An Introduction to Third World Imaginations and Interventions in Film and Literature

by Julian J. Samuel

SAMPLE SYLLABUS

The main objective of this course is to examine a specific filmic and literary practice exposing conventions exercised by educational and cultural institutions.

Barbara Harlow's Resistance Literature will function as one of the core texts. We will use it to introduce the various signifying processes of cultural imperialism, to explore the linkages between political resistance and cultural resistance; intergeneric experimental works; and the formation of counter-histories. Through this course of study, we will expose the often elegant strategies of imperialist containment, hegemonic cultural distortion and how top-down tactics are projected.

The course will also feature the work of Sa'adat Hasan Manto, a Pakistani novelist who wrote about the deconstruction of British India.

Among the films, we will look at the passionately multi-sided filmmaking of Gillo Ponecorvo; the deep analytical reflections by Edward Said on propaganda of the Palestinian debate; the work of Toronto writer Marlene Philip and, of course, the germinal work of Frantz Fanon, as it concerns our comprehension of the Algerian war.

The course concentrates on literature and film and the mass media. Race, gender, class collaboration and compromise; academic objectivity and scientific dispassion; will become working concepts for the continued analysis of the highly political methods used in the ordinary study of these two art forms.

Through seminars on specific films, novels, and timely articles on the problems of interpretation and analysis, we will explore the unique context of Third World imaginations and intervention.

1. Attendance (25% of final grade):
Participation in the weekly screenings/discussion is part of the course. Credit will not be given when two more than two classes have been missed without reason.

2. Seminar/presentation (25%):
Each student will present a 30 minute oral seminar. The seminar topic is open but will normally pertain to the specific subject of the respective class meeting, and must be approved by the instructor by a date to be announced in the first class. Please set up an appointment to discuss this before that time. The seminar and must be accompanied by an outline and short bibliography. Audio-visual aids such as slides, tapes and films are recommended. Topics will be suggested in the first several meetings but it is up to you to determine an area for exploration.

3. Short essay (15%) an initial essay showing mastery of one of the core texts.

4. Large essay (35%) involving independent research in one or more of the media and surrounding issues. The essay may be developed from a successful seminar presentation, with the instructor's permission.

1. Introduction

Harlow, Barbara. Resistance Literature. Methuen: London, 1987.

During this meeting, we shall set the schedule for student presentations during the seminars.

2. Salman Rushdie, Empire Novelist

Rushdie, Salman. The Satanic Verses. London: Viking, 1988.

Lecture: "Salman Rushdie In The Age of Reason"

Background reading:

Various clippings taken from the Indian and British Press -- on photocopy reserve.

3. Fictionalization of History

Screening:

The Battle of Algiers, Pontecorvo, France/Italy, 123 mins.1966

Lecture: "The role of the mirror in revolutionary warfare."

Readings, selections from:

Film Library Quarterly, Volume l6 No. 4, Issue title: "Films of the Third World."

Screen, Volume 24, No. 2, March/April 1, 1983. Issue title: "Racism, Colonialism and the Cinema."

Mellon, Joan. Film Guide to The Battle of Algiers, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1973 -- on reserve

4. The Immigrant Mirror: State Filmmakers

Screening: Welcome to Canada, by John Smith, Canada, NFB, 1989

Lecture: "The poor immigrant, exclusion and pity."

Background readings: selected reviews of this film in the Canadian press.

5. Black Experience in Canada.

Novel: Philip, Marlene. Harriet's Daughter. Toronto: The Women's Press, 1987.

Lecture: "Democracy, Minorities, Pluralism, Race, Gender and the Paper/Electronic Tigers"

Selections from:

Spivak, Gayatri Charavorty. In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. New York: Methuen, 1987

6. Black experience in the UK and Europe.

Phillips, Caryl. The European Tribe. London: Faber and Faber, 1987.

Readings from Spivak.

7. The case of Edward Said.

A discussion of Said's essays in Blaming the Victims.

8. History and Possession: Palestine

Screening:

On Our Land: Palestinians Under Israeli Rule, A. Cassia, Italy/Palestine, 87 mins 1982.

Readings:

Israel Shahak, "Israeli apartheid and the Intifada," Race and Class, 30, Issue 1, 1988

Selections from:

Race and Class, Vol. XXIV, Spring 1983, "The Invasion of Lebanon." Editors: Ibrahim Abu Lughod and Eqbal Ahmed.

Current selections from the Israeli Mirror. Editor: Elfi Pallis

9. Two examples of pre-and-post-colonial Pakistani literature

PART ONE: Examples of pre-and-post-colonial Pakistani literature

Please read the following stories from Manto, Sa'adat Hasan. Kingdom's End and Other Stories. London: Verso, 1987.

"Colder than Ice"

"The Dog of Titwal"

"It Happened in 1919"

"The New Constitution"

"The Assignment"

And the critical essay in Manto, Sa'adat Hasan. Kingdom's End and Other Stories. London: Verso, 1987.

Flemming, Leslie. The Life and Works of Sa'adat Hassan

Manto, Another Lonely Voice, (translated by Tahira Naqui), Lahore: Vanguard Books Ltd, 1985

Readings:

Harlow: Chapter 5, pages 154-197: "Commitment to the Future: Utopia, Dystopia, and Post-Independence Developments".

10. PART TWO: Examples of pre-and-post-colonial Pakistani literature

Mehmood, Tariq. Hand on the Sun. Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd., 1983

Readings:

Harlow: Chapter 5, pages 154-197: "Commitment to the future: utopia, dystopia, and post-independence developments."

11. The Native Question: The Third World inside Canada

Screening:

Incident at Restigouche, Alanis Obomsawin (NFB) Québec, 45 mins. 1984

Discussion.

12. Current Imaginations

Screening:

My Beautiful Laundrette, Stephen Fears, Hanif Kureishi, 1987 UK

Reading:

"The Rainbow Sign," a story in Kureishi, Hanif. My Beautiful Laundrette and The Rainbow Sign. London: Faber and Faber, 1986

Secondary Reading List

ON ALGERIA 1954-62

Fanon, A Dying Colonialism. New York: Grove Press, 1965.

Fanon, Black Skin White Masks. New York: Grove Press, 1967.

Fanon, Towards the African Revolution. New York: Grove Press, 1967.

Benabdallah, A., Oussedik, M., Verges, J. Nuremberg pour L'Algerie. Paris: Francois Maspero,1961

Boualam, Bachaga. L'Algerie sans la France. Paris: Editions France Empire,1964

Horne, Alistair. A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-62. New York: Viking Press, 1977

Hutchinson, C. Martha. Revolutionary Terrorism; The FLN in Algeria 1954-62. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1978

Lebjaoui, Mohamed. Verites sur la revolution Algerienne.Paris, 1970.

M'Rabet, Fadéla. La Femme Algerienne. Paris,1964

Antonius, George. The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement, Capricorn Books, 1946.

CONCERNING THE WESTERN PRESS AND THE ARAB WORLD

Janet Abu-Lughod, "Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Arab Lands: From Conquest to Colony", The Journal of Palestine Studies (Winter 1982)

Said, Edward, and Hitchens, Christopher. Blaming the victims: spurious scholarship and the Palestinian question. London: Verso, 1988 (See my review of this book in the Arab World Review-- recent issue)

Said, Edward. The Question of Palestine.

Haddad, Tahar. Notre Femme, La Legislation Islamic et La Societe. Tunis: Masion Tunisienne De l'Edition, 1978

ON PAKISTAN 1947-88

Mumtaz, Khawar and Shaheed, Farada. Women of Pakistan, Two Steps Forward, One Step Back? London: Zed Press, 1987

Khan, Asghar. Islam, Politics and the State; The Pakistan Experience. London: Zed

Gardezi, Hassan and Rashid, Jamal. Pakistan: The Roots of Dictatorship, The Political Economy of a Praetorian State. London: Zed Press, 1983.

Camera Obscura: Journal of Feminism and Film Theory

Charef, Mehdi. Le thé au Harem d'Archi Ahmed. Paris: Mercure de France, 1983

February, Vernon. And Bid Him Sing; Essays in Literature and Cultural Domination. New York and London: Kegan Paul International, 1988

Feldman, Seth. ed. Take Two: A Tribute to Film in Canada. Toronto: Irwin Publishing, l984.

Ferguson, Kathy E. The Feminist Case Against BureaucracyPhiladelphia: Temple University Press, 1984.

Film Library Quarterly. Volume l6 No. 4, Issue title "Films of the Third World."

Gabriel, Teshome. Cinema and Third World Liberation.Ann Arbor: University Press, 1982.

Georgekas, Dan and Rubenstein, Lenny. The Cineaste: Interview on Art and Politics of the Cinema. Lakeview Press, 1983

Hennebelle, Guy. Guide des films anti-imperaliste, realisé par Guy Hennebelle avec participation du C.l.C.A. du M.N.S.P.I Paris: Editions du Centenaire (1975).

Hennebelle, Guy. Le tier monde en film (dossier reuni par G.H.) Paris: Cinemaction: Courbevoie, Tricontinental, 1981

Henry Fabre, Michel. Preface de: Essai sur la signification politique du cinema l'example Francais de la L'example Francais de la Liberation aux evenment de mai 1968; Paris: Editions Cujas,1971

Huxley, Aldous. The Devils of Loudun (The Psychology of Power Politics and Mystical Religion in the France of Cardinal Richelieu.) New York: Harper Colophon Books, Harper and Rowe Publishers, 1965.
(c.f. Behind the Veil. by M Wescott, l984 N.F.B. Arbour: University Press, 1982.)

Kuhn, Annette. Women's Pictures. London: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1983

Marable, Manning. How Capitalism Under Developed Black America. Boston: South End Press,1983

Nichols, Bill. Ideology and the Image: Social Representation in the Cinema and Other Media. Bloomington,Indiana: University Press, 1981

Rabin, Jonathan. Arabia Through the Looking Glass. London: The Travel Book Club, 1979.

Remi, Kapo. A Savage Culture: Racism - A Black View London: Quartet.

Salah, Tayeb. Season of Migration to the North. Washington D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1969.

Sarris, Andrew. Politics and Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978.

Screen, Racism, Colonialism and the Cinema , Volume 24, No. 2, March/April1983 .

Solinas, Piernico, Ed. Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers. The complete scenario, interview with the director and screen writer.

Vogel, Amos. Film as a Subversive Art. New York: Random House, 1974.

Yearwood, Gladstone. Black Cinema Aesthetics. Athens, Ohio: Center for Afro-American Studies, 1982.

Samuel, Julian. The work of Julian Samuel: The ups and downs of cultural practice in Québec.