Bill Nevin's CU

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Post-Colonial Literature Written in English, (West Indies, UK, USA),
a Sample Survey Unit in “Bass Culture” and “Subaltern-ative” Voice

Bill Nevins

for di time is nigh
when passion gather high
when di beat jus lash
when di wall mus smash
and di beat will shif
as di culture alltah
when oppression scatah
        --Linton Kwesi Johnson, “Bass Culture”

When the mode of the music changes, the walls of the city shake.
       --Plato, The Republic

This is the first world, and the last.
          --Joy Harjo, “A Postcolonial Tale”

The Third World is all over the world.
        --Ngugi wa Thiong’o, “Creating Space for a Hundred Flowers to Bloom”

Academic Setting

This curriculum unit is inspired by, and intended for use in, my ongoing work as a humanities teacher at Rio Rancho (NM) High School, a progressive public school serving a diverse population. The humanities courses at RRHS combine literature, history, economics, geography and cultural studies in one curriculum. This is both challenging and exciting for both teachers and students. The students enrolled at RRHS come from a wide range of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. The presence of Intel Corp, a military base, the University of New Mexico, and several research laboratories in the immediate vicinity contribute to an RRHS student population some of whose parents are employed in scientific research, in academics and in the armed forces. Additionally, there is a large blue-collar community, and the district includes not insignificant pockets of poverty. Many students’ families have relocated from other parts of the USA, though there are many other students whose families have been rooted in New Mexico for many generations. Ethnically, students are of Hispanic, Native American, African-American and Asian heritage, as well as many varieties of so-called “Anglo.” Not a few students have lived abroad and in other parts of the US, while many students have some contact with relatives in the Philippines and other countries. There is an active and ongoing effort on the part of both administration and faculty to encourage diversity-awareness and sensitivity.

            Rio Rancho is itself a relatively new and rapidly expanding municipality, built on arid land northwest of Albuquerque. A large Intel manufacturing plant and a prosperous suburban commercial sprawl—complete with Starbuck’s—substitute for the traditional “downtown” area of older towns. Rather ironically, high-tech, consumer-driven, “postmodern” Rio Rancho is bordered by sleepy, historic Hispanic settlements and ancient Pueblo Indian lands. The formerly-impoverished Native communities are experiencing an economic resurgence generated by booming casino-resorts. The Native casinos compete with one another to present amphitheater-filling entertainers, who range from national country-western and pop acts to striking “alter-native” performers like Taos Pueblo showman Robert Mirabal or the Dakota blues band, Indigenous.

        With so much nearby mixing of material development, money, and music, Rio Rancho might be described as a “contact zone,” (a key term in postcolonial theory), wherein cultures interface and interact.

        Rio Rancho School District emerged during the late 1990s out of local efforts to create an educational service delivery system independent of the pre-existing and quite large Albuquerque Public School District. The birth of this new school district presented opportunities for innovation. The physical layout of the Rio Rancho High School itself is refreshingly open, taking advantage of its “high desert” surroundings and in contrast to more staid traditional secondary campuses. RRHS employs a block class structure of approximately ninety-minute class periods. This permits a range of activities within each daily class, and offers students the chance to explore the question of culture from multiple “angles” during any given class. Thus, history, geography, literature, music, art and dance may be touched upon at various times during the class week. This curriculum unit offers a focus on literature as an effective way to guide students towards a better understanding of the wide world.

            The RRHS humanities faculty is exceptional in its diversity of interests and its academic sophistication. Many teachers originate from other areas of the United States, though there is included a strong representation of New Mexico natives. Several teachers hold doctorates, while most of the rest have masters degrees. Included among the humanities faculty are practicing artists, poets, authors, musicians, an attorney and several accomplished, scholarly students of history and related subjects. Many teachers have had previous careers outside the strictly defined field of teaching, and this breadth of experience contributes to the faculty’s scope and sense of practicality. This rich -collective resource pool, and the collegial, mutually-encouraging, good-humored atmosphere of the Humanities Academy (and of RRHS as a whole), tend to build a “cutting edge” approach to collaborative teaching, well-suited to implementation of innovative curriculum units, such as this one.

          RRHS strives to present students with learning opportunities that too often have been reserved for students in private academies. The block teaching structure, academy organization, and inquisitive faculty all contribute towards the realization of this goal.RRHS Humanities Program Philosophy states, in part: “In the RRHS Humanities Program, students and their teachers explore, discover and examine the natural connections linking history, literature, and the arts. Within this interdisciplinary curriculum, the RRHS Humanities faculty challenges its students to go beyond mastery of factual knowledge, to think critically and independently about what they learn and its relationship to their own lives.”

Context And Background

Post-colonial, (alternatively postcolonial), literary and cultural study is an important recent academic development which merits attention in the secondary curriculum, particularly among students planning on university studies. The continuing impact of this critical approach is so great that contemporary cultural literacy demands familiarity with the term, its implications, and the growing body of literature designated as post-colonial. This curriculum unit offers an introductory survey of some post-colonial literature, with historical background.

        Our high school humanities curriculum necessarily includes study of the long history of European colonization of territories around the world, and of the related expansion of US territory and hegemony. Additionally, our humanities courses examine the independence movements and newly-independent nations of the late twentieth century. Post-colonialism is a much-needed framing concept for the study of the literature produced by these emergent societies. Generally speaking, this is the literature of nations that achieved independence from European rule after World War II, although the term has been applied more broadly, such as to include the writings of ethnic subcultures in the US and of writers in Europe whose personal and family origins lie in former colonies. This broader definition is applied in this unit.

Post-colonial studies are generally said to have begun with Edward Said’s 1978 analytical study, Orientalism, and the work of allied critics, though the origins of this critical method can be traced back to the earlier works of Algerian psychiatrist Frantz Fanon (The Wretched of the Earth,1961, and Black Skin: White Masks,1952), and others. According to Ashcroft et al. in Post-Colonial Studies (2000), “from the late 1970s the term has been used by literary critics to discuss the various cultural effects of colonization. . . . The term has subsequently been widely used to signify the political, linguistic and cultural experiences of societies that were former European colonies” (186).

This summer’s ATI seminar in world literature confirmed my belief that to meet worthy educational goals like those of the RRHS Humanities Academy, secondary students must address the concept of world literature, as defined by no less a seminal giant of Western thought than Goethe and as further refined in the recent works of respected cultural scholars. Indeed, as Margaret Spencer suggests in “In the Canon’s Mouth,” true literacy in our present world resides in the experience of “the networking of ideas and cultures; that is the multicultural reality into which new readers must come”(344).

An essential corollary to the study of modern world literature is the need to achieve some familiarity with the blossoming field of post-colonial world literature. In their very important 1989 study of post-colonial literary theory, The Empire Writes Back, Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tifflin define “post-colonial literature” as “writing by those peoples formerly colonized by Britain, though much of what it deals with is of interest and relevance to countries colonized by other European powers, such as France, Portugal and Spain” (1). In this curriculum unit, the working definition of post-colonial literature is expanded to include writers from territories “colonized” or absorbed politically by the USA. In practice, this unit addresses a subset of what has come to be called, “World Literature Written in English.”

          While the design of the present RRHS Humanities core program suggests that this post-colonial literature unit may fit best into our twelfth grade curriculum (Global Issues), I feel that elements of this unit may be useful to teachers of both the RRHS tenth grade curriculum (Our World, Its Literature and Its History) and our eleventh grade curriculum (U.S. History, Literature and Geography). Therefore, I have targeted this curriculum unit towards teachers and students in grade 12, though with some modification it may be applied, at least in part, in grades 10 and 11.

          One hopes that the study of post-colonial literature may help students to develop a critical view of the unquestioning acceptance of Euro-centric values, assumptions, beliefs and attitudes and an appreciation, if not necessarily an acceptance, of differing values and attitudes. In this rapidly-shifting, interlinked world, such flexibility in thought is requisite.

I have designed this curriculum unit as a selective survey of some representative authors and works both from the (former) British Empire territories of the Caribbean and from within the present national territory and (former) commonwealth holdings of the United States. I have restricted my choices to works written in English, though many of the authors included are bilingual and many incorporate elements of languages other than English or “evolved” variations on Standard English in their works. This approach avoids the challenge of overcoming the limitations and risks inherent in the use of translated texts, which are especially problematic when studying poetry. Translations, while in themselves productive of valid literary experience, are too often far removed from the literary product as it exists in the author’s own language, as Eugene Chen Eoyang demonstrates in his essay, “The Many ‘Worlds’ in World Literature.” Eoyang points out that, “ the reader in the target language can hardly be aware of the interlingual transformations that occur in any act of translation” (240). Using texts written in English bring our students closer to a more direct experience of each author’s own ‘voice,’ rather than the ‘voice’ of a translator, however gifted. A further advantage in the use of English language texts in varied “dialects” is that students thus may be awakened to the ongoing evolution of this living tongue—and to the many diverse traditions, linguistic and cultural, which contribute to that growth.   This is consistent with Thomas Greene’s rationale for teaching world literature, explained in his essay “Misunderstanding Poetry: Teaching Outside the Western Canon”:

we can strive to make that effort of imaginative interpretation which
            will never entirely succeed, an effort we have to make unless we want to
            remain provincial in a world that no longer tolerates provinciality. . . . we
            need to try to discern . . . across all those gulfs of ignorance, whatever it
            is we share with one another.

Indeed, one is reminded of Mr. Rodney King’s plaintive question at a time of recent civil distress in America, “Why can’t we all just get along?” Perhaps the study, and the teaching, of world literature offers a tentative, and positive, approach to an answer.

            In focusing thematically on both anger and humor in post-colonial literature, I am conscious of our students’ laudable youthful predisposition toward laughter, anger, and other forms of emotional release. It is a clich� to note that adolescence is an emotionally troubled period in most lives, and it is arguable that communications “problems”- whether “framed” as intergenerational, interethnic, socioeconomic or dominant/subaltern-are at the root of this distress. Perhaps advancing cultural and literary literacy may prove therapeutic for some students. Still, this turmoil common to our students may be harnessed as an engine for their creative digestion and appreciation of worthwhile literary works that reflect similar emotional discontent. This is not to say that works should be selected for study in order to stimulate our students’ emotional discomfort! Rather, as Goethe suggests, by sharing—as a community of informed readers—in the study of works which express emotions not unfamiliar to themselves, our young students may well discover recognition, validation, enjoyment—even, perhaps, solace and comfort in such works.

Many of our students are not far removed from the “post-colonial condition,” if New Mexico is viewed as a historical contact zone of colonization and recolonization during the past few centuries. [This is to set aside from the scope of this unit the question of whether anyone but a relatively small elite on our economically, financially and militarily “globalized” and “dominated” planet is truly exempt from subaltern “colonial” status. John Lennon, in “Working Class Hero,” viewed all of us as “peasants,” while Native American poet John Trudell wryly labels all but the “ethnic rich” as “blue Indians” on a world “reservation”: subjects of corporate neo-imperialist material and spiritual exploitation in this postmodern era.]

“Post-colonial” or not, our young readers may learn that there are emotional and psychological commonalities to be found in even the “strangest” works by the most apparently “alien,” or apparently alienated, writers from beyond their immediate familiar “worlds.” They may find that such “recalibration” is both entertaining and enlightening, and, ultimately, esthetically satisfying. Reading world literature may actually be perceived as cool by our students, given a decent taste of it. Does this not address our pedagogic goal of expanding the consciousness and sensibility of our students? As New Mexico post-colonial poet Jimmy Santiago Baca has often noted, literature—a “rage into the page” in Baca’s own words (comment to author at National Association for Poetry Therapy Conference, Albuquerque, 2000)--can be a very effective tool for mastering and altering anger and other difficult emotions in positive ways, both for writers and for readers. One hopes that by giving our students a sampling of the joys and benefits to be gained from reading “world” and “post-colonial” literatures, a lasting taste for such quality reading will be implanted.

            Post-colonial literary theorists, Ashcroft and company among them, have developed the concept of the opposed elite or “dominant”(of superior rank) and “subaltern”(of inferior rank) voices in literature (adapting these terms from the important work of the early twentieth century Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci, while modifying his usage). Very simply stated, the “loud” voice of the colonizing power is contrasted to the formerly “quiet,” (i.e. silenced, unheard or marginalized), voices of those who were subjected to colonization. This theoretical construct can offer our students a structure for understanding the emotional and psychological needs that are addressed by world literature, and which may well have resonance in their own experience.

Many of our students identify with “subaltern” cultures (though they may not use that terminology), and this unit may help them discover the rich heritage of such previously “hidden” cultures (which would include the interethnic “blues” heritage as well as the “alter-native” cultural syntheses recently advanced in practice by such famed performance artists as Robert Mirabal, John Trudell, Subcomandante Marcos, Robbie Robertson and Joy Harjo). Both Jimmy Santiago Baca and Leslie Marmon Silko are now world famous champions of “subaltern” literary expression who have origins in New Mexico. Indeed, much of the vaunted “enchantment” found in New Mexico both by locals and by visitors lies in finding such “exotic” cultural treasures within the USA.

I intend to incorporate into this unit an examination of “appropriation vs. assimilation” and the post-colonial process of “mastering the master’s tools,” as described in Louis Owens’s Mixed Blood Messages and in Ashcroft’s The Empire Writes Back. According to this concept, the US (particularly the Southwest), may be viewed as a “contact zone” (in Mary Louise Pratt’s phrase), where cultures meet, clash, or merge. The recurrent rhetoric of “Aztlan” employed by Chicano cultural activists and writers (as varied as Rudolfo Anaya in his novel Heart of Aztlan and other works, or the rock band Los Lobos in their recent album title, Good Morning Aztlan!), to refer to areas of what is officially the United States indicates a popular awareness of the contending (if not hostile), frames of cultural reference still operative within the USA.

            My own recent discussions with erudite popular writers and performance/recording artists (including Pat Payne, Robert Mirabal, Mike Ipiotis, Sekou Sundiata, Anne MacNaughton and Saul Williams), at the 2002 Taos Poetry Circus and elsewhere have bolstered my confidence in the efficacy of using works by popular writer (even those with some degree of “star” or icon status), in serious teaching work. I think that this is consistent with the active “outreach” advocated by Margaret Spencer in her essay on teaching literacy, “In the Canon’s Mouth”: “Our lives are, more than ever, socially knotted together in the networking of ideas and cultures; that is the multicultural reality into which new readers come” (344). Indeed, both Payne and Sundiata are themselves university teachers as well as performers, and Williams clearly sees his role as instructive and inspirational to young people. All successful classroom teachers are in truth “performers,” que no? And are not then even such brash and abrasive spoken word practitioners as Amiri Baraka, the late June Jordan, Sistah Souljah or even Eminem in no insignificant sense teachers? Because some or all of these writers/speakers may have “emerged” from one or another “subculture” should not in itself de-value their productions, or lessen the merits of students’ welcoming responses. Again, Margaret Spencer speaks to this argument in “In the Canon’s Mouth”: “In different cultures there are . . . different rules for the telling, rules which are learned early, transformed but never forgotten. Narrative is surely the bedrock of comparative literature, a natural networking of making and meaning, essentially anti-hierarchical, transcanonical, democratic” (337). In short, we all have our stories to be told, and we choose voices to tell them for us, to us, and from us. Who, in good conscience, would deny these voices, however popular or vexacious? In a world crying out with both joy and pain, silence is not golden. This curriculum unit aims to break the silence and introduce students to the apparently cacophonous, yet ultimately harmonious, “terrible beauty” (to appropriate and recalibrate Yeats’s apt phrase) of some vital, postcolonial, world literature.

            The “sampling” selection process used in choosing works for study in this survey unit—estimated to encompass five to six weeks of classes—is necessarily personal and unavoidably exclusionary. As Gary Harrison has noted in his introductory essay for our seminar, and in class discussions, the “canon” of world literature is dauntingly vast and ever-expanding. While there certainly are other means of selection, the process of choosing texts from that sea of works often comes down to matters of personal knowledge and taste and to an informed estimation of the representative values of specific works. In making my own selections on behalf of our students, I have been guided by the resources presented in this seminar (including the fine anthologies we have read and the invaluable critical essays on world literature by Lawall, Biddle and others provided to us), by Prof. Harrison’s suggestions, and by the critical works listed below. Additionally, I have factored in my own teacher’s sense of “what may work” with our New Mexico secondary students and my hunch that a strategy of moving from the more “exotic” towards the “unusual” but more familiar may be most effective in drawing student minds and hearts temporarily away from the cosy comfort of their own intellectual and emotional “neighborhoods” towards farther shores of learning and cultural comprehension.

            Specifically, I have selected for our initial readings some works from the more “distanced” historical and geographical environment of British colonial and post-colonial interactions with the West Indies. During centuries of harsh British rule of these islands, the folk traditions of the “native” or African-transplanted inhabitants were ignored, disregarded, or outlawed by the colonial regimes. African cultural survivals, such as “Voodoo,” Maroon, and Rastafarian rituals, were viewed as subversive or silly, and little value was accorded by the British administrators and plantation bosses to the familial and community ways and wisdom of the descendants of slaves. Even when formal political independence was achieved by these island nations, economic ties remained close, even alarmingly restrictive, and creative minds among the West Indian “natives” found the path to truly free expression a difficult one, indeed. Literary standards remained those of the British educational system and academy, (themselves modeled on pre-nineteenth century classical standards).

Many post-colonial writers have experienced and written about the maddening frustrations generated for them by this arrogant and condescending Eurocentric attitude, and its impudence towards their own art. In attempting to “write back,” Black West Indian writers have used anger, humor, sarcasm and linguistic innovation. Derek Walcott, honored with the Nobel Prize for Omeros, (his masterful recasting of Homer in a West Indian setting), nonetheless chafed at being accepted into the elite “club” of great British authors while himself insisting that he remains first and foremost a Caribbean writer. Jamaica Kincaid employs a razor-sharp wit to skewer the foolishness, pomposity and waste of both the colonial regimes and their post-independence “native” heirs. While Walcott and Kincaid have taken up residence in the United States, poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, born in Jamaica to working class parents, is adamant in insisting that he and his fellow Black immigrants to Britain are, in fact, now permanently British. He writes and records his works in a clear but defiant Creole “dialect,” linguistically “worn” as a badge of honor in the heart of London. Johnson has directly challenged both English white racist xenophobia and the subtler “attacks” upon his social and artistic integrity by the English literary establishment, whom he deftly satirizes in his reggae poem, “If I Wuz a Tap Natch Poet.”

          Walcott, Kincaid, and Johnson are writers sampled in our survey. These are writers with “roots” in the (former) colonies, each of whom has become established both within a former colonial “base territory,” or “fatherland,” and within the literary tradition and language evolution-process of that formerly “imperial” power. Their struggles in a post-empire and their witty, determined resistance both to assimilation and to suppression or marginalization, are dramatic enough to engage students’ curiosity, perhaps even their admiration.

From the formerly-British holdings, we move in our unit’s literary survey to examine authors who spring from cultures and communities within the present territorial boundaries of the United States, or within its (former) commonwealth, (i.e., colonial), holdings. Of the latter, I have chosen the Philippines as representative, though I might well have chosen from authors “rooted” in Puerto Rico or other US territories. I have made this choice because of the special, and interesting, characteristics of the Filipino-American experience and its literary manifestations, the fact that the Filipino-American population is the fastest growing Asian-American group in the United States, and the significant Filipino- American presence in New Mexico, including among our students. (I must note that I have been guided in this, as in so many critical choices, by my long-time intellectual mentor, the distinguished scholar Epifanio San Juan, Jr., author of Beyond Postcolonial Theory and many other works.)

Some dissension may be anticipated from students and others from a claim that these are “post-colonial” writers defined by a presumed former colonial relationship with the United States. The expansion of the USA, both geographically and culturally, is not seen universally as a colonizing process. Many today view American history as a prolonged process of liberation of both lands and peoples (the works of Howard Zinn, Dee Brown and others to the contrary, notwithstanding). Indeed, as a former colonial holding of Great Britain, the US, like Canada and Australia, is as a nation “post-colonial,” and scholars have applied post-colonial theory to analysis and evaluation of many familiar literary texts from the English language tradition in America. Yet, the US obviously has become much more than a former colony rising to the challenges of independent statehood. In fact, as the sole remaining “superpower” in the post-Cold War era, the USA may be viewed as fulfilling the world-influence role only aspired to by its erstwhile predecessors in Rome, Britain, and the Soviet Union. (This is not to suggest that the present globalized, capitalistic economic structure can properly be called an “American Empire.” We live in a world of transnational corporations and cartels which have all but rendered such national identifications of power quaintly obsolete).

That said, the fact remains that the US historically did colonize the Philippines and Puerto Rico, and did expand its territorial holdings, often by force of arms and against the vehement objections of indigenous and Hispanic “natives,” across the North American continent. Many ethnic, linguistic and national groups within the territorial USA include writers who identify themselves as postcolonial. Examples include Jimmy Santiago Baca, author of Immigrants in Our Own Land, Joy Harjo, and Sherman Alexie, among others. Alexie muses upon the merits of postcolonial status in his essay, “What Sacagewea Means to Me (and Perhaps to You)” in the July 8, 2002 issue of Time. We will include samplings of these and other American postcolonial writers in our course.

This unit (and related units in our humanities curriculum), will include background information on historical patterns of the rise, expansion, consolidation and dissolution of empires, with primary focus on the example of the British Empire in the so-called New World, particularly in the West Indies.

Use of films and recordings in class will enhance students opportunities for engagement with this subject matter, in consistency with multiple intelligences theory. A film such as Pontecorvo’s 1970 Burn! should be a useful supplement to our history text and class discussions. In dramatic fictionalized form, this film traces the British conquest and colonization of an Africanized island nation very similar to Jamaica. The recent PBS documentary Life and Debt (Stephanie Black, 2001), which includes narration by Jamaica Kincaid, provides an updated history of postcolonial developments, specifically in Jamaica under the influence of the International Monetary Fund, for the benefit of twelfth grade students. An added benefit of using this particular film is that it includes the music, dance, poetry, art and cultural history of a former colony. Likewise entertaining and informative is the now-classic 1979 British film, Rude Boy, which dramatizes racial and class conflicts, and subaltern cultural advances, within the explosive contact zone of Thatcher-era England (and which features a stunning soundtrack by The Clash, a British punk rock band which consciously addressed issues of subaltern empowerment and dominant culture resistance).

Having guided students through an examination of British colonial history in the Western Hemisphere, I then plan to explore the history of US territorial expansion, both on the North American continent and “offshore,” particularly regarding the Philippines. It will be interesting to encourage students to research this subject and to develop comparisons of the British and American experiences concerning contact with peoples and cultures distinct from the “dominant” cultures. The issue of the contrasting “settler” and “occupational” modes of colonization can be examined by comparing the British rule of Jamaica to British settlement of the thirteen American colonies. (The obvious issue of slavery in varying social contexts will be addressed, as well.) A student panel might be assembled to present contrasting research findings and interpretive opinions. A neoconservative viewpoint, such as that of D’Nesh DeSouza in defense of colonialism, might usefully be compared to the familiar assertion of colonists’ rights by the American revolutionaries of 1776. Similarly, contrasting views of the American occupation and settlement of New Mexico might be explored.

In making my selections, I have chosen authors who express their own strong perception of themselves and their people of origin as colonized within America. Perhaps Jimmy Santiago Baca’s book title best encapsulates this self-defining viewpoint: Immigrants in Our Own Land. Baca, and other Chicano and Native writers, have put forth the historically-supportable argument that many US citizens (particularly in the Southwest), are in fact treated “as if” they were emigrants to this country, when in fact the “dominant” culture and its representatives are the more recent arrivals.

Some students, after studying the history of US territorial and cultural expansion, may wish to present reasoned arguments in favor of the merits of this process, whether or not the name colonialism is applied to it. Again, a student discussion panel might be useful here. Students might enjoy reading conservative writer D’Nesh DeSouza’s recent essay, “Two Cheers for Colonialism,” perhaps comparing it to Rudyard Kipling’s famous late nineteenth-century paen to US expansion, “The White Man’s Burden.” Such well-phrased apologia for the “dominant” culture’s political ideology (or that of its more conservative wing), may prove briskly stimulating to student thinking when compared to the “subaltern” historical analyses and literary products which are the main focus of this unit.

New Mexico’s unique multi-cultural and multi-national history within the Spanish Empire, the Mexican Republic, and the USA—not to mention the sovereign cultural and political histories of the Native pueblos and “tribes” within New Mexico—offers our New Mexico students an immediate and ever-present set of “familiar” reference-points in their effort to grasp the concept of cultures-within-cultures and of peoples with histories intermeshed with the histories of other very distinct peoples. This suggests an opportunity for teachers to explore the important distinction between settler and occupational regimes in introductory lessons on colonialism and post-colonialism.

As my punning title suggests, I have chosen to focus students’ interest on post-colonial literature by emphasizing in my text- selection works picked from the widely-defined range of popular media. Harrison has suggested, with the concurrence of many contemporary critics and academics, that the usefulness of “high culture” models in literary study is now in question, as “the American university sees itself as a change agent competing with popular culture, and, . . . at best the formalization of world literature programs in the academy is an effort to catch up with what is already taking place on a larger scale through other media—much of it driven by marketplace capitalism” (Harrison, note to the author, UNM, June 2002).

The interconnected popular media, including recorded music, film, video, the Internet and the new phenomenon of hypertext literary creation, are, in fact, much more effective and extensive modes of diffusion of information and of literary knowledge than what we find within the academic setting. The phenomena of a new (June, 2002), HBO television “hiphop” poetry series, Def Culture and the emergence into popular consciousness, (and the entertainment market), of poetry performance artists like Mos’ Def, Saul Williams, Pat Payne, Sekou Sundiata, LKJ, and others demonstrates how the literary “canon” is being primed (and fired) by the omnipresent electronic media. Within a world-linked marketplace, the global flow of capital is of vital importance in the dispersion and sharing of culture and learning, as critics Fredric Jameson and Arjun Appadurai have demonstrated. I have chosen such “pop” artists as John Trudell, Joy Harjo, and Linton Kwesi Johnson among the authors, along with such very serious best-seller writers as Sherman Alexie, Jessica Hagedorn, Jimmy Santiago Baca, and Leslie Marmon Silko ( alongside such an academic favorite as Derek Walcott), because the accessibility (and fame, or notoriety), of many of these popular writers likely will advance students’ ready engagement with their writings. The fact that these authors are celebrities and that one can dance to some of the works chosen should be an occasion for celebration, despite whatever challenges this may pose to decorum and traditional classroom management styles.

Implementation

Performance Standards

This unit will meet the NM State Education Department’s grade 10, grade 11 and grade 12 Content Standards 6.30.2.13 and Performance Standards in Language Arts I-III and Content Standards in Social Studies: Geography, Culture, Economics, History. This unit will address goals and benchmarks of addressing both student reading and cultural literacy and student written expression. Furthermore, this unit will promote “incipient bilingualism,” an ideal if not actual, worthy standard of education in an especially multicultural, multilingual US state.

The main standards met by these lessons include Language Arts 1.A (Listen to, read, react to, and analyze information), 1.B (Synthesize and evaluate information to solve problems across the curriculum), II.A (Communicate information in a coherent and persuasive manner using verbal and non-verbal language), III.A (Use language, literature, and media to understand the role of the individual as a member of many cultures), III.B (Understand literary elements, concepts, and genres).

Lesson Plans

This unit calendar will consist of four weeks of lessons. Lessons are designed for a block (ninety minute) class period, but can be adapted for shorter class periods.

WEEK ONE:

Lesson One:

Class will review the history of British colonization of the West Indies, and the achievement of independence by the colonized nations. Class will view the film Burn! (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1970), a dramatized retelling of the early history of British colonization of a Caribbean island similar to Jamaica. Discussion of the relevance of the story told in this film to the history under study.

Lesson Two:

A class debate on the merits of colonialism, pro and con. Class will read D’Nesh DeSouza’s recent essay, “Two Cheers for Colonialism” and Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “The White Man’s Burden.” Class will be divided into small groups of six, with three students in each group assigned to work together on arguments in support of the merits of colonization, and three assigned to work on counter-arguments. Students may make use of the texts read, the films viewed. After a period of discussion, each group will be asked to select one member to join a panel for further debate/discussion before an audience of the entire class.

Lesson Three:

Class will begin reading of the works of three authors with cultural and personal origins in the West Indies: Derek Walcott, Jamaica Kincaid, Linton Kwesi Johnson. Following is information on these authors: Linton Kwesi Johnson: Jamaican-born poet/recording artist, who employs patois/Creole language styles in his politically-charged writings.   Derek Walcott: West Indian-born poet who uses “classical” forms to express post-colonial themes. Jamaica Kincaid: West Indian fiction writer who explores a US cultural connection via immigration.

Lesson Four:

Class will view the 2001 PBS documentary, Life and Debt (Stephanie Black), which includes narration by Jamaica Kincaid from her book, A Small Place. Discussion of the film and of its relevance. Class small group discussions of the merits and problems of international lending to Jamaica, as outlined in the film. Reading of an excerpt from Jamaica Kincaid’s “A Small Place” essay.

Lesson Five:

Review of the week’s lessons, and the history of colonialism and post-colonial developments we have studied. Small group discussions for assessment of student learning. Questions on what students wish to learn next, in coming lessons. In class reading of Jamaica Kincaid’s story “A Small Place,” poems of Derek Walcott and Linton Kwesi Johnson, with student discussion of relevance of these works to the material studied this week. Student creative writing exercise in poetry or short story forms.

WEEK TWO

Lesson Six:

Review of previous week’s lessons and what has been learned about colonialism and the post-colonial period. Class will view excerpts from the 1979 British film, Rude Boy,about race and class conflicts in late 1970s England. Class will read the poetry of Linton Kwesi Johnson in his book, Mi Revalueshanary Fren (Penguin, 2002), and listen to Johnson’s recorded works. Discussion of his use of Creole English and the effects of this non-standard version upon reader and listener. Comparison with Ngugi’s essay on language use in the post-colonial context. Student panel on use of language.

Lesson Seven:

Class exercise on use of varieties of English and dialects. Class guests from the local poetry community who will lead class in writing and speaking exercises. Discussion of relevance of this exercise to understanding the concepts of the changing English language and the employment of non-standard usage by authors being studied.

Lesson Eight:

Review of US History and the period of territorial expansion, which was included in the grade eleven curriculum. Class discussion of the question: “Is the US a colonial power and are any US citizens post-colonial in the sense that West Indians are?” Discussion of the similarities and differences between the British colonial history in the West Indies and US expansion and development. Reading of some related sections in history texts.

Lesson Nine:

Continuation of examination of US history as it relates to post-colonialism. Small group and class discussions. Student free-writing on the theme: “Who are Americans?” Viewing of excerpts from the video Making a Noise (Robbie Robertson, 2000), which looks at the US from a Native American cultural perspective, and which features appearances by John Trudell and other Native pop musicians. Discussion of the use of humor in this and other works. Further class discussions.

Lesson Ten:

Review of the week’s learning. Class small group research on each student’s own family origins and “roots,” and discussion. Begin reading of excerpt from Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony.

WEEK THREE:

Lessons Eleven through Fourteen:

Continued reading and discussion of excerpts from Silko’s Ceremony, and other works by Native Americans. These will include John Trudell’s Blue Indians, The Woman Who Fell from the Sky by Joy Harjo, and The Toughest Indian in the World by Sherman Alexie. We also will read Alexie’s July, 2002 Time article on “Sacagewea.”

Lesson Fifteen:

Class will view film Smoke Signals, based on Sherman Alexie’s stories. Discussion and further examination of the use of both humor and anger as emotional expressions in this film and in works read this week.

WEEK FOUR:

Lessons Sixteen through Nineteen:

Comparative study of selected excerpts from the works of Jimmy Santiago Baca, New Mexico poet/screenwriter and author of Immigrants in Our Own Land, and Jessica Hagedorn, Filipina-American novelist and author of Dogeaters and many short stories. Class discussions, writing exercises and reports will include student biographical research on these two writers, and the conditions of their formative years and their community identifications.   Examination of the contrasts and similarities between the experiences of Americans of Hispanic/Chicano origin and of Filipino-Americans. This should raise interesting issues for discussion about the effects of US intervention in territories outside the original continental USA, and the status and attitudes, and literary creativity of “post-colonial” Americans. This is a deliberately open-ended set of lessons, aimed more at inciting questioning and discussion than at leading students to any preconceived answers. Various students will draw varying lessons from this unit. This week of lessons will include assignment of class time for students to prepare a summary presentation on the last day of this unit.

Lesson Twenty:

Student in-class presentations of individual project reports on aspects of post-colonial literature, with specific reference to the works studied in this unit. Discussion of possible further readings, and student evaluation of the unit as a whole and suggestions for improvement or expansion for future classes.

Assessment:

As noted above, assessment throughout this unit will include frequent class discussions, written reports and a summary report and evaluation at the end of the unit.

Student talk-circles, creative projects and research assignments will all be used for assessment. In-class workshops with creative artists such as Mike “360” Ipiotis will be provided, as available.

Documentation

Bibliography (*= for Students)

*Alexie, Sherman. The Toughest Indian in the World. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2001.

---. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1994.

---. “What Sacagawea Means to Me (And to You),”,Time, July 7, 2002, 14-15.

Two collections of short stories and an essay on post-colonial heroism by Native American author, poet and filmmaker.

Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts. New              York: Routledge, 2000.

---. The Empire Writes Back. New York: Routledge, 1989.

---. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, 1995.

            Important, readable volumes of criticism on post-colonial literary studies. The Reader              collects key texts in post-colonial theory, including Edward Said’s Orientalism and             *Jamaica Kincaid’s “A Small Place.”

*Baca, Jimmy Santiago. A Place to Stand. New York: Grove Press, 2001.

---. Immigrants in Our Own Land. New York: New Directions, 1990.

---. Martin and Meditations on the South Valley. New York: New Directions, 1987.

A prose autobiography and two volumes of poetry by New Mexico Chicano poet. Video and compact disc recordings of Baca’s readings are also available commercially. Some students may be aware of his role in the film, Blood In/ Blood Out, for which Baca also wrote the screenplay.

*Biddle, Arthur, et al., editors. Global Voices: Contemporary Literature from the Non-
            Western World. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995.

            Anthology of world literature. Includes good introductory essays and stories by West Indian              writers Jamaica Kincaid and Jean Rhys, as well as poetry by Derek Walcott.

Churchill, Ward. Indians Are Us? Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1994.

            Provocative essays on Native American culture and post-colonial theory.

*DeSouza, D’Nesh. “Two Cheers for Colonialism.” The Atlantic, May, 2002.

            Iconoclastic neo-conservative refutation of the post-colonial critique.

Eoyang, Eugene Chen. “The Many Worlds in World Literature: Pound and Waley as Translators of              Chinese,” in Lawall, 1994.

*Fletcher, Bill and Vivien Morris. “Interview With Linton Kwesi Johnson.” Forward Motion,              March, 1987.

Gunst, Laurie. Born Fi’ Dead. New York: Henry Holt, 1995.

            Journalistic account of the post-colonial Jamaican posse culture.

Greene, Thomas M. “Misunderstanding Poetry: Teaching Outside the Western Canon,” in Lawall,               1994.

*Hagedorn, Jessica. Dogeaters. London: Pandora Press, 1991.

---. The Gangster of Love. New York: Penguin Books, 1996.

            Funny, fast-paced novels about Filipino-Americans.

*Harjo, Joy. The Woman Who Fell From the Sky. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.

---. Letter from the End of the Twentieth Century. Compact Disc. Poetic Justice, 1997.

Collection by Native American poet includes “A Postcolonial Tale”. CD of her poetry               accompanied by her band, Poetic Justice.

Heilig, Steve. “First Peoples’ Music.” The Beat. Vol. 15, #2, 1996, 23-28.

            Informative essay on Native American music and songwriters.

*Johnson, Linton Kwesi. Mi Revalueshanary Fren: Selected Poems. London: Penguin Books,               2002.

---. Indapendent Intravenshan: an LKJ Anthology. Compact disc. Island Records, 1995.

            Includes much of the poetry in the Penguin Books collection.

---. LKJ in Dub, Vol. I and II. Compact discs. LKJ Records, 1998

            Penguin volume is a collection of poetry and song lyrics by Jamaican-British reggae political               activist-poet, in Creole English. CDs include Kwesi Johnson’s reggae poetry, both set to               music and unaccompanied. His Creole English is very clearly enunciated.

*Kipling, Rudyard. The White Man’s Burden and Other Poems. New York: Pocket Editions,               1993.

Classic poetic setting-forth of unabashed colonialism, by a British poet writing about US               expansionism.

*Lawall, Sarah and Maynard Mack, editors. The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Second               Edition, Volume F: The Twentieth Century. New York: Norton, 2002.

            Anthology of world literature, with interesting introductory essays. Includes a selection of               Derek Walcott’s poetry and Leslie Marmon Silko’s “Yellow Woman.”

Lawall, Sarah, editor. Reading World Literature: Theory, History, Practice. Austin: Univ. of              Texas Press, 1994.

            Includes essays by Eoyang, Ngugi, Spencer, Greene cited in text.

*Ngugi, wa Thiong’o (James). “Creating Space for a Hundred Flowers to Bloom,” in Lawall 1994.

            Clear, concise essay which sets forth post-colonial theory, by an African novelist.

San Juan, Epifanio Jr. Beyond Postcolonial Theory. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

---. From Exile to Diaspora. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1998.

---. Racial Transformations/Critical Transformations. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 1992.

Radical critique of post-colonial writings, and informative essays on Filipino- American literature, by a leading Filipino-American scholar.

*Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.

            Novel of Native American spirituality and cultural change by Laguna author.

Spencer, Margaret. “In the Canon’s Mouth: Being Lucid About the Local”, in Lawall, 1994.

            Essay on the changing canon of literature, and the new post-colonial view.

*Trudell, John. Bone Days. Compact disc. Daemon Records, 2001.

---. DNA:Descendant Now Ancestor. Compact Disc, 2001.

---. Blue Indians. Compact disc. Inside Recordings, 1999.

---. AKA Graffitti Man. Compact Disc. Rykodisc Records, 1992.

            Spoken word, with and without musical accompaniment, by Native American
            poet and political activist. Lyric sheets included. DNA is a monologue on
            post-colonial themes.

*Walcott, Derek. The Bounty. New York: Noonday, 1997.

---. Omeros. New York: Noonday, 1990.

            Poetry by Nobel Prize-winning West Indian author.

Films/Videos (All films available on Video.)

*Burn! Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, 1970.

            Historical dramatization of the process of British colonization of a West
            Indian island country, similar to Jamaica. Stars Marlon Brando. Features
            traditional Afro-Caribbean culture contrasted to colonial domination.

*Life and Debt. Directed by Stephanie Black. PBS, 2002.

            Documentary on the post-colonial economy and social change in Jamaica.
            Features narration by Jamaica Kincaid based on her book A Small Place.
            Includes music by Mutabaruka and other reggae artists.

*Making a Noise: A Native American Musical Journey. Directed by Dana Heinz Perry, 1998.

            Documentary on the making of a Robbie Robertson rock music album. Includes Native               American performers and author John Trudell. Post-colonial themes applied to Native               American culture.

*Rude Boy. Directed by Jack Hazan and David Mingay, 1980.

            Fictionalized quasi-documentary on racial and class conflicts in England in the late 1970s.             Historical background on West Indian impact on British society and culture in this
            post-colonial period. Features documentary footage of Prime Minister Thatcher, of street               protests, and of the famous rock group, The Clash performing at a Rock Against Racism               event.

Internet resources (web sites)

http://www.ssta.sk.ca/

            Summary of a Ph.D. thesis by Jim Greenlaw on A Postcolonial Conception of the High               School Multicultural Literature Curriculum

            Stimulating discussion of how contemporary post-colonial theory may be integrated into the               secondary curriculum, and why this would benefit students.

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/baca/interview.htm

            Online interviews with poet Jimmy Santiago Baca.

http://www.hollowear.com

            In “Words” section, articles by Bill Nevins on John Trudell, Sherman Alexie, Jimmy               Santiago Baca and other authors.

http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Contents.html

            Website on Postcolonial Studies at Emory University. Contains information on theory,                terms, authors and web-links. Concise and helpful.

http://www.johntrudell.com

Background information, interviews, reviews concerning Native American poet/ recording artist John Trudell.

http://www.spikemagazine.com/1298kwes.htm

            Interview by Nancy Rawlinson with reggae poet Linton Kwesi Johnson.

http://ctomag.com/may16cto/lkj.html

            Interview with Linton Kwesi Johnson by Eric Beaumont.

http://www.rootsworld.com

            Roots World online magazine. Resource for articles and sound-samples of world music,               including spoken word.

http://www.iaiancad.org/alumni/gabe/tortuga/htmls/rootsofhiphop.html

            Website of the New Mexico-based Tortuga Project, organized by Mike “360” Ipiotis,                Albuquerque poet and visual artist. Post-colonial cultural manifestations via hip-hop with                roots in the many cultures of New Mexico. Stage program, “The Roots of Hip-Hop”                available for presentation to schools. Mike “360” presents poetry workshops for schools                on request.