Courses

This seminar explores key texts of twentieth-century anticolonial political thought and its postcolonial interpretation. It is an advanced course in political theory for graduate students. Over the last twenty years, postcolonial approaches to political theory have challenged many of the traditional categories and assumptions of western political thought. Some contend that theories inherited from Western social and political thought cannot adequately speak to the political experiences of the non-Western world. Others have been sharply critical of the complicity of Western political thought and modern practices of imperialism, slavery, and global inequality. This seminar aims to investigate the various challenges that postcolonial theorists pose to political theory and to offer critical assessments of the possibilities and limitations of this perspective. We will do so by reading key anticolonial texts alongside major postcolonial interpretations of these texts. We will compare how anticolonial texts and their postcolonial interpreters engage with questions of political theory – such as the relationship between universality and freedom, revolution and history, violence and power, progress and emancipation – in light of the legacy of colonialism and the promise of decolonization.