Veronica Ramirez

Colonial and Post-Colonial Multifaceted Class Instruction

The content of the majority of the literature courses that I have taken at University of Houston Clear Lake has been American or British Literature, except for the Minority Literature course and this World Literature course. I wanted to take this course because I believed that I was lacking an understanding of world literature, especially colonial and post-colonial literature, but as I stated in my midterm this course was even more intriguing because we would be reading the books in dialogue. Lucy for example, took a different dimension presented in opposition with Robinson Crusoe, versus reading the books individually.

My midterm also brought to my attention, the lack of dialogue regarding women or women’s issues in colonial texts, but as the semester progressed, the post-colonial texts brought these issues to the surface. In colonial texts, such as Robinson Crusoe, women are disregarded to the point of treating them as “part of the colonizing and trade culture within which the novel is set” (Ramirez Midterm). In post-colonial texts, such as Lucy and Jasmine, there was discussion in class on the post-colonial effects on women.

During my midterm I stated that Lucy had the “idea that she must remain unattached” because she was reacting to be being a “subordinate to another country that colonized her people.”   A similar type of notion can be applied to Jasmine, she must keep changing, in order to throw off the binding stereotypes of each type of person she becomes. While Jasmine was not a direct participant during the time of the British occupation of India, she is a mixture of the colonial world and the current world. Jasmine, though she wants to forget, is the product of her own Indian culture, shaped by the experiences of transnational migration, and now an ever changing American.  Camille Buxton in her Final Exam 2009 essay, summarizes this issues by stating that “Literature often assumes the responsibility of not only navigating the space between divergent cultures, but of explaining the resulting hybrid culture.”

Since my midterm, I have learned that texts do not need to take an opposing stance to be read together, like Lucy and Robinson Crusoe, in order to create a connection between  the texts they can also take a complimentary positions such as Train to Pakistan and Jasmine. The intertextuality that arises from having the texts presented together was the highlight for me, in this class because of the increased knowledge and points of view to the reader.  Additionally, the historical issues of each book,  different time frames in history, and the additional information presented by the students and the teacher regarding the partition of India, developed into a well-rounded image for the student.

There was an increase of knowledge that came from reading not just the main texts, but also the complimentary material.   For example, reading  Heart of Darkness with Things Fall Apart was instructive in analyzing Colonial and Post-Colonial terms and provided intertextuality, but adding Achebe’s analysis of “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” then placed the class within Historicism.  The comprehensive way that this course was taught, including literature, media, history, poetry and criticism, really allows students to get points of view from every direction and make their own conclusion.

I entered this Colonial and Post-Colonial course having already taken the minority literature course. This class gave me some background with the terminology that would be encountered in Colonial and Post-Colonial Literature, such as the self and other. Even with this background, my research posts really opened my eyes to my limited colonial experience, one that had apparently been seen before by Dr. White. I had only a general knowledge regarding the colonization of Africa since I assumed it was the British, Spanish and Portuguese. We learn about these main colonizers, these main countries, and their famous explorers and conquistadors, but I don’t remember learning about the brutalities of the Belgian Congo.

The subject of my first research post was chosen to bridge my lack of knowledge, and turned out to be an eye opener regarding the colonization of the Congo by King Leopold. My second post expanded on Africa, and took a different direction studying Dr. Livingstone’s missionary and scientific explorations in southern Africa.  The research posts allowed me the freedom to explore any direction I wanted, to dig deep into books, articles, and even newspapers of that time to understand the colonization of Africa. The opportunity to conduct personal research was only one method of learning that the Colonial and Post-Colonial Literature class presented. Another method was the mixed media poetry presentations which integrated Objective 2b “To extend genre studies to poetry and film”.  I was surprised by Cristen Lauck’s presentation on Rumi, and the teacher presentation of Tagore, not only were the poems full of sentimentality but they were still very applicable to today’s world. The videos presented that integrated poetry with music were my favorite student and teacher presentations.

Most people in this course will take the newly learned terms and pass them unto the children who they teach.  I am not a teacher but I do plan to pass on this newly acquired knowledge of Colonial and Post-Colonial literature and terms to fellow readers, and most importantly apply it to my own prejudices. I will try to read more texts in this subject, to increase my understanding of the world and the consequences of colonialism and take Objective 3 to heart and at least account for my own personal difficulties with colonial and post-colonial discourse.

I was a little bit concerned at the beginning of the semester regarding the level of difficulty in reading books from different countries and was afraid that the culture divide was too great to gain an appropriate understanding required to comprehend the books.  The author’s we read were able to bridge the cultural gap, and helped me understand their new position in the new literary canon of multicultural literature (Objective 1b).   The multifaceted learning experience of this course covered the lack of knowledge on my part.  The learning path, I have taken through this  World Literature has presented history of other countries that I would not have studied, opened up a whole new set of books and new set of authors that I would not have ever read on my own. This education path will be boundless, as I pick up more literature from the areas we studied, and as more literature is written about these areas.