SubjectsSubjects(version: 970)
Course, academic year 2024/2025
   Login via CAS
Postcolonial Studies in Gender Perspective - YMGS616
Title: Postcolonial Studies in Gender Perspective
Guaranteed by: Programme Gender Studies (24-KGS)
Faculty: Faculty of Humanities
Actual: from 2021
Semester: summer
E-Credits: 6
Examination process: summer s.:
Hours per week, examination: summer s.:2/1, Ex [HT]
Capacity: 25 / unknown (25)
Min. number of students: unlimited
4EU+: no
Virtual mobility / capacity: no
Key competences:  
State of the course: taught
Language: English
Teaching methods: full-time
Level:  
Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan
enabled for web enrollment
Guarantor: Mgr. et Mgr. Tereza Jiroutová Kynčlová, Ph.D.
Teacher(s): Mgr. et Mgr. Tereza Jiroutová Kynčlová, Ph.D.
Class: Courses available to incoming students
Incompatibility : YMGS316, YMGS416
Is incompatible with: YMGS416, YMGS316
Annotation - Czech
Anotace Kurz představuje disciplínu postkoloniálních studií jak v rámci literární vědy a kulturních studií, odkud vzešla, tak v rámci kritických analýz historických i soudobých mocenských struktur, sociálních norem a kulturních reprezentací, jakož i v kontextu tzv. globalizovaného světa a mezinárodních vztahů. Kurz zkoumá kulturní a společenské praxe vztahující se k diverzitě, diferenci a zjinačování z pozice centra a okraje, analyzuje koncepty objektivizace „druhé/ho“ a s využitím feministických teorií a genderu jako analytické kategorie kontrastuje universalismus a kulturní relativismus. Vedle paralel mezi postkoloniálním a dekoloniálním myšlením sleduje též svébytný přínos feminismu k diskutovaným teoriím. Tematické okruhy 1. Kolonialismus, imperialismus a kapitalismus – reflexe základních pojmů a průnik s genderovými studii 2. Koloniální mapa světa, stručné dějiny kolonizace 3. Globalistické koncepce světového řádu 4. Orientalismus 5. Formy lokální modernity 6. Nacionalismus a národní stát 7. Hybridita, reprezentace minorit, migrace 8. Feminismus a multikulturalismus 9. Patriotismus, kosmopolitanismus, kulturní relativismus, universalismus 10. Filosofická a sociální pojetí kritérií diskriminace 11. Teorie hranice, kulturní identita jako „hraniční“, hybridní, nomádská, posthumanistická 12. Dekoloniálním myšlení 13. Postkolonialismus a epistemologie 14. Praktická cvičení – postkoloniální/dekoloniální analýza kulturních artefaktů
Last update: Macková Kristýna, Bc. (28.02.2019)
Syllabus - Czech

POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES IN GENDER PERSPECTIVE 2024/2025

Academic Year 2024/2025 (Summer Semester 2025)

Mgr. et Mgr. Tereza Jiroutová Kynčlová, Ph.D.

tereza.jiroutovakynclova@fhs.cuni.cz

----

Columbus became famous for his discoveries. Specifically, the discovery that you can discover a continent with millions of people already living on it that had also been visited by Vikings about 500 years earlier.

(Columbus Day - How Is This Still A Thing: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKEwL-10s7E, 1:35-1:46.)

----

Office hours:  Thursdays 10-12, room 2.40 OR online via MST upon request.  Please do send and email before coming to my office hours for consultations so that we avoid conflict of meetings. Thank you.

IMPORTANT DETAILS ON COURSE LOGISTICS:

-All instruction will be conducted in person. MS Teams will serve as a tool for submitting assignments.

-All reading materials are uploaded in the respective files in the SIS.                        

-All submissions (only in word document format, please) must be uploaded through the MST Assignment features. Students must complete all assignments in order to earn their grade.                                                                                    

-All course-related communication should be conducted by contacting me via email at tereza.jiroutovakynclova@fhs.cuni.cz.                                       

-Should you not be able to attend a course session, please inform me in advance. Maximum 3 absences during the semester are allowed.

-While AI tools can save time, aide the writing proces and help develop various skills in how to conceptualize a task as a fitting prompts needs to be formulated, please refrain from using AI tools when submiting your papers. I encourage you to think for yourselves and do research for sources on your own – this enhances your academic competencies, improves your work with databases and archival materials, and makes you an active agent in your education. Also, at the heart of social sciences and humanities - especially when they study marginalized people, cultures and other-than-human entities as feminist and postcolonial/decololonial theories do – there lies radical empathy and goals of social justice. No AI tool can replace your empathy and your epistemological position.

COURSE ANNOTATION

The course showcases postcolonial studies as a discipline within literary theory and cultural studies in the scope of which it historically developed, as well as within critical analyses of historical and contemporary power structures, social norms and cultural representations of the so-called globalized world, and international relations. The course sees into cultural and social practices relating to diversity, difference and othering from the positions of the center and the margin, it dissects the concepts of objectification of „the other“ while employing feminist theories and gender as an analytical category, it contrasts universalist and relativist thought. Besides the parallels between postcolonial and decolonial theories, the course aims to expose the contribution of feminism to the said modes of thinking.

FAIR ACADEMIC CONDUCT

Failure to acknowledge and properly reference sources of any kind used in assignments, papers and/or presentations is a breach to academic integrity and ethics. At all times, avoid plagiarism of any sort as it is a disciplinary offence and – upon the Faculty of Humanities Disciplinary Committee ruling – may result in termination of study. Presenting some else’s work or ideas as your own and failure to provide credits, acknowledgement, and references to all relevant sources falls under the definition of plagiarism. Should you experience uncertainty about correct ways of quoting and referencing, consult any citation manual and feel free to contact your teachers for advice. We are ready to help you. Also, be advised that the necessity to reference other people’s work and ideas applies equally to published texts (journals, books, articles, newspapers etc.) as well as unpublished texts (lectures, presentations, seminars, student papers, diploma theses etc.). Further, other forms of conveying information besides text are also subject to crediting and referencing, such as video material, audio material, computer code, photographs, graphs, illustrations, sheet music, web sites etc.

STUDENT ACCOMMODATIONS: If you have learning disabilities or you are struggling with the current pandemic-related situation and need more time to think, write and work, feel free to let me know anytime and we will find a way to make you feel comfortable while taking the course and meeting its requirements. Thank you. 

REQUIREMENTS:

NOTE: Students must complete all requirements listed below in order to receive a grade for the course.

1.     Active participation in class discussions – 20%

Students are expected to have read the mandatory readings for the given class. Students will showcase and discuss representations/examples of orientalist discourse encountered in the media, popular culture, daily experience and/or academic disciplines. This activity constitutes a part of participation grade.

2.     One short paper, 400-words in length – 20%

Due: March 23, 2025 – Assignment will be made available in MST.

3.   Lightning Talk Presentation – TOPIC PITCH  – 20%

Students will work in pairs. They choose an artifact to analyze and present in front of class. Their presentation using powerpoint (or equivalent tools) is to be maximum 5 mins long (strongly enforced, please rehearse). Students will pitch a gender sensitive postcolonial/decolonial studies-informed topic and supply a brief analysis (i.e. NOT a description) of a cultural representation of their choice. In conclusion, they suggest 2 questions for class discussion. A topical cultural representation can be an artifact, painting, film scene, image, PC game, advertisement, music video clip, newspaper article, museum exhibition, theatrical performance, cultural custom, or any relevant source of feminist and postcolonial/decolonial inquiry. The analysis contained in the presentation needs to be carried out from post/de-colonial perspectives and employ gender-sensitive, feminist methods and paradigms. Part of the presentation is an executive summary of major arguments and key points for discussion via which students may receive feedback to be incorporated in the final paper should they choose to pursue the selected topic further. If this be the case, the chosen artifact/topic discussed in presentation can be (but does not have to be) analyzed in a greater depth in the final paper.

4.     Final paper – 40%

Due: May 30, June 15, June 27, 2025

Final paper is an academic essay that analyzes a selected artifact, movie, exhibition, painting, literary work etc. through post/de-colonial perspectives and discusses the intersections with feminist theories and gender studies and, ideally, establishes a critical statement about social justice. It is vital the paper be analytical, not descriptive in its structure. The paper is to be between 1500 to 2000 words in length (excluding bibliography). As it is an academic paper, it needs to list the works cited, use inter-textual/parenthetical references and follow proper academic language. The paper may be, but does not have to be an in-depth, analytical elaboration of the student’s presentation. Final papers are individual papers, not group projects as presentations. Students may, of course, opt for a new topic as well; any initiative is welcome and appreciated!

 

SESSION TOPICS AND DATES

 

Week 1 - 27.2. Course overview

Course structure, introduction of class participants, course expectations, course overview, post/de/coloniality in selected artifacts 

TESTIMONY / Food for thought and debate: Adichie Ngozi, Chimamanda. The Danger of a Single Story. Accessible here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg

 

Week 2 – 6.3. Orientalism, major concepts

Pair presentation dates to be assigned.

MUSEUM / Food for thought and debate: Fota, Ana. “What’s Wrong With This Diorama? You Can Read All About It.“ The New York Times, 20 March, 2019, online. Accessible here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/arts/design/natural-history-museum-diorama.html

Required reading:

Young, Robert“What is the Postcolonial?” Ariel, Vol. 40 (1) 2009: 13-25.

Said, E. “Introduction.” In Orientalism: Western Conception of the Orient. London: Penguin, 2003, 1-28.

Additional Reading:

Loomba, Ania. “Situating Colonial and Postcolonial Studies” in Colonialism/Postcolonialism. London and New York: Routledge, 2005, 19-39.

Shohat, Ella. “Notes on the "Post-Colonial.” Social Text, No. 31/32, Third World and Post-Colonial Issues (1992), 99-113.

 

Week 3 – 13.3. Gender, sexuality and colonial discourse

Student presentations

CUISINE / Food for thought and debate: Kuang, Savannah. “What it Means to Decolonize Your Diet.” KQED.org, online. 19 Nov, 2019. Accessible here: https://www.kqed.org/bayareabites/135518/what-it-means-to-decolonize-your-diet

Required reading:

Loomba, Ania. “Gender, Sexuality and Colonial Discourse” in Colonialism/Postcolonialism. London and New York: Routledge, 2015, 153-171.

McClintock, Anne. From “The Lay of the Land. Genealogies of Imperialism“ in Imperial Leather. Race Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. New York, London: Routledge, 1995, 21-31.

Additional Reading:

Jiroutová Kynčlová, Tereza and Blanka Knotková Čapková. “Postcolonial and Decolonial Thought in Feminism and Analyses of Othering Representations.“ Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research, 2017, 18 (2) 9–15. Accessible online: https://www.genderonline.cz/uploads/28e9774219816ac60e1ef853304c99c212fcf95c_gender-2-2017-editorial-aj.pdf

 

Week 4 – 20.3. Documentary Movie Screening

The class WILL NOT TAKE PLACE at the faculty as the teacher is giving an invited lecture at University of Warsaw, Poland. Instead, students are required to watch a documentary film on their own and submit a resulting reaction paper.

The documentary “Ticket to Paradise”, will be made available online in advance via a youtube link listed in the respective assignment in MST.

Reaction paper due MARCH 23, 2025.  SEE ASSIGNMENT IN MS TEAMS!

 

Week 5 - 12.3. Situated knowledges, colonialism, postcolonialism and research

Student presentations

Required reading:

Tuhiwai Smith, Linda. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London, New York: Zed Books, 1999, 42-77.

Kalmar, Ivan. „How Eastern Europeans Became Less White“ in White But Not Quite: Central Europe’s Illiberal Revolt. Bristol University Press, 2022, 33-45.

Jusová, Iveta. 2016. “Situating Czech Identity.” Pp. 29-45. in Jiřina Šiklová and Iveta Jusová (eds.) Czech feminisms: perspectives on gender in East Central Europe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016, 29-45.

Additional Reading:

Haraway, Donna. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.“ Feminist Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3. (Autumn, 1988), 575-599.

Tuhiwai Smith, Linda. “Twenty-five Indigenous Projects.” In Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London, New York: Zed Books, 1999, 143-164.

Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. “Under Western Eyes. Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses.” boundary 2, 12 (3). On Humanism and the University I: The Discourse of Humanism, 1984, 333-358.

 

Week 6 – 3.4. Globalist perspectives of the world order in sharp contrast – Huntington, Fukuyama, Said

Student presentations

PANDEMIC / Food for thought and debate: Byatnal, Amruta. “Is COVID-19 magnifying colonial attitudes in global health?“ Devex.com, 19 June, 2020, online. Accessible here: https://www.devex.com/news/is-covid-19-magnifying-colonial-attitudes-in-global-health-97499

Required reading:

Huntington, Samuel. “The Clash of Civilizations.” Foreign Affairs. 1993, 72 (3), 22-49.

Fukuyama, Francis. “The End of History?” The National Interest, 1989, 13, 3-18.

Said, Edward. “The Clash of Ignorance.” The Nation, Oct. 4, 2001

(Accessible here: https://www.thenation.com/article/clash-ignorance/)

 

Week 7 – 10.4. Feminism and multiculturalism

Student presentations

ART / Food for thought and debate: Cotter, Holland. “A Cree Artist Redraws History” The New York Times, Dec. 19, 2019, online. Accessible here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/19/arts/design/kent-monkman-metropolitan-museum.html?action=click&module=Features&pgtype=Homepage

Required reading:

Okin, Susan Moller. “Feminism and Multiculturalism. Some Tensions.” Ethics, 108, 1998: 661-684.

Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. “Under Western Eyes. Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses.” boundary 2, 12 (3). On Humanism and the University I: The Discourse of Humanism, 1984, 333-358.

Additional Reading:

Phillips, Anne. “Multiculturalism, Universalism and the Claims of Democracy.” Democracy, Governance and Human Rights, Programme Paper Number 7, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, December 2001, 1-20.

Okin, Susan Moller. “Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?” Boston Review, 1. 10. 1997. http://bostonreview.net/forum/susan-moller-okin-multiculturalism-bad-women

 

Week 8 – 17.4. Reading Week – NO CLASS 

This week pertains solely to the Graduate Program in Gender Studies within which you are taking this course. Reading week is NOT an all-faculty arrangement. The GS program has implemented reading weeks within all its courses as a week dedicated to students’ and teachers’ wellbeing. During this week I invite you to remain offline and use it as an opportunity to catch up on your readings or simply to read ahead for the course.

 

Week 9 – 24.4.  Feminist views of human rights

Student presentations

Required reading:

Nussbaum, Martha. Women and the Human Development. The Capabilities Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2000, 34-106.

Bhabha, Homi. “DissemiNation - Time, Narrative And The Margins Of The Modern Nation.” In The Location of Culture. London–New York: Routledge, 2004, 139-170.

Additional Reading:

Nussbaum, Martha. Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism. Boston Review, 1 Oct., 1994, online: http://bostonreview.net/martha-nussbaum-patriotism-and-cosmopolitanism

 

Week 10 – 1. 5. National Holiday – NO CLASS


Week 11 – 8.5. National Holiday – NO CLASS

 

Week 12 – 15.5.  Debates within post/colonial and decolonial studies, diverse notions of modernity, decolonial feminism.

Student presentations

Required reading and viewing:

A video of Kim Tallbear's talk A Sharpening of the Already Present: An Indigenous Materialist Reading of Settler Apocalypse 2020 Please watch:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO14od9mlTA

Mendoza, Breny. “Coloniality of Gender and Power: From Postcoloniality to Decoloniality.“ In Lisa Disch and Mary Hawkesworth, (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016, 100-120.

Grosfoguel Ramón. “Decolonizing Post-Colonial Studies and Paradigms of Political-Economy: Transmodernity, Decolonial Thinking, and Global Coloniality.“ TRANSMODERNITY: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, 2011,1(1). Accessible online: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/21k6t3fq#main

Lugones, Maria. “Toward a Decolonial Feminism.” Hypatia, 25(4), 2010, 742-759.

 

Week 13 – 22.5. Decolonial thought and femicide/feminicide

Required reading:

Lokaneeta, Jinee. “Violence”. In Lisa Disch and Mary Hawkesworth, (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016, 1010-1029.

Paulina García-Del Moral, "The Murders of Indigenous Women in Canada as Feminicides: Toward a Decolonial Intersectional Reconceptualization of Femicide," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 43, no. 4 (Summer 2018): 929-954.

Additional Reading:

Fregoso, Rosa Linda. “Voices Without Echo: The Global Gendered Apartheid.“ Emergences: Journal for the Study of Media & Composite Cultures, (2000), 10:1, 137-155.

Jiroutová Kynčlová, Tereza. “On Border and On Murder: Juárez Femi(ni)cides.” Central European Journal of International and Security Studies, Vol.3, 2015, 154-174.

-----

FURTHER READINGS OF INTEREST:

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London/New York: Verso, [1983] 2006

Anzaldúa, Gloria and Cherríe Moraga, (eds.). This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, [1981] 1983

Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute, [1987] 1999.

Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., Tiffin, H. (eds.). Postcolonial Studies. The Key Concepts. London, New York: Routledge, 2000.

Bhabha, Homi. (1994): The Location of Culture. London, New York.

Fanon, Franz. Black Skin, White Masks (1952), (1967 translation by Charles Lam Markmann: New York: Grove Press).

Fanon, Franz. A Dying Colonialism (1959), (1965 translation by Haakon Chevalier: New York, Grove Press).

Fanon, Franz. The Wretched of the Earth (1961), (1963 translation by Constance Farrington: New York: Grove Weidenfeld).

Freire, Paulo (1970): Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Greenblatt, Stephen. Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991. Print.

Harding, Sandra (1991): Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women’s Lives. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Chakrabarty, Dipesh (2007): Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press

Lazarus, N. (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Literary Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Memmi, Albert. The Colonizer and the Colonized. Introduction by Jean-Paul Sartre; afterword by Susan Gilson Miller; translated by Howard Greenfeld. Expanded ed. Boston: Beacon Press, 1991.

Mignolo, W., Walsh, C. On Decoloniality. Concepts, Analytics, Praxis. Durham, London: Duke University Press, 2018.

Mohanty Talpade, C. Feminism without Borders. Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham, London: Duke University Press, 2003.

Parry, B. Postcolonial Studies. A Materialist Critique. London, New York: Routledge, 2004.

Said, Edward (1994): Culture and Imperialism. London: Vintage.

Sandoval, Chela. Methodology of the Oppressed. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.

Spivak, Gayatri Ch. (1999): A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present. Cambridge–Massachusetts–London: Harvard University Press.

Spivak, Gayatri Charkravorty (1994): Can the Subaltern Speak? In: Williams, Patrick–Chrisman, Laura (ed.): Colonial Discourse and Post-colonial Theory: A Reader. New York: Columbia University Press, s. 66–111.

Todorov, Tzvetan (2002): The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Todorov, Tzvetan (2010): The Fear of Barbarians. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Wallerstein, Immanuel (2006): European Universalism – The Rhetoric of Power. New York: The New Press.

Young, Robert, J. C. (2001): Postcolonialism. An Historical Introduction. Malden–Oxford–Carlton: Blackwell Publishing.

Yuval-Davis, Nira. Gender & Nation. London, Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2005.

 

 

Last update: Jiroutová Kynčlová Tereza, Mgr. et Mgr., Ph.D. (26.02.2025)
 
Charles University | Information system of Charles University | http://www.cuni.cz/UKEN-329.html