walker (Wesleyan UP, 2012)
Fanon, Frantz, Les Damn茅s de la terre (Maspero, 1961); The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Richard Philcox (Grove, 2004)
Jamaica Kinkaid, A Small Place (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1988)
Ferdinand, Malcom, Une 茅cologie d茅coloniale: penser l鈥櫭ヽologie depuis le monde carib茅en (Seuil, 2019); Decolonial Ecology: Thinking from the Caribbean World, trad. Anthony Paul Smith (Polity, 2022)
Glissant, 脡douard, Po茅tique de la relation (Gallimard, 1990); Poetics of Relation, trans. Betsy Wing (University of Michigan, 1997)
Hartman, Saidiya, Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route (Macmillan, 2006)
Mbembe, Achille, Critique de la raison n猫gre (La D茅couverte, 2013); Critique of Black Reason, trans. Laurent Dubois (Duke UP, 2017)
Ng农g末 wa Thiong鈥檕, Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (James Currey, 1986)
Sharpe, Christina, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (Duke UP, 2016)
Verg猫s, Fran莽oise, Un f茅minisme d茅colonial (La Fabrique, 2019); A Decolonial Feminism, trans. Ashley J. Bohrer (Pluto, 2021)
Verg猫s, Fran莽oise, Programme de d茅sordre absolu: D茅coloniser le mus茅e (La Fabrique, 2023); A Programme of Absolute Disorder: Decolonizing the Museum (Pluto, 2024)
Yusoff, Kathryn, A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None (U of Minnesota P, 2010)
