Cirrus@Austlit

Outcomes: Students are able to gain knowledge of postcolonial cultural productions and their historical contexts, receptions, assumptions and effects; enhance understanding of the key concepts deployed in the analysis of a wide range of written and cinematic texts; understand the links between race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and class, and postcolonial cultural productions; identify and decode representations and operations of cultural power; enhance university-level research skills; and improve communication skills.

Content: This unit involves an engagement with postcolonial texts and their contexts. These texts may include novels, short stories and films from the Caribbean, China, Africa, India and Australia, and interpretations revolve around the key concepts of postcolonial theory. The new and exciting area of whiteness studies is also integral to the unit. Readings deconstruct the race and gender ideologies and practices of imperialism and also explore the strategies of postcolonial literary resistances.