Module POC2103 for 2021/2
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Undergraduate Module Descriptor
POC2103: Introduction to Postcolonialism
This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.
Please note that this module is only delivered on the Penryn Campus.
Module Aims
The aim of this module is to develop your critical thinking about postcolonialism; deploy an interpretive and decolonial research method to understand the world; and, to enable you to understand the nature of power relations in the modern global order. By the end of the course, you should be able to interrogate and examine the categories of race, gender and class through a postcolonial and decolonial lens. The module will also prepare you for academic and other careers in the field of development, international politics, critical theory and security studies.
| On successfully completing the programme you will be able to: | |
|---|---|
| Module-Specific Skills | 1. discuss, analyse and critically evaluate competing theoretical perspectives in the study of postcolonialism; 2. demonstrate a familiarity with relevant empirical issues and examples. |
| Discipline-Specific Skills | 3. grasp and apply a variety of theories found in Politics and International Studies in order to assess and/or critique each theory and its application to specific practices; 4. locate these theories and the debates/questions which surround them in the larger context of the study of Politics, for example contending conceptualisations of power, identity, colonialism, and rival framings of world politics. |
| Personal and Key Skills | 5. engage with, and analyse challenging literature and articulating complex; 6. design and deliver presentations to peers, communicate effectively in speech and writing. |
Module Content
Syllabus Plan
Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:
- ‘White Man’s Burden’: Introduction to Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial approaches I
- Cartographies of Knowledge: Epistemic Violence and the Appropriation of Knowledge
- Decoloniality and Futurity: Alternative Possibility/ies
- Sites of Postcolonial Encounters: Museums, Statues and Curriculums
- From Pachamama to the Anthropocene and back: Development as colonial discourse
- What’s in Border? Race, Gender and Class
- Can the Arts Speak Back?
- The Postcolonial Global Order: Security Studies from below
Learning and Teaching
This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 22 | 128 | 0 |
...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | 22 | 11 x 1 hour workshop/lecture 11 x 1 hour seminar |
| Guided Independent Study | 128 | Private study students are expected to read suggested texts and make notes prior to seminar sessions. They are also expected to read widely to complete their coursework assignments. More specifically, students are expected to devote at least: 66 (6 hours per topic/week) hours to directed reading; 6 hours to completing the formative research outline; 42 hours (3 hours/day over two weeks) for completing the essay; 10 hours (2 hours/day over 5 days) for completing literature critique pieces. The 4 remaining hours serve as a margin to be adjusted depending on the student in question. |
Online Resources
This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).
- ELE – College to provide hyperlink to appropriate pages
- Kanopy;
- podcasts;
- blogs and vlogs;
- cultural productions (songs; music videos; films; performances);
- policy briefs;
- annual reports from selected international organizations
How this Module is Assessed
In the tables below, you will see reference to 'ILO's. An ILO is an Intended Learning Outcome - see Aims and Learning Outcomes for details of the ILOs for this module.
Formative Assessment
A formative assessment is designed to give you feedback on your understanding of the module content but it will not count towards your mark for the module.
| Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Group Presentation | 18 minutes | 1-6 | Verbal/Written |
Summative Assessment
A summative assessment counts towards your mark for the module. The table below tells you what percentage of your mark will come from which type of assessment.
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 0 | 0 |
...and this table provides further details on the summative assessments for this module.
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attendance reflection | 10 | 200 words/topic | 1-6 | Written and/or Oral |
| Review Piece (Review an artistic production) | 30 | 1,500 words | 1-6 | Written |
| Critical Research Paper | 60 | 2,500 words | 1-6 | Written |
Re-assessment
Re-assessment takes place when the summative assessment has not been completed by the original deadline, and the student has been allowed to refer or defer it to a later date (this only happens following certain criteria and is always subject to exam board approval). For obvious reasons, re-assessments cannot be the same as the original assessment and so these alternatives are set. In cases where the form of assessment is the same, the content will nevertheless be different.
| Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attendance reflection | Opinion piece (200 words) | 1-6 | August/September reassessment period |
| Review Piece | Review Piece (1,500 words) | 1-6 | August/September reassessment period |
| Critical Research Paper | Essay (2,500 words) | 1-6 | August/September reassessment period |
Re-assessment notes
Review Piece (40%) August/September reassessment period (Students apply a postcolonial lens whilst reviewing a cultural object (examples include a song, a music video, a theatre or televised performance, a painting, a movie, a novel, a restaurant chain).
Essay 2,500 words (60%) August/September reassessment period (Students to write an essay answering one question out of 5 provided by the convenor.)
Indicative Reading List
This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.
Basic reading:
Dabashi, Hamid. The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism. Zed Books Limited
Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. The souls of black folk. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1903.
Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press. 2004
Davis, Angela Y. Women, race, & class. London: Vintage, 2011.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. "Can the subaltern speak?" (1988).
Nandy, Ashis. The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism. (OUP India, 1989)
Mignolo, Walter. Local Histories / Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges and Border Thinking. Princeton: University of Princeton Press, 2012.
Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man's Burden” (1899). Poem.
Kothari, U. (2005). “Authority and Expertise: The Professionalization of International Development and the Ordering of Dissent”, Antipode, 37 (3).
Escobar, A. (1999). “The Invention of Development”, Current History, 98 (631): 382-386.
Escobar, A. (1997). “The Making and Unmaking of the Third World”. In: M. Rahnema, V. Bawtree, eds., The Post-Development Reader, London: Zed Books, pp. 85-93
