THE COLLEGE OF THE BAHAMAS

COURSE PROPOSAL FORM

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SCHOOL:	English Studies
DEPARTMENT:		Bahamian and Caribbean Cultural Studies
COURSE TITLE:		Culture and Power II: Gender, Race and Class

COURSE DESCRIPTION FOR CATALOGUE:

This course focuses on cultural studies concepts and methodologies by examining smaller-scale power relations shaping cultural practices in The Bahamas and the Caribbean. Students examine and evaluate power relations between individuals and groups distinguished through cultural categories such as sex / gender, race / ethnicity, class and nationality.

PURPOSE OF COURSE:

University transfer ( X ) External Examination ( )

College Diploma or Certificate ( ) Recreational/General Interest

College Degree ( X ) (non-credit) ( X )

PRE-REQUISITE(S):

ENG 230 or permission of the Chair and/or Coordinator

CO-REQUISITE(S):

None

HOURS PER WEEK:

Lecture

3

Laboratory

Seminar/Tutorial

SEMESTER HOUR CREDITS:

3

SEQUENTIAL COURSE(S):

None.

OTHER COB COURSES HAVING CONTENT OVERLAP: None

COURSE DEVELOPED ( X )/REVISED ( ) BY:

(1)

School of English Studies

Date:

(2)

(P. Burkhardt)

Date:

(3)

Date:

APPROVALS:

Head of Department:

_______________________

Date:

___________

Chair of School:

__ _______________________

Date

___________

Dean:

_______________________

Date

___________

Academic Board

_______________________

Date

___________

NOTE:

1. A detailed course description must be attached. This must include course objectives, list of topics covered, prescribed textbooks, reading list, method of assessment, and external examinations which are prepared for in this course.

2. The course description must be suitable for distribution to students.

3. Only lecturers/instructors approved by The College will be allowed to teach this course.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course elaborates cultural studies concepts and methodologies by focusing on smaller-scale power relations shaping cultural practices in The Bahamas and the Caribbean. Students learn to understand and evaluate power relations between individuals and groups distinguished through cultural categories such as sex / gender, race / ethnicity, class and nationality.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Identify the dynamics of inter-personal and inter-group power relations operative in The Bahamas and the Caribbean, specifically the cultural categories of sex/gender, race/ethnicity and class.

2. Compare and contrast the central elements, characteristics, practices, relations and institutions involved in the reproduction and transformation of these relations.

3. Understand the performative aspects of these cultural categories as central to individual and group identity.

4. Discuss the general role of smaller-scale cultural forms, practices and traditions as developing, resisting or accommodating dominant large-scale structures of power.

5. Analyze the specific representations and categorizations defining a local cultural phenomenon in detail and connect these signifying practices to relevant large-scale contexts and power structures.

COURSE CONTENT

I. Culture, Power and Identity

· Subject positions and discursive systems

· Cultural categories and identity

· Identity and difference

¨ Binary oppositions, hierarchies and power relations

¨ Culture, identities and oppressions

· Self and Other

· Culture and the body

· Social construction of identity, performativity and culture

· Cultural practices and personal, inter-personal and inter-group identity and relations

· Cultural categories as regulation and control

· Reproduction and transformation of cultural practices, social relations and inequalities

· Culture, empowerment and social change

¨ Identity politics

¨ New and old social movements

II. Sex / Gender and Culture

· Sex as biological and socially constructed category

· Gender as a socially constructed category

¨ Definitions: sex and gender roles

¨ Biology and culture

¨ Sexism, homophobia

· Gender and personal / group identity

· Sexual relations, intimacy and power

· Historical contexts and histories of gender categories and relations

¨ Colonialism and imperialism

¨ Decolonization and nation building

¨ Post-coloniality and globalization

· Human reproduction and the reproduction of culture

· Psychoanalytic theory

¨ Id, ego, superego

¨ Subjectivity, language and child development

¨ Reproduction of cultural systems

· Feminism and feminist theory

· Queer rights movements and queer theory

· Sex / gender in The Bahamas and Caribbean

¨ Family

¨ Education

¨ Religion and morality

¨ Homophobia

¨ Work

¨ Mass media and popular culture

¨ Sex / gender, culture and regional change

III. Race / Ethnicity and Culture

· Race and ethnicity as socially constructed categories

¨ Definitions: race and ethnicity

¨ Contemporary scientific critique of racial categories

¨ Racism

¨ Internalized racism

¨ Studies of "whiteness" and "blackness"

· Critical race theory

· Race / ethnicity and personal / group identity

· Race / ethnicity and culture: hybridity and creolization

· Historical contexts and histories of racial and ethnic categories and relations

¨ Colonialism and imperialism

¨ Decolonization and nation building

¨ Post-coloniality and globalization

· Race / ethnicity in The Bahamas and Caribbean

¨ Education

¨ Work (professional, blue collar, physical labor)

¨ Immigration: legal and illegal

¨ Racism

¨ Racial distinctions and beauty

¨ The Haitian question: race and nationalism

¨ Mass media and popular culture

¨ Race / ethnicity, culture and regional change

IV. Class and Culture

· Class status and class relations as socially constructed

¨ Definitions: class positions and relations under capitalism

¨ Capital and labour

· Class and personal / group identity in everyday life

¨ Social status versus class consciousness

· Critical theories of class

· Historical contexts and histories of class categories and relations

¨ Colonialism and imperialism

¨ Decolonization and nation building

¨ Post-coloniality and globalization

· Class in The Bahamas and Caribbean

¨ Education (private, public, over seas, etc.)

¨ Consumption

¨ Mass media and popular culture

¨ Work life (types of jobs, class positions, etc.)

¨ Service work: tourism, financial services

¨ Class issues between nations within and without the Caribbean

¨ Class, culture and regional change

V. Cultural Studies of Identity and Power Relations

· Understanding small-scale cultural identity phenomena

¨ Ethnography

¨ Reading cultural texts in local context

¨ Interpreting cultural texts and practices within larger discursive systems

· Articulating connections between intertwined cultural systems of power

¨ Multiple identities, cultural intersections

¨ Sex / gender, race / ethnicity and class as mutually constitutive and interdependent

· Synchronic and diachronic studies of local cultural practices

· Contemporary contributions of poststructural, postmodern and postcolonial theory to the study of culture and identity

· Connecting local cultural identity practices and discourses to larger-scale historical contexts

ASSESSMENT

Exams 15%

Short Essays and Weekly Writings 40%

Proposal 5%

Final Research Project 30%

Participation 10%

TOTAL 100%

REQUIRED TEXTS

Baca Zinn, M., Hondagneu-Sotelo, P., & Messner, M. (Eds.). (2000). Gender through the prism of difference (2^nd ed.). Needham Heights: Allyn & Bacon. ISBN 0205302254

Hall, S. (Ed.). (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices. Thousand Oaks: Sage. ISBN 0761954325

Note on course texts: The above required texts are in addition to those texts required for the ENG 230 Culture and Power I. The supplementary readings are common for ENG 230 and ENG 231.

SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS

Althusser, L. (1971). Lenin and philosophy and other essays. (Ben Brewster, Trans.). London: N L B.

Andersen, M. (2001). Race, class and gender: An anthology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities. London: Verso.

Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., & Tiffin, H. (1989). The empire writes back: Theory and practice in post-colonial literatures. New York: Routledge.

Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Aronowitz, S. (1992). The politics of identity: Class, culture, social movements. New York: Routledge.

Baldwin, E., Longhurst, B., McCracken, S., Ogburn, M., & Smith, G. (1999). Introducing cultural studies. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall.

Barker, C. (2000). Cultural studies: Theory and practice. London: Sage.

Barker, F., Hulme, P., & Iversen, M. (Eds.). (1994). Colonial discourse / postcolonial theory. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Barrow, C. (Ed.). (1998). Caribbean portraits: Essays on gender ideologies and identities. Kingston: Ian Randle.

Barrow, C., & Reddock, R. (Eds.). (2001). Caribbean sociology: Introductory readings. Kingston: Ian Randle.

Beckles, H. (1998). Centering woman: Gender discourses in Caribbean slave society. Kingston: Ian Randle.

Benn, D., & Hall, K. (Eds.). (2000). Globalisation: A calculus of inequality. Perspectives from the South. Kingston: Ian Randle.

Bethel, N. (2000). Navigations: The fluidity of national identity in the postcolonial Bahamas. Dissertation, Corpus Christi College. Cambridge: University of Cambridge.

Bolland, O.N. (2001). The politics of labour in the British Caribbean: The social origins of authoritarianism and democracy in the labour movement. Kingston: Ian Randle.

Braverman, H. (1974). Labor and monopoly capital. New York: Monthly Review Press.

*Brereton, B., & Yelvington, K. (Eds.). (1999). The colonial Caribbean in transition: Essays on postemancipation social and cultural history. Jamaica: Press of University of the West Indies.

Brewer, A. (1980). Marxist theories of imperialism: A critical survey. New York: Routledge.

*Brooker, P. (1998). Cultural theory: A glossary. New York: Arnold

Brown, S. (Ed.). (2000). Spitting in the wind: Lessons in empowerment from the Caribbean. Kingston: Ian Randle.

Bute, E., & Harmer, H. (Eds.). (1997). The black handbook. Kingston: Ian Randle.

Chambers, I. (1994). Migrancy, culture, identity. New York: Routledge.

Cooper, F., Holt, T., & Scott, R. (2000). Beyond slavery: Explorations of race, labor, and citizenship in postemancipation societies. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

*Curran, J. & Gurevitch, M. (Eds.). (1996). Mass media and society (2^nd ed.). New York: Arnold.

Curran, J., Morley, D., & Walkerdine, V. (Eds.). (1996). Cultural studies and communications. London: Arnold.

Cvetkovich, A., & Kellner, D. (Eds.). (1997). Articulating the global and the local: Globalization and cultural studies. Boulder, CO: Westview.

Darby, P. (Ed.). (1998). The fiction of imperialism: Reading between international relations and postcolonialism. London: Cassell.

Demas, W. (1997). West Indian development and the deepening and widening of the Caribbean community. Kingston: Ian Randle.

*Dines, G. & Humez, J.M. (Eds.). (1995). Gender, race and class in media: A text and reader. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Dunn, H. (Ed.). (1995). Globalization, communication and Caribbean identity. Kingston: Ian Randle.

Enloe, C. (1990). Bananas, beaches & bases: Making feminist sense of international politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Enzensberger, H. (1974). The consciousness industry. New York: Seabury Press.

Featherstone, M. (Ed.). (1997). Global culture: Nationalism, globalization and modernity. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Felsenstein, F. (Ed.). (1999). English trader, indian maid: Representing gender, race and slavery in the new world, an Inkle and Yarico reader. Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins UP, 1999.

Foucault, M. (1970). The order of things: An archaeology of the human sciences. London: Tavistock.

Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New York: Vintage Books.

Foucault, M. (1980). Power / knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972-1977) (ed. C. Gordon). Brighton: Harvester.

Foucault, M. (1984). The Foucault reader (ed. P. Rabinow). Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and nationalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Giddens, A, & Turner, J. (Eds.). (1987). Social theory today. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Gramsci, A. (1981). Selections from the prison notebooks. (Q. Hoare and G. N. Smith, Eds. and Trans.). New York: International Publishers.

*Grossberg, L., Nelson, C., & Treichler, P. (Eds.). (1992). Cultural studies. New York: Routledge.

Hall, K. (Ed.). (2000). Integrate or perish: Perspectives of leaders of the integration movement. Kingston: Ian Randle.

Hall, S., & du Gay, P. (Eds.). (2000). Questions of cultural identity. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Hobsbawm, E. (1990). Nations and nationalism since 1780: Programme, myth, reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hobsbawm, E., & Ranger, T. (Eds.). (1983). The invention of tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jones, E., et. al. (1998). Institutional aspects of West Indian development. Kingston: Ian Randle.

Kings. A. (1990). Urbanism, colonialism and the world-economy. New York: Routledge.

King, A. (Ed.). (1997). Culture, globalization and the world-system: Contemporary conditions for the representation of identity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

*Knight, F., & Palmer, C. (Eds.). (1989). The modern Caribbean. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. (1985). Hegemony and socialist strategy. London: Verso.

Lamont, M., & Fournier, M. (Eds.). (1993). Cultivating differences: Symbolic boundaries and the making of inequality. Chicago: U. Chicago Press

Lancaster, R., & di Leonardo, M. (Eds.). (1997). The gender / sexuality reader. New York: Routledge.

Lefebvre, H. (1971). Everyday life in the modern world. New York: Harper and Row.

Lemert, C. (Ed.). (1993). Social theory: The multicultural and classic readings. San Francisco: Westview Press.

Leo-Rhynie, E., Bailey, B., & Barrow, C. (Eds.). (1997). Gender: A Caribbean Mult-disciplinary Perspective. Kingston: Ian Randle.

Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1976). Collected works. New York: International Publishers.

Mattelart, A. (1979). Multinational corporations and the control of culture: The ideological apparatuses of imperialism. Brighton: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

McClintock, A., Mufti, A., & Shohat, E. (Eds.). (1997). Danerous liasons: Gender, nation, and postcolonial perspectives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

McRobbie, A. (Ed.). (1997). Back to reality? Social experience and cultural studies. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Memmi, A. (1990). The colonizer and the colonized. London: Earthscan.

Minh-ha, T. (1989). Women, native, other. Writing postcoloniality and feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Momsen, J. (Ed.). (1993). Women and change in the Caribbean. Kingston: Ian Randle.

Mongia, P. (Ed.). (1997). Contemporary postcolonial theory. New York: Arnold.

Morley, D., & Robbins, K. (1995). Spaces of identity. New York: Routledge.

Mosco, V. (1996). The political economy of communication. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Nelson, C., & Grossberg, L. (Eds.). (1988). Marxism and the interpretation of culture. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education.

Nicholson, L., & Seidman, S. (Eds.). (1995). Social postmodernism: Beyond identity politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

*Nintz, S., & Price, S. (Eds.). (1985). Caribbean contours. London: Johns Hopkins Press.

Osterhammel, J. (1997). Colonialism: A theoretical overview. Kingston: Ian Randle.

Pattullo, P. (1996). Last resorts: The cost of tourism in the Caribbean. Kingston: Ian Randle.

Polyani, K. (1957). The great transformation. Boston: Beacon Press.

Poulantzas, N. (1974). Political power and social classes. London: N L B.

Prakash, G. (Ed.). (1995). After colonialism: Imperial histories and postcolonial displacements. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Renda, M. (2001). Taking Haiti: Military occupation and the culture of U.S. imperialism, 1915-1940. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Robertson, R. (1991). Globalization. London: Sage.

Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

---. (1993). Culture and imperialism. London: Chatto & Windus.

Sheller, M. (2000). Democracy after slavery: Black publics and peasant radicalism in Haiti and Jamaica. Warwick: Macmillan, Warwick University Caribbean Series.

Shepherd, V., & Beckles, H. (Eds.). (1999). Caribbean slavery in the Atlantic world (2^nd ed.). Kingston: Ian Randle.

---. (1993). Caribbean freedom: Economy and society from emancipation to the present. Kingston: Ian Randle.

Smith, A. (1961). An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. London: Methuen.

Smith, A. (1983). Theories of nationalism. New York: Holmes and Meier.

Soja, E. (1989). Postmodern geographies. London: Verso.

Spivak, G. (1987). In other worlds: Essays in cultural politics. London: Methuen.

---. (1990). The post-colonial critic. New York: Routledge.

*Storey, J. (Ed.). (1996). What is cultural studies? A reader. London: Arnold.

Storey, J. (1997). An introduction to cultural theory and popular culture (2^nd ed). London: Prentice Hall.

Storey, J. (Ed.). (1998). Cultural theory and popular culture: A reader. Sydney, NSW: Allen & Unwin.

*Storey, J. (1999). Cultural consumption and everyday life. London: Prentice Hall.

Thompson, A. (1997). The haunting past: Politics, economics and race in Caribbean life. Kingston: Ian Randle.

Thompson, K. (Ed.). (1997). Media and cultural regulation. London: Sage.

Tomlinson, J. (1991). Cultural imperialism. London: Pinter.

Wallerstein, I. (1979). The capitalist world-economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Warner, M. (Ed.). (1993). Fear of a queer planet: Queer politics and social theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Wickham, P. et. al. (1998). Elements of regional integration: The way forward. Kingston: Ian Randle.

Williams, P., & Chrisman, L. (Eds.). (1994). Colonial discourse and post-colonial theory: A reader. New York: Columbia University Press.

*Williams, R. (1958). Culture and society. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.

*Williams, R. (1983). Keywords: A vocabularly of culture and society. London: Fontana.

Wilson, R., & Dissanayake, W. (1996). Global/local: Cultural production and the transnational imaginary. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Woodward, K. (Ed.). (1997). Identity and difference. London: Sage.

JOURNALS

Canadian Journal of Communications

*The Canadian Journal of African Studies

The Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies

*Caribbean Geography

Critical Inquiry

Critical Studies in Mass Communications

Cultural Logic

Cultural Studies

Culture, Theory and Critique

International Journal of Cultural Studies

*Journal of Caribbean History

*Journal of Caribbean Studies

Journal of Communication Inquiry

Journal of Eastern Caribbean Studies

Media, Culture and Society

Nepantla

New Left Review

Postmodern Culture

*Small Axe

Social Text

Theory, Culture and Society

Wadabagei

*Yinna

Note: * indicates titles currently held by the COB library.

Order requests for other titles will be submitted upon approval by the Academic Board.

WEBSITES

http://www.theory.org.uk/ Media, Gender, Identity Theory

http://www.popcultures.com/ Sarah Zupko's Cultural Studies Center

http://www.culturalstudies.net/ The New Cultural Studies Central

http://eng.hss.cmu.edu/theory/ Cultural Studies and Critical Theory Readings

http://vos.ucsb.edu/shuttle/theory.html Voice of the Shuttle

http://www.tiac.net/users/thaslett/ Black Cultural Studies Site

http://www.sosig.ac.uk/ Social Sciences Information Gateway

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7364/CS_pages_phII.html The Institute, Cult. Stud. Resources

http://www.uiowa.edu/~commstud/resources/culturalStudies.html Cultural Studies Resources

http://csf.colorado.edu/mirrors/marxists.org/ Marxists Internet Archive

http://www.towson.edu/~vanfoss/rgc.htm The Intersection of Sex, Race and Class

http://www.library.cornell.edu/africana/Library/C_Studies.html Caribbean Studies Reference Sources

http://www.hist.unt.edu/09w-blk4.htm Caribbean Studies

http://landow.stg.brown.edu/post/caribbean/caribov.html The Caribbean, A PoCo Overview

http://www.fgcu.edu/csa2001/aboutcsa.html Caribbean Studies Association

http://www.Caribbean-Reporter.com/ Caribbean Reporter

LISTSERVS

caribbean-studies@jiscmail.ac.uk Caribbean Studies Listserv

cultstud-l@lists.acomp.usf.edu CULTSTUD-L: A listserv devoted to Cultural Studies