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2017/18 Undergraduate Module Catalogue

ENGL32164 Colonial and Postcolonial Migrations

20 creditsClass Size: 18

School of English

Module manager: Professor John McLeod
Email: j.m.mcleod@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable

Year running 2017/18

This module is not approved as a discovery module

Objectives

Colonial and Postcolonial Migrations’ educates students in the literary representation of the international, transcontinental migration of people triggered by the last days of the British Empire and formal decolonisation in the mid- to late-twentieth century. It equips students with a cultural history of the impact of Empire on the movement of those both from and to Britain in its colonial and postcolonial moments, and explores the particular kinds of literary forms resulting from an often vexed but ever creative encounter between peoples hailing from distinct cultures. It empowers students to read critically the literary and cultural consequences of migration and to learn in detail about the long cultural history of intercultural contact and crossing that connects today’s postcolonial Britain (multicultural, but ill at ease with Empire and its legacies) to its colonial past.

Learning outcomes
• Critical, analytical knowledge of major literary representations of colonial and postcolonial migrations since the 1920s.
• In-depth understanding of the cultural history and consequences of the Empire and decolonisation, with specific reference to its role in enabling the movements of a range of peoples across continents, and the problems and possibilities subsequently created.
• Specialist knowledge of the conceptualisation of ‘migration’ and of key debates concerning the literary stylisation of migration and ‘migrant aesthetics’ wrought from the social and historical experience of mobility.
• Finely granulated apprehension of contemporary Britain’s social and cultural contemporaneity as firmly indebted to colonial and postcolonial migrations

Skills outcomes
- Skills for effective communication, oral and written.
- Capacity to analyse and critically examine diverse forms of discourse.
- Ability to acquire quantities of complex information of diverse kinds in a structured and systematic way.
- Capacity for independent thought and judgement.
- Critical reasoning.
- Research skills, including information retrieval skills, the organisation of material, and the evaluation of its importance.
- IT skills.
- Time management and organisational skills.
- Independent learning.

Syllabus

The human race is a migratory species. Yet, while some travel luxuriously for adventure and exploration, the vast majority of the world’s migrant peoples are compelled to move transculturally in search of employment, security, safety, education or refuge – or have been forced to flee war, poverty, oppression, discrimination and tolerance. This module looks at literary representations of migrations from and to Britain, prompted specifically by the last days of the British empire and the beginnings of the nation’s postcolonial present. It concerns the ‘voyages out’ of Britons to the colonies and the challenges they encountered, as well as the transcultural consequences of the ‘colonisation in reverse’ of Britain by colonial migrants as decolonisation took hold in the mid-twentieth-century. It explores a range of central issues: cross-cultural contact, colonialism and its critique, the migrant’s body, free and forced mobilities, migrancy and sexuality, discrimination and survival, refuge and refugeeism, the changing nation, religion and resistance. Through a close reading of eight diverse texts (including fiction, memoir and poetry), we attend critically to the new literary forms and ‘migrant aesthetics’ wrought from the ever vexed, uniquely creative encounters between those from different cultures – encounters that, indebted to empire’s past, continue forward today.

Teaching methods

Delivery type	Number	Length hours	Student hours
Lectures	4	1.00	4.00
Seminar	10	1.00	10.00
Private study hours			186.00
Total Contact hours			14.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)			200.00

Private study

In common with other School of English special option modules, students enrolled on this module will spend the majority of their study time pursuing private study: reading critically and thoroughly the full range of set texts and appropriate secondary reading (both literary criticism and germane conceptual/interdisciplinary materials); pursuing additional library research in supported and self-directed contexts; engaging with VLE materials on a weekly basis; planning and drafting critical assignments.

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

Students will be given face-to-face feedback on their first assessed essay in a bespoke meeting, and may take this feedback into the composition of their second assessed essay. Both essays will receive extensive written feedback from the tutor; students can seek a meeting with the tutor regarding the planning and production of their essays at any point during the term in the tutor's Student Support Office Hour.

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
Essay	1,750 words (including quotations and footnotes)	33.30
Essay	2,750 words (including quotations and footnotes)	66.70
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)		100.00

Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 26/04/2017

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