BEYOND ORIENTALISM
Fall 2003; Tuesday/Thursday 14:30-16:00; Bronfman 26
Instructor: Thomas LAMARRE
Office: 3434 McTavish #201. Tel: 398-6756.
Email: thomas.lamarre@mcgill.ca
Office Hours: M 11-1; W 2:30-4:30; T/Th 4:00-5:00.
Objectives: This course introduces a number of theoretical approaches to the study of nonwestern histories, cultures, institutions, etc. There are two primary objectives: to prepare
students to read and analyze contemporary scholarly theory and practice; and to examine the
goals and histories of various disciplines in constructing their object of study. The aim is not
merely to present some of the critical impasses of various disciplinary approaches, but more
importantly to discuss alternatives.
Methodology: We will discuss the reading or readings indicated in the schedule on that date,
with an emphasis on analyzing these texts in terms of their aims/hypotheses,
assumptions/conclusions, and modes of analysis. Students are expected to come to class
prepared to discuss the readings. The readings are organized around a certain problematic. At
the end of each unit, a response on that unit will be due, as marked on the schedule. In general,
the response will comprise five pages: one page of critical summary for each of four different
readings from that unit, with a fifth page presenting some manner of response. There will be, in
total, four of these five-page responses.
Readings: Photocopies will be available.
Evaluation:
20% Participation
80% 4 responses, 20%@
McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore all students must understand the meaning and consequences
of cheating, plagiarism and other academic offences under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary
Procedures (see www.mcgill.ca/integrity for more information).
SCHEDULE
Sept. 4 Introduction
Orientialism and After
Sept. 9
—Edward Said, “From Orientalism,” in Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial
Theory: A Reader (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994).
— Edward Said, “Redrawn Frontiers, Redefined Issues, Secularized Religion,”
from Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1978).
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Sept. 11
—Edward Said, “Orientalism and After: An Interview with Edward Said,”
Radical Philosophy 63 (Spring 1993), 22-32.
—Edward Said, “Orientalism 25 Years Later,” from Orientalism (2003).
—Lata Mani and Ruth Frankenberg, “The Challenge of Orientalism,” Economy
and Society 14:2 (May 1985), 174-192.
Sept. 16
— Aijaz Ahmad, “Orientalism and After: Ambivalence and Metropolitan
Location in the Work of Edward Said,” from In Theory: Classes, Nations,
Literatures (London and New York: Verso, 1992).
Sept. 18
— Aijaz Ahmad, “Orientalism and After: Ambivalence and Metropolitan
Location in the Work of Edward Said,” from In Theory.
Recommended:
—Lawrence Wilde, “Logic: Dialectic and contradiction,” in the Cambridge
Companion to Marx, ed. Terrell Carver (Cambridge University Press, 1991), 275295.
—Louis Althusser, “Contradiction and Overdetermination,” from For Marx
(London: NLB, 177), 89-116,
Sept. 23
— David Couzens Hoy, “Power, Repression, Progress,” in Foucault: A Critical
Reader, ed. David Couzens Hoy (Basil Blackwell, 1986).
— Michel Foucault, “Truth and Power,” in Power/Knowledge: Selected
Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977 by Michel Foucault, ed. Colin Gordon
(Harvester Press, 1980).
Sept. 25
— Michel Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” Afterword to Michel Foucault:
Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (University of Chicago Press, 1982).
—David Ingram, “Foucault and Habermas on the subject of reason,” in The
Cambridge Companion to Foucault, ed. Gary gutting (1994), 215-261.
Postcolonial and Materialist Feminisms
Sept 30
Film: M. Butterfly.
Response 1 on “Orientalism” due
Oct. 2
— Marjorie Garber, “The Occidental Tourist: M. Butterfly and the Scandal of
Transvestism,” in Nationalities and Sexualities, ed. Andrew Parker, Mary Russo,
Doris Sommer and Patrick Yaeger (New York: Routledge, 1993).
—Leela Ghandhi, “After Colonialism,” from Postcolonial Theory: A Critical
Introduction (Columbia University Press, 1998), 1-22.
Oct. 7
—Leela Ghandhi, “Edward Said and His Critics” and “Postcolonialism and
Feminism,” from Postcolonial Theory, 65-101.
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Oct. 9
—Gayatri Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Marxism and the Interpretation
of Culture, ed. Larry Grossberg and Cary Nelson (Urbana: University of Illinois,
1988).
—Gayatri Spivak, “Interview with Radical Philosophy,” in The Postcolonial
Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues (Routledge, 1990), 133-37.
Oct. 14
— Judith Butler, “Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire,” from Gender Trouble:
Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990).
—Judith Butler, “Gender as Performance: An Interview with Judith Butler,”
Radical Philosophy 67 (Summer 1994), 32-39.
—Judith Butler, “The Body You Want,” Art Forum (Nov 1992), 82-89.
Oct. 16
—Pheng Cheah, “Mattering,” Diacritics 26:1 (Spring 1996).
Oct. 21
—Vicki Kirby, “Poststructuralist Feminisms Pt 2 — Substance Abuse: Judith
Butler,” from Telling Flesh: The Substance of the Corporeal (Routledge, 1997),
101-128
Nations, Nationalisms and Nationness
Oct. 23
— E. J. Hobsbawm, “Introduction,” “The apogee of nationalism,” and
“Nationalism in the late twentieth century,” from Nations and Nationalism Since
1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge University Press, 1990).
Oct 28
Film: Chris Marker, Sans Soleil (198x).
Response 2 on “Postcolonial and Materialist Feminisms” due
Oct. 30
Guest Lecture: Vicki Kirby
Nov. 4
— Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and
Spread of Nationalism (Verso, 1983), pp. 11-79.
Recommended:
—Pheng Cheah, “Grounds of Comparison,” diacritics 29.4 (1999): 3-18
Nov. 6
— Étienne Balibar, “Racism and Nationalism” and “The National Form: History
and Ideology” from Race, Nation and Class: Ambiguous Identities, by Étienne
Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein (Verso, 1991).
Nov. 11
—Slavoj Zizek, “Eastern Europe's Republics of Gilead,” New Left Review 183
(September/October 1990)
Recommended:
—Alberto Moreiras, “Hybridity and Double Consciousness,” Cultural Studies
13.3 (1999), 373-407.
EAST 515
Nov. 13
4
— Jon Solomon, “Taiwan Incorporated: A Survey of Biopolitics in the Sovereign
Police’s Pacific Theater of Operations,” in Impacts of Modernities, ed. Thomas
Lamarre and Kang Nae-hui (Hong Kong University Press, 2003), 231-256.
Recommended:
—Gilles Deleuze, “Postscript on Societies of Control,” in Negotiations (Columbia
University Press, 1995), 177-182
New Globalities, New Economies, and Terror
Nov. 18
Film: "Star Trek Next Generation: Who Watches the Watcher?"
Response 3 on “Nations and Nationalisms” due
Nov. 20
—Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Harvard University Press, 2000),
221-324
Recommended:
—David Harvey, “Globalization in Question,” Rethinking Marxism 8.4 (1995): 117.
Nov. 25
—Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, ‘Globalization and Democracy” in
Implicating Empire: Globalization and Resistance in the 21st Century World
Order, ed. Stanley Aronowitz and Heather Gautney (Basic Books, 2003).
—James Clifford, “Traveling Culture,” in Cultural Studies, ed. Lawrence
Grossberg et al (Routledge, 1992), 96-116.
Nov. 27
—Jean Baudrillard, The Spirit of Terrorism (Verso, 2002)
—Jean Baudrillard, “The Global and the Universal” in Screened Out (Verso,
2002), 155-159Jacques
Dec 2
Derrida, “Autoimmunity: Real and Symbolic Suicides,” in Philosophy in a Time
of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, ed. Giovanna
Borradori (University of Chicago, 2003), 85-136.
Recommended:
—Giovanna Borradori, “Deconstructing Terrorism,” in Philosophy in a Time of
Terror, 137-172
Dec. 8
Final Response due