Examples of student progress reports & research proposals for their research projects are listed below in alphabetical order, followed by instructors' comments.

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Research Journal

LITR 5734, Summer 2001

 Introduction:

Although a great wealth of literature is available from Africa and India in which one can study the effects of colonialism, the scattered islands in the Caribbean are still far behind in the race for postcolonial recognition. In particular, Hispanola, and the surrounding island nations, are regions of relatively ignored voices. The causes are varied – from politics to poverty, and readers in the United States have only somewhat recently "discovered" the beautiful songs of these neighboring islands. The literatures of Haiti, Cuba, Antigua, and Jamaica sometimes have common themes, but resound in distinct and varied intonations, which are both beautiful and disturbing. The following research journal will focus on two problematics: How have the imperialistic influences of the English, Dutch, French, and Spanish affected the people of the Caribbean island nations, and what is the role of the United States in the lives of these people – in other words, is the U.S. continuing to engage in colonial actions in these nations?

For the purpose of answering these questions, the lives and works of three major postcolonial authors of the Caribbean are reviewed, as well as overviews of recent periodical articles concerning U.S. strategies of "Americanizing" these nations are given. Also included is a historical report on colonial Haiti, and the evolution of language in this country colonized by France. A nice variety of professional journal articles and websites were reviewed; unfortunately, many more articles, which could have given even deeper insight, were written in French and Creole, making them unavailable to this reviewer.

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I would like to write a paper on A Passage to India, and I have been trying to decide what angle I would like to take. I located a quote from an introduction written by Jean-Paul Sartre to a book entitled The Colonizer and the Colonized by Albert Memmi. Sartre states, "It is the oppressor himself who restores, with his slightest gesture, the humanity he seeks to destroy; and since he denies humanity in others, he regards it everywhere as his enemy. To handle this, the colonizer must assume the opaque rigidity and imperviousness of stone. In short, he must dehumanize himself, as well. A relentless reciprocity binds the colonizer to the colonized--his product and his fate."

I would like to pursue this idea further in arguing that the English colonizers in A Passage to India can be viewed as what Sartre has termed as "dehumanized" figures, resulting from their attempt to dehumanize the Indians.

Do I have ANYTHING to work with here?

Dear Kim,

The Sartre quotation is very interesting, so keep working with it (and maybe with other parts of his introduction).

Sorry if I sound like a broken record, but comedy may again provide a clue. Another French philosopher, Henri Bergson, theorizes that comedy arises when people act like automatons, denying or repressing or simply not exercising the flexibility or adaptability that makes us human. These terms seem to overlap with Sartre's description of dehumanization. I'll attach a handout with some of the relevant passages from Bergson.

But you don't need to use that if it doesn't strike you. Regardless of comedy, Passage to India is full of images for the English as cold, icy, hard and thus inhuman.

One fascinating and disturbing angle of Sartre's quotation is the idea that the oppressor can restore humanity as well as deny it. One would wish that the oppressed might have that power. But overall the idea of a double dehumanization--of both the oppressed and the oppressor--is familiar in minority literature, especially slave literature, as in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, where the slaveholders try to reduce the slaves to the level of beasts, but in the process dehumanize themselves, becoming "hard as stone," or functioning like whipping machines. There are images of machines in Forster too, describing the English court system.

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Hi Dr. White,

I have started my journal and am trying to focus on African issues.  HOWEVER, I don't seem to have a cohesive project developing.  I was planning to do my brief biography on Conrad and trace the origins of the conflicts in the Congo as my 'History' section.  I have already reviewed several websites and critiqued an article in the PCSR.  I would still like to discuss some of your objectives that occur in The Poisonwood Bible.  Basically, I am ending up with a mishmash of research...

Is it o. k. if I simply draw parallels and point out contrasting issues within the various topics in my conclusion or do you need me to focus more heavily in one area?  Please let me know if I am on the wrong track.

Thanks,

Sylvia

Dear Sylvia,

Your plan sounds altogether in the normal range to me. The general subject of Africa seems like a reasonable up-front narrowing of your research range. Your second paragraph about seeking parallels or contrasts in your conclusion (plus maybe previewing them in your introduction) is a good description of the process I expect. Another way to think about it is, how do you see your lines of research converging? What might be the next step if you were going to develop this research? But you're thinking fine on your own.

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Verena Ollikkala

Proposal for Research Journal

Is there a legacy of racism that persists today as a consequence of white colonial attitudes and perceptions - such as in negative images of Caribbean, African and Asian peoples? This is a question that has to be addressed and explored.

By utilizing

1) Ngugi wa Thiong’o, A Grain of Wheat

2) Philip Gourevitch, We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families

3) Jamaica Kincaid: Article from PCSR

4) Articles from web pages

I hope to show that even today our behavior – political and interpersonal – is influenced by our history as colonial masters. This is reflected in the angry literary denunciation of Western values by authors, who experienced and saw these powers at work in their daily lives.

Dear Verena,

Your reading plan is ambitious enough, given the size of the Ngugi and Gourevitch texts. And you are welcome to organize your research as a journal. But, given the specificity of your topic and the limited number of texts, you could consider organizing the project as a short essay--that is, if you can make the Gourevitch, Ngugi, and Kincaid texts coordinate with each other; for instance, you might note a similar tendency in western values that each exposes. If not, stay with the journal approach, but consider drawing connections between the two texts as you review each.

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First, I'd like to do biographical reports on Arundhati Roy and Jamaica Kincaid. Then I plan to investigate the African religions existing just prior to and during the early European colonization. Looking at the problems of "universality" in Literature, I'll further investigating the whether "romantic" love and kissing existed in African cultures then. I want to examine Hinduism and discuss aspects of nature and religion (especially the problem of kharma versus "every man for himself") in the novels, reviewing websites and historical documents-- and an article from PCSR? I also want to look at the pollution issue in the novels and in Walcott's poems--European technological advances at any cost. I'm interested in gaining any historical knowledge which will augment a comparison of "one versus many": polytheism vs. monotheism, hierarchical structures and dominance versus ideas of equality and meritocracy. I grasp these bare-bones just fine. Now I need to gain more meaty historical & anthropological information to fatten up the abstract concepts. However, I haven't done much research yet and this worries me greatly.

Thank you.

April

Dear April,

These are all the kinds of subjects I'd like to know more about too, so go ahead. Keep in mind the need to unify the materials as much as possible in your introduction and conclusion--this shouldn't lead you to exclude any interests before you start, only to keep up with emergent themes and to look for connections or larger unities. Some of them may be personal or aesthetic, as with Hinduism and Romanticism. Or your "one and many" is certainly a grand theme that you could try out. Anyway, yes, get started--find out what you want to know and transmit both the information and the pleasures gained.

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Sir,

My research journal will be geared towards making a case for defining postcolonial romanticism with an emphasis on environmental thinking. I will be using critical readings and a variety of texts to achieve this end product.

Carolyn

Dear Carolyn,

The topic is so specific that you might go either for a journal or a short paper. If a journal, you might include some research on the connection between Romanticism and nature--Like you, I assume the connection, but everyone might benefit from some research on the subject. Then you might survey issues of nature in relation to postcolonialism--there should be plenty. Research on postcolonialism and Romanticism might be more elusive, however. A problem I'd be interested (take it on if you like) would be how much Westerners read postcolonial literature through Romantic or post-Romantic eyes, but how much in fact postcolonial literature is seeing or representing nature in categories that aren't included by Romanticism. (For the most part, Romanticism treats nature in a semi-tourist mode. Frequently postcolonial writers don't have that leisure, and so treat nature more as something functional. The two groups may overlap in seeing nature as an aspect of religion, but there are probably distinctions to be made. Again, I feel as though Romantics "fancy" nature as religion, but in this scenario nature's not a very demanding god. For colonized people or postcolonial people, nature may fulfill "primitive" religious functions, but sometimes they require sacrifice, as with the sacrifice of twins in Things Fall Apart.) Overall I guess I'm saying to beware of treating Romanticism as a universal, but pardon me if you took this warning for granted.

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I don't hate people

Nor do I encroach

But if I become hungry

The usurper's flesh will be my food

Beware...

Beware...

of my hunger

And my anger!

I enjoyed reading these words for Mahmoud Darwish; they remind me with the African women's continuous survival against hunger and colonization. In African communities the woman works in the fields side by side with her husband, she doesn't show fear of the modern world's weapon because through history she has struggled for preservation of life because survival is her identity. However, when we think of the African woman certain factors should be considered such as:social, economical, and political impacts, which have interacted to produce the strong African woman that we know today. Colonization did bury itself with its own hands because its principle is to suppress nations' rights, and what is the result? Creating a volcano of anger, though it might keep silent for a while, but one day it is going to explode and that is what happened with all colonial powers throughout history.

Again and back to your question, which is, what is the importance of this subject in our time? I do believe that we need to shed the light on the African woman who though is considered weak,did succeed in challenging oppression with her humble and simple tools. Through the African woman, we feel strong and gain power. From her we learn how to survive.

Best Regards,

Sawsan Sanjak

-Introduction: 1- Colonial Impact (reference works)

2- Post-Colonization (review of 2-3 web sites/1-2 paragraphs

on each site)

3- Historical Report on a Major Event in Colonial or

Postcolonial History (1-2pages)

(1- 1&1/2pages) 4-Class influence

5-Gender

-African Women: 1- Between Society and Traditions

(…. Pages) 2- Influence of European Women on the African Women

3- Hybridity of African Women

-Review a PCSR Presentation:

1. PCSR (pp.249-254)

• Issues and challenges that the article raise
• What does the reader leave with, and what remain unresolved? (1page)

-Review of one unassigned article from PCSR: (pp. 255-258)

-Biographical Report plus primary and secondary bibliography on the post- colonial writer Achebe (2-3 pages)

-Review of two scholarly reviews of a scholarly text (concerning post-colonial

literature (2-3 paragraphs each/ Achebe-Things Fall Apart)

-Conclusion: 1-Knowledge gained from the gathering of the journal

2. 2-New direction in studies
3. 3-New issues to be studied (2-3 pages)

-References: - The Empire Writes Back (Theory and practice in post-colonial

literatures) /The Post-Colonial Studies Reader

-African Perspectives on Colonialism

-Women In Africa and the African Diaspora

Dear Sawsan,

Your sources for your journal are well-chosen, as is your topic. As far as suggestions, I'd be interested to hear how and why you chose the topic, why it is significant to postcolonial studies, etc.

If it were my subject, I might venture that a number of issues relevant to colonialism converge in the figure of African woman--issues of feminism, race, universality, tradition, nationhood; the list could go on, depending on one's interests. What kinds of challenges does the subject present to the European-American-dominant academy? How does such scholarship come to a conclusion that respects its own traditions while also respecting the voices and self-determination of African women?

Your own background near Africa but not quite part of Africa, not to mention your current position in an American university, could be relevant. In these kinds of studies, the personal becomes political.

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Dear Dr. White,

Good morning. I would like to write a paper on "The God of Small Things" and "Walcott's Poems" based on the images, attitude, language, and style. I am interested to connect Roy's 'feminist consciousness' with the support of PCSR articles as well as Walcott's poems. I would like to pursue this idea into a thesis in future. I like the very idea of yours, "creating something new", and I believe in it.

I request you to kindly advise and give me permission to continue my research work.

Thank you very much for your support.

With warm regards.

Suganthi Senapati.

Dear Suganthi,

This is a very interesting proposal, so yes, please continue. The only item that catches me with some surprise is using Walcott in support of a feminist consciousness. My surprise doesn't mean that it can't be done, only that I haven't noted that many feminist themes this summer in our readings of Walcott's poetry. Though his status as a male writer complicates the issue, such themes may well be there in his poems, only waiting to be developed. Even if they aren't, some of his strategies for developing a postcolonial voice may be transferable to Roy. I look forward to reading more of this, but, given my reactions here, you might take them into account as you frame your argument.

I am writing this mail to inform you about my new topic for the research paper. When I started working on my research project, I found that it is the post-modernist view which Walcott and Roy share in common and not the feminist consciousness. Feminist consciousness, though a dominant element in Arundhati Roy's novel, couldn't be similarly traced in Walcott's poetry. So I am presenting a paper on Post-colonial and Post-modernist view of Walcott's collected poems and Roy's "The God of Small Things."

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June 18, 2001

Dr. White,

With your permission, I'd like to do the Research Journal as my research project for the course. The opportunities to read and apply the literary criticism to the primary texts will be invaluable to me as an instructor. I plan to use the primary and secondary texts in classes this fall and as reference material during Galveston College's 2001 Fall Lecture Series on Africa. While I need to produce a conference paper on the subject as well, for the National Association of African Studies, time constraints may prevent me from doing so this summer. The conference is in the spring of 2002. I will be using material that I've collected in the journal as the basis of my conference paper.

In addition to essays from the Post Colonial Studies Reader, it is likely I will review secondary texts as part of my journal: "Race," Writing and Difference, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr., in particular, the essay, "Colonialist Literature," by Abdul R. JanMohamed; Literatures of Asia, Africa, and Latin America edited by Willis Barnstone and Tony Barnstone. It includes a collection of the classical texts as well as a compact explanation of the history of India. Also, the Columbia Project on Asia in the Core Curriculum: Masterworks of Asian Literature in Comparative Persecutive: A Guide for Teaching, edited by Barbara Stoler Miller — using the essay "The Imaginative Universe of Indian Literature" by Barbara Stoler Miller and possibly "A Note on Modern Indian Literature," by David Rubin.

I have proposed including a work of flash fiction that reflects the colonial experience. The setting of the short story will be in Jamaica or Puerto Rico. It features protagonists who are in conflict with 18th and 19th century colonialists. This work will be included as part of my creative master's thesis.

With your permission,

Sincerely,

Dale Marie Taylor

Dear Dale,

You offer an abundance of subjects and sources, so yes, a journal seems the way to go. It's my duty to remind you to keep up with emerging themes or connections between these diverse materials, so that your introduction and conclusion can come up with as unified a statement of learning as possible. (You may be tempted to write, "I conclude that Postcolonial Studies are as great and varied as the world!"--but as long as you don't stop there, that's a start.)