Fall 2004

T C 325 • Colonial Outsider – W

Course Description

We shall read authors of stature and their works of colonial settings and outlooks. The characteristic quality of these works is an examination of how Empire, its assumptions of power, and its representatives run into crises, of all sorts, in the colonial world. In short, we see tension, testing places and crucibles of the spirit and institutions in the terrain and culture of the colonial worlds on many continents. And in one instance, what happens when the voyage goes from colony to Europe, rather than the other way round.

About the Professor Steven Isenberg, an adjunct professor of humanities here since last fall, has been a newspaper publisher, chief of staff to the mayor of New York, a litigator, and interim president of a university. Over the last few years, he has taught at Yale, Berkeley, Davidson, Polytechnic (Brooklyn), and the New School. He is on the advisory council of the Harry Ransom Center. He did his BA at the University of California at Berkeley and his BA, MA at Worcester College, Oxford, all in English literature and his J.D. at Yale Law School. He lives in New York City, but now owns cowboy boots.

Texts

We shall read authors of stature and their works of colonial settings and outlooks. The characteristic quality of these works is an examination of how Empire, its assumptions of power, and its representatives run into crises, of all sorts, in the colonial world. In short, we see tension, testing places and crucibles of the spirit and institutions in the terrain and culture of the colonial worlds on many continents. And in one instance, what happens when the voyage goes from colony to Europe, rather than the other way round.

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