Ryan Smith

December 7, 2011 

(Re)Covering New Ground

            This semester, and this class in particular, has been an interesting one. It is my first graduate semester, so there are a few things to adjust/adapt to. Colonial-Postcolonial Literature, as a course, is both new and familiar for me. Most of the material—and especially the historical and peripheral material—was uncharted territory. Even the books I had already read—Kincaid, Achebe, Defoe—were explored in ways that changed my experience and perceptions of the works and their various meanings and contexts. I have taken Dr. White’s Immigrant Literature in the past, and while there are notable similarities between courses, the presentation, provided texts, and overall direction for each course is such that the instead of just rehashing or reviewing material, new ground is consistently covered and the possibilities for writing and research abound.

            Since the course is centered around literature, I will begin with some initial reactions to the required texts. Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, although I have read it before, was a surprising read for me. As Dr. White mentioned in class, it’s easy to file the text away in memory as a standard (perhaps even the original!) stranded-on-a-desert-island story: shipwreck, plucky survivor, danger, adventure, savage natives, befriended/conquered animal (and human) friends. But this (re)reading supplied me a depth that put that bit of silly myth to rest. The nonchalant references (even plot lines) to the trade of human beings was shocking, and the class’ psychological analyses of Crusoe were enlightening. Defoe’s classic no resides in a fascinating, even fairly disturbing, place in my mind.

            Moving on to Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy, I immediately started to grasp a pattern. In fact, one of the most striking, and useful aspects of the course is the dialogue structure that connects pairs of books. Reading Kincaid’s novel—again, a somewhat distant reread—I was struck by the dialogue between the novels. Robinson Crusoe’s temporary home is none other than Lucy’s actual birthplace, and the narratives couldn’t be more different. The move from a (forgive me) rather stuffy, formal recounting of Crusoe’s time on the island, to Lucy’s vitriolic, passionate description of her young life couldn’t be more jarring (positively so, that is). This disparity also alerted me to course objective 1a., which serves to mediate classic, canonical literature with new, multicultural/postcolonial literature. Reading Kincaid’s text, I couldn’t help but feel not only impressed, but adamant that this book (or this type of book, anyway) ought to have some permanent place in academic studies of literature. The broadening of the “old” canon—or perhaps a de-classification of it, as such—could serve to incorporate powerful and crucial new works (such as Lucy) into a more flexible “new” canon.

            I had just begun to internalize the idea of dialogue between texts separated by wide chasms of time and perspective when the midterm reared its head. My essay was an attempt to—through Kincaid and Defoe—rethink the easy identifications of victim and villain. The essay worked by examining each novel’s main antagonist in both positive and negative lights, and then going on to break down why I, as a reader, viewed each as such. I concluded that instead of falling to the temptation of easy moral labeling on an individual level, it was wiser to see the larger political/social machines at work. Working through the ideas of the midterm helped me as a reader, and—as per my natural interests and inclinations—taught me to better interpret social and political contexts within texts.

            The semester continued, with a number of student presentations changing the pace of each class meeting. The most helpful, I found, were those that dealt with peripheral material, such as related articles or topical information. For example, I remember several students presented in-depth background information for authors of the texts we were to soon be reading. Placing our works within certain place-and-time contexts was helpful not only in working through unfamiliar material in the book, but identifying how the work connects to the “big picture” of other texts, global concerns/history, etc. The least helpful were the movie presentations. Getting brief descriptions followed by short clips does very little to promote much of a real understanding of the piece in question. Much of the time, although I found myself wanting to watch the full film, I learned little from such presentations, despite the best efforts of the presenters.

            We continued reading, and again I found myself being impressed by the way class discussions furthered my particular readings. A year or so before the start of the fall semester, I had read Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (for fun, more or less). While I was expecting some interesting information, I didn’t expect our communal readings to enrich my personal reading as much as they did. Entire passages that I had minimized in interest or importance became fascinating and crucial. Ezinma’s abduction by the village priestess and the ensuing sub-plot, for example, suddenly became important to me, even if some of the more mystical aspects remained appropriately mysterious. Another benefit of the course, then, is the furthering of my admiration of and belief in reading and interpretation literature on a communal level.

The research project reared its head. I decided to use colonial/postcolonial ideas along with some other ism that seemed appropriate or interesting. Settling on feminism, I compared Kincaid’s Lucy with Toni Morrison’s Beloved to bring feminist ideas into contact with colonial/postcolonial ones. More specifically, I examined women’s bodies as commodity, the concept of double colonization, and ideas about systems of interlocking oppressions. All of these ideas concerned both the colonized (and post-colonized) and women, and while I think, perhaps, the focus was worthy, the total presentation was ultimately lacking. I enjoyed digging through the texts in search of various types of oppression, but—as Dr. White pointed out—the essay failed to meet its promised designs. Lessons have been learned.

Colonial/Postcolonial Literature has worked for me on a number of levels. Investigating diverse applications within the general course topic improved my researching and writing skills, especially concerning a pair of fields as wide and diverse as ours. Class presentations and discussions helped flesh out our required texts, and bring out deeper and more varied meanings in the books themselves. The posting of earlier student presentations—such as Tim Assel’s 2009 final essay, which actually includes an article that I was inspired to find and read—was also especially helpful when preparing my own material. A particularly interesting aspect of class discussion was observing the student’s various perspectives on the material, which was wonderfully controversial and challenging most of the time. It was difficult not to contrast Dr. White’s sense of awe that contemporary students were apparently so well-versed, or at least generally more aware, in multicultural ways of thinking, with what seemed to me to be a more or less natural occurrence. It wasn’t until thinking about this (and hearing a few somewhat disquieting statements made in class) that I realized both how far the country has come, in multicultural terms, and how far it still has to go. It may well be easy to think globally for generations raised on the internet, but recognizing and respecting human suffering and injustice is another matter altogether. At times, I was discouraged by the weight of heavy readings—usually supplemented with news of massacres, enslavements and other brutalities—and ignorant or potentially dangerous comments; at other times, I was hopeful, optimistic even, about long-term human relations and other global concerns. But besides all of the information, which I am thankful for, I have learned, I think, to be skeptical about both the merriest predictions and the most unsettling dogmas.