The Colonial Encounter
Fall 2006 Syllabus
Class meets Monday and Thursday 2:00 - 3:20 pm
General Issues regarding Colonialism:
To start, please read the poem White Man's Burden
For background terms and themes on post colonialism, please see Post Colonial Studies, Colonialism, Postcolonialism, and Literature: Theorists and Critics, and the PostColonial Studies page at Emory University
Areas of Focus
Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent
see Grand Tours
North America
There is a wide range of information on Native Americans available on the web. See Native American Sites and H-AMERINDIAN for starters.
For information on the Mi`kmaq, please see the web page for the Confederacy of Mainland Mi`kmaq, the Newfoundland Mi'kmaq history page, and the Native Languages of the Americas page for the Mikmaq. The Nova Scotia Museum's Mi'kmaq Portraits database is a fascinating resource. The database's video clips are a great opportunity to see and hear the people.
Recommended popular film on the Fur Trade: The Black Robe.
South America
An issue for the course: Ethics and the Study of the Yanomami
The discipline of Anthropology has been confronting the ethics of one of its most famous ethnographers. We will explore the issues surrounding Patrick Tierney's Darkness in El Dorado. Please see the American Anthropological Association's statement. Public Anthropology has several links and important reports regarding the issue of Napoleon Chagnon's research among the Yanomami.
Another issue for the course: Can the Subaltern Speak?
Rigoberta Menchu's life history was commonly taught in introduction to anthropology courses as an example of indigenous agency. A critique of the history has led to an important debate on representations and voice. The Chronicle of Higher Education focused on the debate on veracity. The New York Times reviewed the key books in the debate. Menchu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992.
Recommended popular film: Quilombo (Brazil 1984) on 17th century Palmaires
Africa
For insights into the Middle Passage, see the links associated with National Geographic's report on the slaving ship Henrietta Marie. For more general insighs, see the PBS pages from Louis Henry Gates' The Slave Kingdoms. Under the Works Progress Administration of the 1930's, writers interviewed and recorded over 2,000 histories of former slaves into print, and the University of Virginia has gathered a number of the more vivid narratives at American Slave Narratives.
Images of Colonial Africa is a useful collection.
For an example of tourism to the slave ports, see Tourism in Ghana.
For a popular film on the Slave Trade, see Amistad. For a review, turn to Amistad America, Inc
The South Pacific
The third issue for the course:
There are multiple layers of questions and issues involved in the meeting of Western Europeans and the "People without History." We will examine the debate regarding James Cook's visit and death on Hawaii. For general information on Captain Cook, see the Captain Cook Society. For the debate between Marshall Sahlins and Gananath Obeyesekere. In response to a lecture by Sahlins by on his 1981 Historical Metaphors and Mythic Realities, Obeyesekere in 1992 published The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific. Sahlins responded with How "Natives" Think: About Captain Cook, For Example. Cook as Lono opens up multiple layers of meanings regarding the colonial encounter. We'll discuss the implications of the debate. The University of Chicago Magazine has a short essay on the debate. A biography of Sahlins is available at Emuseums. The debate has led to philosophical discussions, see Salon.com for an example.
For a popular film on Europeans exploring the South Pacific, see the classic Mutiny on the Bounty. See a description of the movie.
There are several scholars who are central to the political economic
perspective explored in this course. We will turn to:
Andre Gunder Frank - see his
Personal
is Political Autobiography
Immanuel Wallerstein - see his The Development of an Intellectual Position
Eric Wolf - see Soo Kyung Lim's essay
For the issues of ethics in a post colonial anthropology, see Public Anthropology.
