Not available in 2022/23
GI411 Half Unit
Gender, Post/coloniality and Development: Critical Perspectives and New Directions
This information is for the 2022/23 session.
Teacher responsible
Prof Sumi Madhok Pankhurst House, 11.01G
Availability
This course is available on the MPhil/PhD in Gender, MSc in Development Management, MSc in Empires, Colonialism and Globalisation, MSc in Gender, MSc in Gender (Research), MSc in Gender (Sexuality), MSc in Gender, Development and Globalisation, MSc in Gender, Peace and Security and MSc in Gender, Policy and Inequalities. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.
The course is limited to 30 places.
Pre-requisites
While there are no specific requirements, it is preferred that students have a background in social science or the humanities.
Course content
The aim of this course is to introduce students to the growing body of scholarship that critically interrogates coloniality, gender and developmentalism at various postcolonial sites. It provides an opportunity for students to encounter and critically engage with canonical works within postcolonial and decolonial theories alongside those of gender and feminist theory in order to examine the historical and contemporary policy and practices in relation to gender and development. As such, the course combines a study of the historical/textual/cultural/political and philosophical in relation to and alongside the political-economic in order to explore questions of developmentalism, critical race theories, coloniality, decoloniality, subalternity, orientalism, representation, agency, neoliberalism, globalisation, human rights and humanitarianism. Finally, the course also introduces students to new directions in contemporary theoretical thinking that are either explicit critiques of postcolonial scholarship, i.e. texts such as ‘Empire’ and ‘Ethics’ or are critical engagements and even critical extensions of postcolonial thinking into new directions e.g. Transnationalism.
Teaching
This course runs in Michaelmas Term. It contains both asynchronous and interactive teaching and learning elements.
In line with departmental policy, there is a reading week in week 6.
Formative coursework
A formative essay (1500 words).
Indicative reading
Fanon, Frantz. (1963) The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Inc..
Rodney, Walter ( 1972) 'How Europe Underdeveloped Africa', Verso.
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. (2003) Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practising Solidarity, Duke University Press, Durham
Escobar, Arturo, (1995) Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World, Princeton, N.J, Princeton University Press
Kapoor, Ilan, (2008) The Postcolonial Politics of Development, Routledge, London: New York; Mignolo, Walter, (2000), Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges and Border Thinking, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J;
Said, Edward. (1985, 1995) 'Orientalism', Penguin, Harmondsworth;;
Spivak, Gayatri. Chakravorty (1999) A Critique of Postcolonial Reason, Harvard University Press.
Grewal, Inderpal and Caren Kaplan ( 1994) Scattered Hegemonies
Mbembe, Achille ‘Postcolony’, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Mignolo, W.D. and Walsh, C.E., (2018) 'On Decoloniality: Concepts, analytics, praxis' Duke University Press.Moraña, M., Dussel, E.D. and Jáuregui, C.A. eds. (2008) Coloniality at large: Latin America and the postcolonial debate. Duke University Press.
Mahmood, S. ( 2005) The Politics of Piety, Princeton University Press.
Assessment
Essay (100%, 3000 words) in the LT.
Key facts
Department: Gender Studies
Total students 2021/22: 55
Average class size 2021/22: 11
Controlled access 2021/22: Yes
Value: Half Unit
Course selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.
Personal development skills
- Leadership
- Self-management
- Team working
- Problem solving
- Application of information skills
- Communication
- Specialist skills