3.31.08

Our discussion today was interesting, and I think the question of the author/work conflation is going to return, but I think too we'll need to speak more about the specific problems of the post-colonial situation, and hopefully Michelle's presentation and the blog assignment below will help with that. While Achebe certainly calls Conrad racist, he's probably more concerned with the relationship between the west and the once-colonies of the world.

For Wednesday, read the excerpt from Edward Said's Culture and Imperialism found on page 369 in your book, and think about it in relationship to our discussion on Heart of Darkness thus far. Also read bell hooks 'Postmodern Blackness' which begins a few pages earlier.

Finally, for the response, let's try something a bit different: we spoke of real world examples of the 'vestiges of colonialism.' Do a little bit of research on a colony (almost every country has been a colony at some point--including the U.S. for both the early Americans and arguably the Native Americans) and try to understand how those vestiges might manifest themselves. That is, what problems does that ex-colony have to deal with which are the direct or indirect result of the past colonization? I don't expect you to be able to come up with this on your own: I expect a summarization of some minor research into the topic. Try not to use wikkipedia or any other encyclopedia-style source, however. Try for more relevant sources--if not scholarly at least contemporary (newspapers, etc.) Summarize what you find in 250-400 words (keep it short and to the point). Quote and cite as needed.