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ONLINE CLASSES TO BE HELD HERE VIA ZOOM, WEEKLY UNLESS NOTIFIED OTHERWISE:
ONLINE ZOOM CHAT SESSION HERE:
2019 Spring Term
Prof. Daniel Vukovich
Venue: 3:30 – 6:30pm in CRT 404
· I won’t lecture/talk for three hours. We will leave plenty of time for discussion and in-class activities/screenings as well as a break.
Phone: 3917 7934
Office: RRST* 9.34 Hours: I’m here all day on Mondays and Thursdays before class (10 a.m.ish onwards) , so drop me a line to meet then, or to arrange a different time.
Email: vukovich@hku.hk * Please allow for at least a 24-36 hour response time.
DESCRIPTION:
The year 1918 marked both the start of World War I and the colonization of 85 percent of the earth by the powers of Europe. The epoch that followed, and that we are still living in the aftermath of, was a period of American ascendency displacing the British and lesser French empires, of war and mass death even as populations and migrations exploded. The world got smaller but also, depending on where you were situated, either nastier or more exciting and full of opportunity. This long twentieth century was also fundamentally an age of revolution just as much as one of decolonization and national liberation. One would be hard pressed to find a single place or demographic that has not been un-formed and re-formed by the experience and structures of colonialism and the attempts to overthrow it, or likewise by the more left-wing movements that attempted to overthrow capitalism in the name of communism or socialism. These transformations affected the colonized as well as the colonizers, just as capitalism itself kept revolutionizing the world in its own bourgeois image.
So, in sum, to understand anything about the world we have to think globally as well as about empire and colonialism and capitalism. Funnily enough, these are somewhat odd or even new topics for academe, unless it is to present them as either passé or as actually beneficial to humanity. This course will work as an advanced, critical introduction to the phenomena of colonialism, anti- or post-colonialism, and globalization. And to examine all of these we must also examine capitalism, or the economic basis of all of the above. A tall order for one semester but we shall take on the challenge!
Our emphasis, in other words, will be more historical and “theoretical” or intellectual as opposed to merely examining film or literature and riffing on theory and politics now and then (though we will also read and watch some such texts, as indicated below). Or put another way, this course follows the challenging route of inter-disciplinarity that is common to serious or critical cultural studies, as opposed to traditional literary or visual studies. “Culture” for us means not texts but ideologies and knowledges that are at work in the world.
TEXTS:
1. We have many texts but no purchases. https://sites.google.com/site/honggangdaxue/ You can find all of our readings there, for your own download and printing. I will also add other handouts, paper prompts, and notes as we go along. The program office will also eventually upload the texts to Moodle, but start with the googlesites place.
2. Reference material only, on website. You do not have to read these unless I indicate otherwise, but they might help your further study and orientation. These are two excellent, if “old” introductions to the field of post-colonial studies and history. Loomba’s surveys the cultural issues in more detail, with a focus on South Asia, whereas Young surveys the historical and global and political-theoretical dimensions. But, again, these are just for your reference and are not required or necessary.
a. Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism. 2ND ed. (London: Routledge, 2005).
b. Robert J.C. Young's Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001)
GRADING:
100% Continuous Assessment:
*A basic prompt for each essay assignment will be given in class a couple weeks before it is due. Many of our readings and topics will be new and perhaps difficult (and hopefully fascinating). So these papers are a space in which you work through them and respond to them. The papers will be under 2k words each. DETAILS TO FOLLOW
IN LIGHT OF VIRUS/HKU SITUATION, DUE DATES AND FORMATS/ASSIGNMENTS ARE T.B.A. AND WILL BE MOVED BACK.
*UPDATE: 2 PAPERS ONLY. SECOND AND FINAL PAPER DUE MAY 13. IF YOU NEED AN EXTENSION, ARRANGE WITH ME BEFOREHAND AND COMMIT TO A NEW DUE DATE.
Paper 1: 40%
Paper 2: 50%
Participation and Any In-class activities: 10%
Department Policy for MALCS:
• Students are required to attend all class sessions and participate fully in class discussions. They should inform the General Office (email: malcs@hku.hk ; Tel: 3917 2760) if they must miss a class due to illness or other emergencies.
• Students must complete ALL major assignments to pass the course.
• Students must submit a soft copy of their assignments to Moodle by the assignment deadlines.
• Students are required to upload a copy of assignments to Turnitin by the deadlines for plagiarism checking. There will be a 5% deduction if students fail to submit a copy of the course essay(s) to Turnitin. (Class ID: 21589667 ; pw: clit7008)
• In this university, plagiarism is a disciplinary offence. Any student who commits the offence is liable to disciplinary action. Consult the website: http://www.hku.hk/plagiarism and http://www4.caes.hku.hk/plagiarism for further information.
MALCS Extension and Late Policy
Students can apply for a 2-day extension for one assignment in the same course during a semester. The student must notify the instructor one week before the assignment is due, and must keep to the new due date. Late papers including those after the extended due date will be subjected to grade reduction.
SCHEDULE
1. This schedule is subject to change. If you miss class, it is your responsibility to find out if there are changes or new assignments.
2. “Recommended” readings listed below are not required.
3. Film screenings are required when listed. The films will be available for viewing in the library or through the dept office, or online if possible.
Week 1, January 23: Course Intro.: Terms, Problems, Questions
Week 2, Jan 30: Lunar Holiday, No class. Read ahead.
Week 3, Feb 6 : No class- lecture notes uploaded [VIRUS-OUTBREAK, HKU CLOSED]
Week 4, Feb 13: Things Fall Apart : colonialism, modernity, Christianity, masculinity, capitalism.
ONLINE ZOOM CHAT SESSION HERE: vukovich@hku.hk is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: vukovich@hku.hk's Zoom Meeting-- 13 FEB
Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime
Join Zoom Meeting
https://hku.zoom.us/j/6415244213
Meeting ID: 641 524 4213
Readings:
Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Yeats, “The Second Coming.”
Lecture notes from below....
George Orwell, “Shooting an Elephant.”--- TIME PERMITTING
Week 5, Feb. 20: Chess, Modernity, Feudalism, Colonialism: Loss or Gain, Win or Lose?
Reading/Viewing:
1. Satyajit Ray’s The Chess Players (Shatranj Ke Khilari) [1977]
a. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3Fgm0yaWbA OR Dept also has a high quality DVD.
2. Munshi Premchand, “The Chess Players.” Short story from 1924.
a. https://www.youthaffairz.in/fiction1august2013.html
Week 6, Feb 27: Chess, Modernity, Feudalism, Colonialism: Loss or Gain, Win or Lose? (cont’d)
Reading/Viewing:
3. Satyajit Ray’s The Chess Players (Shatranj Ke Khilari) [1977]
c. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3Fgm0yaWbA
4. Munshi Premchand, “The Chess Players.” Short story from 1924.
a. https://www.youthaffairz.in/fiction1august2013.html
Week 7, March 5 : The Anti-Colonial Manifesto
Readings:
Aime Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism. (Trans. Joan Pinkham. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972)
Recommended : Robert J.C. Young: chapters on “Colonialism” and “Imperialism” and “Neocolonialism” from Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001).
Week 8, March 12: Reading Week. No class.
Week 9, March 19: Nationalism, De-Colonization, Globalization (aka Capitalism)
Readings:
1. from Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. Read chapters 1,2,3 and 8 in that order of priority.
2. Anderson interview: “I like nationalism’s utopian elements.” Pdf on googlesites, below...
Week 10, March 26 : Globalization as Orientalism as Knowledge-Power Imperialism
Readings:
Edward Said: from Orientalism: “Introduction”
Said, from Covering Islam, chapter 3. “Knowledge and Power” (esp section II.)
Week 11, April 2 : Marxist/Capitalist Foundations of the Modern World
Readings:
Selections from The Communist Manifesto, and
https://cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/marxism/terms/commodity.html
https://cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/marxism/terms/usevalue.html
Recommended: Capital, vol. I (parts of Chapter 1 on “The Commodity” and the full Appendix on “Primitive Accumulation”).Young, “Marx on Colonialism and Imperialism.”
Harvey/RSA Animate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0 (Brilliant ten minute animation + talk).
Week 12, April 9: Neo-liberalism
Readings:
David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, “Freedom’s Just Another Word…,” 5-38.
Schumpeter, "Creative Destruction." PDF below.
Recommended: Harvey, selections from The New Imperialism “Accumulation by Dispossession,” 137-82.
Week 13, April 16: Austerity to Trumpism and Brexit and… HKxit?
Readings:
1. Mark Blyth, "Crisis of Globalization: Interview" (pdf below)
2. Blyth, " Globalization and the Backlash of Populism"-- 2017 lecture on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qY2pv3Bt_jM
3. Blyth, CHapter 1 of Austerity (book in pdf below), "A Primer on Austerity, Debt, and Morality Plays."
4. Vukovich, "A City and a SAR on Fire" and/or "A Sound and Fury SIgnifying Mediatization." [on HK protests, 2019, pdfs below]
*one more video link offering an overview of neoliberalism and political crisis.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiiAmtVyPgA
.... and a brief clip on his views about CHina and its model/mode of economy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZfPaTp1dYQ
and one more on " Global Trumpism and the Future of the Global Economy" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGuaoARJYU0
** How well does this hsitory and BYlth's analyses relate to Hong Kong and China?
Week 14: April 23: Globalization & COVID?
Reading:
1. Coronavirus and the Future of Globalization: The pandemic may exacerbate an existing tendency for countries to turn inward. https://thediplomat.com/2020/03/coronavirus-and-the-future-of-globalization/
2. https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/globalization-regionalization-covid/
5. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-04/05/c_138949821.htm
6.
Week 15: April 30: Buddha’s Birthday, No Class.
FINAL PAPER DUE: t.b.a
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