ENGL 360: Post-Colonial Literatures: (THE LITERATURES OF THE
CARIBBEAN)
Guide Syllabus
THE IDEA OF THE COURSE:
This course will explore commonalities and differences in texts and films by anglophone,
francophone, and Spanish-speaking Caribbean authors, underscoring the Pan-Caribbean scope of
their defining experiences--a shared history of foreign domination, slavery, colonialism, and
imperialism--as well as a heritage of revolt, resistance and struggle to assert cultural and
intellectual freedom. The Caribbean also shares a legacy of ethnic, racial, and linguistic diversity
that distinguishes the region from anywhere else in the world. Amerindian, African, East Indian,
European, Asian, and Middle Eastern cultures have all contributed to the composition of the
present populations, to their way of life, folklore and religion, music, film, and literatures.
INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES:
1. Students will understand the complex relationship of cultures in the Caribbean.
2. Students will understand the various negotiations Caribbean writers make when they choose
to write within/against traditionally western generic conventions.
3. Students will demonstrate the ability to write sustained, coherent, analytical, and persuasive
arguments, following the conventions of Standard English and incorporating library research.
4. Students will demonstrate the oral ability to present their individual ideas to the class and
persuasively discuss the complexity of the texts and cultures under discussion and, consequently,
their different interpretations.
REQUIRED TEXTS:
Mimi Sheller. Consuming the Caribbean. Routledge, 2003.
Alison Donnel and Sarah Lawson Welsh, Eds. The Routledge Reader in Caribbean Literature
(1996)
Merle Hodge. For the Life of Laetitia (Trinidad)
George Lamming. In the Castle of my Skin (Barbados, 1953)
Dorothea Smartt. Connecting Medium (Barbados/UK)
Edwidge Danticat. The Farming of Bones (Haiti/US)
Maryse Conde. Victoire: My Mother’s Mother (Guadeloupe). Atria, 2006.
Required Films: Sugar Cane Alley (Martinique)
Life and Debt (Antigua/Jamaica)
EVALUATION:
This is not a lecture class in which I talk and you take notes! There will be some of that, but if
you are not willing to participate in the discussion of most texts, this class is not for you. This is
not a conventional class, and it may not be right for you. So pay attention to what I have to say on
the first day to make up your mind whether to stay or not ☺
Your final grade will depend upon active and engaged class participation (25%) and progress in
writing critically about the Caribbean (three essays--the last one incorporating library research--and
a comprehensive response to the documentary Life and Debt on the day of the final will be
assessed (75%). Keep all your papers (the ones with my comments, not the copies!) because I will
collect everything on the last day of classes to reach a decision about your grade. This course is
non-graded until then. Notice that you will not have time to revise the research paper (assignment
included here) unless you have a draft at least two weeks before the due date.
SCHEDULED DISCUSSIONS:
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Week One
Introduction to the course/ Portfolio grading explained
A brief history of the Caribbean region/what is really "post" in post-colonial?
Read the introduction to Consuming the Caribbean and the General Introduction to the
Routledge Reader in Caribbean Literature: (1-25)
Week Two
Merle Hodge. For the Life of Laetitia
Merle Hodge's "Challenges of the Struggle for Sovereignty: Changing the World versus
Writing Stories" (494-97)
Week Three
From the Reader: “1900-29” (27-41); Tropica’s “Nana” (42);
Tom Redcam's "Jamaica's Coronation Ode" (47); Albinia Hutton’s “A Plea” (54);
Clara Maude Garrett’s “One” (62); Leo Oakley, “Ideas of Patriotism and National Dignity”;
Edward Baugh, “West Indian Poetry 1900-70: A Study in Cultural Decolonization” (99-104)
Week Four
Read “1930-49” (107-27); Una Marson's "In Jamaica" (131), “Quashie
Comes to London" (132), “Kinky Hair Blues” (137), and "Cinema Eyes" (138);
Victor Stafford Reid’s “The Cultural Revolution in Jamaica after 1938” (177-81);
Roger Mais’s “Where the Roots Lie” (182-84); Una Marson’s “We Want Books—
but Do We Encourage Our Writers?” (185-86)
Week Five
Read Louise Bennett’s “Jamaica Oman” and “Bed-time Story” (145-6);
Mervyn Morris’s “On Reading Louise Bennett, Seriously” (194-97);
C.L.R. James, "Discovering Literature in Trinidad: The Nineteen Thirties" (163-65)
Week Six
Read George Lamming’s In the Castle of My Skin
Week Seven
George Lamming’s "The Occasion for Speaking" (253) and In the Castle
First Essay DUE
Week Eight
Dorothea Smartt’s Connecting Medium
Week Nine
Spring Break – Enjoy but be safe!!!
Week Ten
Sugar Cane Alley
Week 11
Jean Rhys’ “The Day They Burnt the Books” (237-42)
Evelyn O'Callaghan, "The Outsider's Voice: White Creole Women Novelists in the
Caribbean Literary Tradition" (274); Read “1966-79” (281-97);
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Mutabaruka’s “dis poem” (462); Linton Kwesi Johnson, “I I woz a Tap-Natch Poet”
(handout); Benjamin Zephaniah, “A Modern Slave Song” (461)
Week 12
Kamau Brathwaite's "Timehri" (344); Derek Walcott's "The Muse of History" (354)
Second Essay Due
Edwidge Danticat. The Farming of Bones
Week 13
The Farming of Bones
Week 14
Maryse Conde’s Victoire: My Mother’s Mother
Week 15
research paper presentations
Week 16
Final Exam: Life and Debt response
Research Paper Due
Whole Portfolio is due
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A Literature Research Paper
The first step for the success of this assignment requires that you find something you want to argue
about in any of the Caribbean texts on our syllabus. It needs to be a text you are really interested in
knowing more about before you even begin to formulate your central research question. For
example, Merle Hodge's For the Life of Laetitia is a great read, and students have been passionate
about the novel in other classes. That it is a bildungsroman and that you may want to know
whether the form has changed when Caribbean women writers have adopted its conventions is
secondary. A good starting point for your research is my essay on the genre (on library reserve).
Once you know more about the genre, you will be better equipped to focus your argument. But
you will still need to be passionate about the text!
In order to develop a strong argument, you will research what other critics have written on the text.
Your critical analysis will use what other writers have said about it (the research component of the
assignment) only insofar as they are necessary to weave your argument together. You may bring
other critics in who disagree with your reading, and use their argument as objections you will refute
in your paper.
Pay special attention to focusing your introduction. I usually write my introductions last. You
only really know what the paper is going to accomplish once you are done writing it. The
introduction makes a promise it must fulfill. Think of a catchy title and of a first sentence that
really grabs your reader. Finally, make sure your introduction announces the organizational layout
of the whole paper. It must.
Remember to write in the Present Tense. Pay attention to each topic sentence for every paragraph
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and make sure transitions are present throughout.
Another important aspect of a successful research paper is for you to vary your sources: a book, an
essay from a critical anthology, a journal article, a web source, an interview perhaps. All your
references must be recent (within the last five years) otherwise your teacher may suspect
plagiarism.
Make sure you achieve a balance between instances where you paraphrase what other writers have
said (you still need to use the MLA format for parenthetical citations) and times when the other
critics’ voice is required. Are you ultimately in charge of the researched material? You will write
in the first person point of view, and vary the way to bring other voices into your “symphony”
(vary the ways to introduce quotes).
Finally, a strong conclusion does not merely repeat everything you have already said in the paper.
Good writing!