LITR 5734: Colonial & Postcolonial Literature

Midterm Assignment 2008
(From Syllabus, with additions)

Take-home / email midterm:

Due: Due by email by the end of the weekend after 21 February class

Weight: 20-30% of final grade

Length: 5-10 typed, double-spaced page equivalent

Submission format: The midterm must be submitted in electronic form, either by email or on a disk, so that it can be uploaded to the course webpage.

Please give your midterm essay a title.

Organization requirement: Complete, unified essay, but welcome to include personal references to the course and your experience with it and others.

Topic assignment: Introduce, define, and explain the concepts of colonial and postcolonial literature in relation to the following course texts:

  • Conrad, Heart of Darkness

  • Achebe, Things Fall Apart

  • Achebe, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness,"

  • A poem featured in class before midterm

  • At least one reference to student postings on course webpage (usu. midterm)

  • Refer to at least one objective, and perhaps more

One way to imagine the assignment is to describe your learning curve in this course. What knowledge did you come in with of the course’s subject matter, and how have you learned to receive or process its perspectives? What uses may the course and its organization serve in the study of literature and culture? How can colonial and postcolonial texts “talk to each other?”

Alternative approaches to midterm essay, separately or in combination:

  • "Self-other" dialogue between yourself and the course. How has (and hasn't) the course spoken to your profile or identity as a reader or student of Literature? How are you responding in terms of joining or contributing to our subject or method?

  • Two-step progression: broadly review the course's subject, then focus on an aspect or application that meets your interests in research, teaching, or writing.

  • Another two-step progression: Describe course and appeals > what you want more of, how you may cultivate it in readings and research postings.

Work in textual references as examples throughout.

If you've had other courses relevant to this one, welcome to mention them with any details that further your point(s). 

Audience: not only of the instructor but present and future members of the seminar.

Poems discussed before midterm: Kipling, "The White Man's Burden"; Walcott, "Two Poems on the Passing of Empire"; W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”; Walcott, “A Far Cry from Africa”

Welcome to email questions or topics to me

Review previous midterms on Model Assignments (required--see above).