BC 1815y Decolonization: Studies in Political Thought and Political History M/W 2:40-3:55, SPRING 2009

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1 Professor Anupama Rao 416C Lehman Office Hours: W 12-2PM arao@barnard.edu; BC 1815y Decolonization: Studies in Political Thought and Political History M/W 2:40-3:55, SPRING 2009 The advent of decolonization in the twentieth century challenged the way in which world history had been conceived for four centuries, as centered upon the tiny landmass of Western Europe, rather than say, as plural and polycentric. With the onset of decolonization after the end of World War I, the world began to be seen, first through the lens of the nation, and secondly, as an extensive set of interconnections, where seemingly remote events could have major effects across countries. The term 'decolonization' covers a range of very different phenomena, from peaceful transfers of power to violent revolutions; as such there can be no simple account of it. The term refers to the shift of legal and political sovereignty from former imperial powers to their erstwhile colonial subjects. But it also refers to a movement for moral and political justice, a declaration of the solidarity of the colonized, and a liberatory ideology that embraced even countries that were not formally colonized, such as China and Iran. This course will take the historical fact of decolonization in Asia and Africa as a framework for understanding the thought of anticolonial nationalism and the political struggles that preceded it, and the trajectories of postcolonial developmentalism and the contemporary new world order which followed. The course will thus consider decolonization in two senses: as the historical achievement of independence in former colonies, but also (and more importantly), as a form of thought, or, as a practice of socio-political critique through which decolonization was imagined and articulated as a shared political project. In the process, the course will address the global genealogies and the creative transformations of theories of human and political emancipation as they were articulated by some of the most important thinkers of anticolonial thought, from W. E. B.Du Bois, and Frantz Fanon, to Mahatma Gandhi. In addition to historical and theoretical literature, this course will draw on literature, cinema and other media sources to explore the significance of decolonization in the 20 th century and beyond. 1

2 Requirements: This course has no pre-requisites, though healthy curiosity about global history from below is a plus. You should be ready to read approximately 100 pages/week. The lecture course will be organized with plenty of room for questions during lecture. You are allowed two absences during the semester. Further absences will result in the loss of a half grade per missed session. The grading system is as follows: Five-page midterm: 25% Class participation: 15% 2-page film comment (you can choose to write on either Something Like a War, or The Battle of Algiers): 20% Final exam: 40% Books on Order at Book Culture: Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 2006 W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk [online, through CCNMTL project] Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press, 1965 Antjie Krog, Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa. Three Rivers Press, 2000 Recommended Books: Prashad, Vijay. Darker Nations: A Biography of the Short-Lived Third World (a people s history of decolonization and the Third World) Rothermund, Dieter. The Routledge Companion to Decolonization (a very basic political history of decolonization) Note: Readings, marked by an asterisk * will be available on Courseworks Films: 1) Battle of Algiers 2) Something Like a War 2

3 Learning Objectives: This course will familiarize students with the impact of the major political events of the twentieth century, including the World Wars, Asian and African decolonization, and the establishment of international organizations during the period of the Cold War. As well, the course addresses critiques of economic underdevelopment, political subordination, and of cultural marginalization as they developed in the global context of a decolonizing world. Students who complete this course will learn how to: 1) Use and evaluate primary materials through critical reading and interpretation 2) Conduct close readings of key texts 3) Understand the difference between primary materials and historiography 4) Evaluate divergent perspectives in the understanding of the same event 5) Interpret arguments in light of existing literature on decolonization 6) Gain exposure to the theories and methods of global history 7) Present arguments cogently and logically in writing and speaking 3

4 Week One: Introduction Week Two: Nationalism Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities Week Three: Anticolonialism and Decolonization *Chatterjee, Partha. Nationalist Thought in the Third World [excerpts] *Hannah Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism [excerpts] Week Four: The Critique of Colonial Underdevelopment *Karl Marx, Surveys from Exile [excerpts] Vladimir Lenin, Report on the National and Colonial Question (1920) Congress of Peoples of the East, Baku, September *Eretz Manela, The Wilsonian Moment [excerpts] Suggested: Prashad on the 1927 League Against Imperialism Week Five: Bandung and Conceiving the Third World *Report of the Bandung Conference (extracts) Dipesh Chakrabarty, "Legacies of Bandung: Decolonisation and the Politics of Culture," Economic and Political Weekly, November 12, [find online via CLIO Journal search] William Pietz, The Post-colonialism of Cold War Discourse, Social Text Autumn 1988: [find online via CLIO journal search] Carl Pletsch, "The Three Worlds, or the Division of Social Scientific Labour, circa ," Comparative Studies in Society and History (1981), pp [find online via CLIO Journal search] Week Six: Contextualizing Non-Violence: Gandhi in South Africa *M. K. Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa [excerpts] 4

5 *M. K. Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth [excerpts] *Sol Plaatje, Selected Writings (from Native Life in South Africa, and Mafeking Diary) *Maureen Swan, Gandhi: The South African Experience [excerpts] Week Seven: Non-Violence *M. K. Gandhi [excerpts from selected writings] Week Eight: The Critique of Gandhi *Anupama Rao, Ambedkar and the Politics of Minority *Muhammed Iqbal, Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam [excerpts] *Javed Majeed, Muhammed Iqbal [excerpts] Week Nine: Race, Caste, and Identity Daniel Immerwahr, Caste or Colony? Indianizing Race in the United States, Modern Intellectual History 4 (2007): [find through CLIO journal search] W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk **Assignment Due: 5 page paper** Week Ten: The Critique of Colonial Violence Frantz Fanon, Wretched of the Earth Week Eleven: contd. Screening, The Battle of Algiers (dir. Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966) Neil McMaster, Torture: from Algiers to Abu Ghraib, Race and Class, 46(2), 2005, pp [find on CLIO journal search] Week Twelve: Postcolonial Developmentalism *Partha Chatterjee, The National State, The Nation and Its Fragments *James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed [excerpts] Screening, Something Like a War (on gender and the politics of population control) 5

6 Week Thirteen: Apartheid and African Decolonization Antjie Krog, Country of My Skull Week Fourteen: Religion and Universality Michel Foucault, Iran: The Spirit of a World Without Spirit, in Michel Foucault, Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings Tr. Alan Sheridan. Ed. Lawrence D. Kritzman. London, UK Routledge, 1990, pp Joan Scott, Symptomatic Politics, French Politics, Culture & Society, Volume 23, Number 3, Winter 2005, pp (22) Faisal Devji, Landscapes of the Jihad [excerpts] 6

7 Rationale for GER categorization 1)This lecture course exposes students to the study of historical methods, and to the use of primary source materials. It thus qualifies for HIS categorization. 2) The course addresses themes in social and political theory sovereignty, personhood, self-determination, political emancipation in addition to discussing divergent ideologies, from Marxism, to Islamic universalism as they shaped anticolonial thought. It thus satisfies key requirements for the SOC designation 7