HNRS 122: Reading the Arts (Topic Varies)
HNRS 122-004: Postcolonial Creative Culture
(Fall 2022)
01:30 PM to 02:45 PM MW
Thompson Hall 1018
Section Information for Fall 2022
This honors seminar focuses on questions raised by colonial and postcolonial creative works, mostly literature (in the forms of prose, poetry, drama, and visual and vocal art), from the early 20th century to the present. Often, creativity enables the processing of traumas. What does this work look like when deployed at a national level? What about at a minority-majority global level?
Following a historical trajectory of British imperialism, we start our readings in Ireland (can a Western country be a target of colonization?) and continue to Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, Africa, and the Middle East. We also read some texts from the indigenous peoples of North America (what are perspectives gained from a settler-colony and the remaining indigenous peoples?). While the British Empire will begin our route, we additionally discuss other empires (how are non-Western empires part of our temporal and spatial understandings of colonization?).
Most inquiries are informed by texts created both during colonization in response to imperialism and those composed “post-colonization” (with neocolonization, is "post" a possibility?) which analyze the effects of colonial power. Some major postcolonial discussion topics include language, education, power, insurgence, gender/racial inequalities, center/periphery, and neocolonialism.
Students will read extensively and analyze artistic projects to inquire about the interconnections between world regions having one historical similarity (colonization) with the goal of gaining understandings about the effects of colonization on culture and imperialism on economics, resulting in diversities and commonalities crossing our globe.
In lieu of exams or large papers, students will use inquiry, as modeled above, to examine global areas to: offer information about the historical and cultural context surrounding our texts, respond reflectively using inductive reasoning to postcolonial topics, create a prophetic insight on one topic, and deliver a final presentation focused on a pair of commonalities and diversities in a postcolonial creative culture.
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Course Information from the University Catalog
Credits: 3
Enrollment limited to students with the Honors College (Business)., Honors College (STEM). or Honors College. attributes.
This course is graded on the Undergraduate Regular scale.
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