What is Decolonization?

Catalog description

What do recent calls to decolonize the university mean? This course considers this imperative from a historical perspective by tracing the economic, psychological, and cultural significance of decolonization in twentieth and twenty-first century literature and theory. We will begin by examining resistance to colonialism and imperialism in the early twentieth century, before turning to mid-century independence movements. We will then ask how the failures of these movements precipitated what we now call postcolonial studies, the academic analysis of empires and their aftermaths, with an array of related historical topics addressing nation, class, and gender. We will follow these lines of inquiry into our so-called age of globalization to see how they have prompted a further set of questions about race, diaspora, indigeneity, and the environment. (ENGL-GLS, ENGL-PST)