How do people resist colonialism?

Preeti Singh, Assistant Professor, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

The Cold War was marked by ongoing rivalry between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, though its hot wars were fought across the decolonizing world. Placing literary and aesthetic cultures at the center of Cold War battles, this course introduces Cold War cultural interventions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and how they shaped popular understandings of literary autonomy, freedom of speech, ideology, and propaganda. Through sampling declassified documents from CIA archives, little magazines, cartoons, films, novels, and short stories, students will learn how the Cold War generated competing approaches to literature and art.

Cross-lists: ICS 158CNS/ LIT 155CNS/ ENGLISH 165CNS

Jessica Namakkal, Associate Professor of the Practice, International Comparative Studies
Michael Hardt, Professor, Literature

This course will investigate foundational texts that analyze colonial and imperialist political formations, as well the movements that resist and combat them. The texts will consider coloniality in a wide range of geographical contexts and spanning time periods from early modernity until the present. Topics will include racial forms of domination, economic exploitation, resource extraction, and political control. Evaluation will be based on class participation, short papers, and exams.

Cross-list: LIT 109CN

Erdağ Göknar, Associate Professor, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Didem Havlioglu, Associate Professor of the Practice, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

Examines culture and politics between Europe and the Ottoman Empire/Turkey from the early modern era to the present. Focus on conflict and exchange through lenses of secularism, nationalism, imperialism, feminism, and Islamism. Turks have lived within Europe since the fourteenth century, but are often not considered to be part of Europe. The Ottomans, a Sunni Muslim empire, expanded into southeastern and central Europe (1500-1800). The Empire shifted from being a dominant power to a state sustained through European diplomacy. After WWI, the creation of a Republic of Turkey was also a process that involved European intervention. 

Cross-list: HISTORY 1XXCN, RELIGION 1XXCN, and SLAVIC 1XXCN

Courtney Lewis, Associate Professor, Cultural Anthropology

This course introduces students to the histories, contemporary realities, and intellectual traditions of Native Nations within the broader landscape of global Indigeneity, with particular attention to settler colonialism as an ongoing structure shaping land, governance, economy, cultural representation, and inter-National relationships. Through scholarship by Indigenous thinkers who founded ideas of decolonizing and Indigenizing methodologies, analysis of historic and contemporary issues, and engagement with Indigenous-created media and art, students will explore how Native Nations assert sovereignty, challenge extractive settler colonial practices, and cultivate futures grounded in community relationality and thrivance.
 

Anna Storti, Assistant Professor, Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies

An introduction to feminist activism and feminist contributions to social movements. Topics include decoloniality, anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, abolition, reproductive justice, and organizing against sexual violence, authoritarianism, and climate change. Course materials engage scholarship, art, and political demonstration. Includes a comparative dimension that emphasizes cross cultural analysis and humanistic inquiry.

Cross-list: AADS 177CNS

Sarah Balakrishnan, Assistant Professor, History

The Cold War was marked by ongoing rivalry between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, though its hot wars were fought across the decolonizing world. Placing literary and aesthetic cultures at the center of Cold War battles, this course introduces Cold War cultural interventions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and how they shaped popular understandings of literary autonomy, freedom of speech, ideology, and propaganda. Through sampling declassified documents from CIA archives, little magazines, cartoons, films, novels, and short stories, students will learn how the Cold War generated competing approaches to literature and art.

Cross-lists: AAAS 155CNS, ICS 149CNS

Katryn Evinson, Assistant Professor, Romance Studies

In June 2020, Congolese activist Diyabanza tried to remove a funerary post from Chad from the Paris Musée du Quai Branly as a protest against colonial-era looting. His provocation sparked a debate on the museum's role in reproducing the logics of empire and colonialism. This course explores the structural conflicts museums are entangled in as 'public' institutions bound by elitist interests. It offers an introduction to the history of museums through seven case studies from across the globe, including Duke's Nasher Museum. Rather than approaching museums as neutral sites of cultural education, we examine them as infrastructures shaped by, and instrumental to, domination and inequality.

Cross-lists: ARTHIST 178CNS, LIT 178CNS

Fadi Bardawil, Associate Professor, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

Description forthcoming.

Sandra Sotelo-Miller, Lecturing Fellow, Thompson Writing Program

Since the introduction of cinema in Latin America at the end of the 19th century, film has played a significant role in exploring and shaping collective understandings of history, identity, and culture in the region. Latin American movies have grappled with the legacy of colonialism, modern imperialism, dictatorships and state violence, the "War on Drugs," migration, and social justice movements. In this class we will explore some of these themes and the ways in which Latin American filmmakers have grappled them. We will consider questions such as: What role does cinema play in constructing or challenging official historical narratives? How does film reimagine the past? In what ways can cinema offer counter-narratives to dominant historical discourses? How do films participate in shaping collective memory?

This course is designed to offer both a broad engagement with these questions and opportunities for in-depth analysis through oral presentations, class discussions, and   writing. Seminar discussions will help you develop the ability to analyze films and express your insights clearly with your peers. The various writing assignments will help you practice articulating your personal perspective and voice clearly; learn how to identify, evaluate, and use secondary sources to deepen your analysis; and produce public and academic facing texts that take purpose, genre, and audience into account. Through writers' workshops and reflective exercises, you will learn to critique peer work and     revise your own. These writing skills—combined with careful observation, vivid description, and critical analysis—will prepare you to clearly articulate your ideas in writing at Duke and beyond.

Description forthcoming.