Module Information

Module Identifier

IPM1320

Module Title

Postcolonial Politics

Academic Year

2017/2018

Co-ordinator

Professor Jenny Edkins

Semester

Semester 2

Mutually Exclusive

IPM1320

Course Delivery

Delivery Type	Delivery length / details
Seminar	10 x 3 Hour Seminars

Assessment

Assessment Type	Assessment length / details	Proportion
Semester Assessment	1 x 2,500 word essay	50%
Semester Assessment	1 x 2,500 word essay	50%
Supplementary Assessment	1 x 2,500 word essay	50%
Supplementary Assessment	1 x 2,500 word essay	50%

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this module, students should be able to:

1. Critically evaluate the notion of the postcolonial or postcoloniality

2. Analyse in detail and in depth power relations and discursive practices in a postcolonial context

3. Discuss critically and in depth questions of power and resistance in a postcolonial setting

Brief description

This module provides an advanced introduction to the fascinating and intriguing study of postcolonial politics.

Introduced as an area of study in Aberystwyth over ten years ago now - when postcolonialism was generally only studied in relation to comparative literature - postcolonial politics has become a wide-ranging and much debated field. It embraces critical development, explorations of continuing and often invisible neocolonial attitudes and practices, and possibilities for resistance, and it explores these topics through literature, film, art and music as well as the written word. This particular module includes discussion of auto-ethnographic and narrative approaches and situated knowledges, as well as postcolonial subjectivities.

Content

Seminars cover a range of topics in postcolonial and decolonial politics, which may include: anticolonialism, nationalist independence struggles, encounters between metropole and colony, decoloniality, situated knowledges, orientalism, hybirdity, subaltern studies, provincialising Europe, identity, race, diaspora, sex and gender, queering postcolonialism, governmentality and discipline, development, inequality ethics and the idea of a postcolonisalism without guarantees.

Module Skills

Skills Type	Skills details
Communication	Students will learn how to present their ideas both verbally and in writing and how to how to present their arguments most effectively. They will learn the importance of clear communication and how to use the most appropriate form of communication to best advantage. They will learn to be clear in their writing and speaking and to consider what is relevant to the topic, focus and objectives of their argument or discussion. This module will particularly develop aural and oral communication skills as it involves in-depth seminar discussions. Students will also be required to submit their essays in word-processed format and the presentation of work should reflect effective expression of ideas and good use of language skills in order to ensure clarity, coherence and effective communication.
Improving own Learning and Performance	The module aims to promote self-management but within a context in which support and assistance is available from both the convenor and fellow students alike. Students will be expected to improve their own learning and performance by undertaking their own research and exercising their own initiative, including searching for sources and deciding (under guidance) the direction of their coursework and seminar work. The need to meet coursework deadlines will focus students’ attention on the need to manage their time.
Information Technology	Students will be expected to submit their work in word-processed format. Also, students will be encouraged to search for sources of information on the web, as well as seeking sources through electronic information sources.
Personal Development and Career planning	This module is designed to hone and test skills of use to students in their working lives, particularly in speaking to small groups, listening, thinking and responding to the statement of others. Moreover, the written work includes writing clearly and concisely, which is a common task in the workplace. Students will be encouraged throughout to reflect on their performance and to consider lessons for future application.
Problem solving	Independent work will be one central goal of the module; the submission of two essays and preparation for seminar discussions will require that students develop independent research skills. The ability of students will be developed and assessed by asking them to: adopt differing points of view; consider extreme cases; reason logically; construct theoretical models; consider similar cases; look for patterns; divide issues into smaller problems.
Research skills	Students will be required to undertake independent research for all elements of the assessed work. This will involve utilizing media and web sources, as well as more conventional academic texts. Students will in part be assessed on their ability to gather appropriate and interesting resources materials.
Subject Specific Skills	Students have the opportunity to develop, practice and test a wide range of subject specific skills that help them to understand, conceptualise and evaluate examples and ideas on the module. These subject specific skills include: • Collect and understand a wide range of material relating to the module • Evaluate competing perspectives • Demonstrate subject specific research techniques • Apply a range of methodologies to complex historical and contemporary political problems.
Team work	Students will undertake group exercises in the seminars. For many of the topics of this module, seminars will consist of small-group discussions where students will be asked to discuss as a group the core issues related to the seminar topic. These class discussions and debates form a significant part of the module, and will allow students to approach and examine a given topic through team work.

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 7