The emancipatory uprisings and postcolonial challenges of the 20th century have irrevocably unsettled the old Eurocentric colonial order. The potent anticolonial insurrections of the last 50 years have posed serious questions for our global future: What does postcolonialism mean for the colonizer and the colonized? Under what circumstances, if any, can the colonial relation be transcended in ways that do not merely reproduce structures of domination (racism, sexism, and homophobia, etc.) within the Third World? Does the term globalization signify a simple return to a neocolonial form of capitalist imperialism? Or does it signify First World anxiety about its own decentered status? To examine these and other questions, this course will take an interdisciplinary approach, examining cases and ideas presented in works of sociology, political economy, and cultural studies. |