FINAL RESULTS

NUME	SEMINAR ACTIVITY	READING NOTES	SHORT ESSAY	LONG ESSAY	FINAL GRADE
BACALU ALEXANDRA	10	10	10	10	10,00
BRATU IRINA	10	10	10	10	10,00
BURCIU CRISTINA	9	10	9	7	8
COROI PAULA	-	-	-	-	FAIL
CONSTANTINESCU PATRICIA	7	0	8	6	6
LABELA CLEMENT	9	10	10	10	10
MANEA IONUȚ	9,5	0	4	5	5
MATEESCU IOAN	8,5	10	7,5	9	9
MUȘAT CRISTINA	8	10	10	9	9
NEAGU OANA	4,5	0	0	0	FAIL
ZAMFIRESCU CRISTINA	10	10	10	9,5	10

BCS DISCUSSION THEMES & BIBLIOGRAPHY

1st Week (5 Oct.)
       Introducing the Course against the Cultural Studies Context
Presentation of the aims and prerequisites of the course.
A short introduction to the methodology and agenda of cultural studies. Positioning the study of postcommunism and postcolonialism in the context of cultural studies.
Legitimating the comparative approach of postcommunism and postcolonialism in a British Cultural Studies programme.

2nd Week (12 Oct.)
What is Cultural Studies?
Mandatory reading (one of the following):
- „Cultural Studies” din The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Criticism and Theory, editat de Michael Groden and Martin Kreiswirth, The Johns Hopkins UP, 1994.
- Stuart Hall, „Cultural Studies and Its Theoretical Legacies” in S. During (ed.) The Cultural Studies Reader, Routledge 2001, pp. 97-109.
Further Reading
- Mircea Martin, „Cultural Studies – There and Here”, Euresis 2014, pag. 180-186.

3rd Week (19 Oct.)
The Power of Discourse – Language in/as action, language and representation. Discourse Study in Pragmatics and the Philosophy of Language
Mandatory reading:
- J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, Oxford: Oxford UP, 1962, 1-11;
- George Lakoff and Mark Johnson,  Metaphors We Live By, London: University of Chicago Press, 2003 (1980), 8-22.

4th Week (26 Oct.)
SOFT APPROACHES I. The Discursive Turn in the study of societies and cultures. Language and power in the formation of cultural identity.
Mandatory reading:
- Michel Foucault, “The Order of Discourse”, R. Young (ed.), Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader, Boston & London: Routledge and Keegan Paul, 1981, 48-78.
(and one of the following)
- Ruth Wodak, “Introduction: Discourse Studies – Important Concepts and Terms”, R. Wodak and M. Krzyzanovski (eds.), Qualitative Discourse Analysis in the Social Sciences, Houndmills & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, 1-20;
or
- Bogdan Ştefănescu, Postcommunism / Postcolonialism: Siblings of Subalternity, EUB 2013, 82-98.

5th Week (2 Nov.)
      MAIN CONCEPTS OF COLONIALITY – Coloniality, colonialisms, colonies; Colonialism versus imperialism, colonialism and modernity.
Mandatory reading:
- Bogdan Ştefănescu, Postcommunism / Postcolonialism: Siblings of Subalternity, EUB 2013, 47-65, 112-117.
and one of the following: 
- Osterhammel, Jürgen. Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview. Princeton: Marcus Wiener Publishers and Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers, 1997 (1995), 1-22. or
- ‘Modernism’ and ‘modernity’ entries in Ashcroft, B. et alia, Key Concepts in Post-colonial Studies. London & New York, Routledge, 1999 (1998), 143-7.
Further reading:
- ‘Imperialism’ and ‘neo-colonialism’ entries in Ashcroft, B. et alia, Key Concepts in Post-colonial Studies. London & New York, Routledge, 1999 (1998). (pp. 122-7; 162-3)
- C. Venn. Occidentalism. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2000. (pp. 51-67)
- Ch. Jencks. The Post-modern Reader. London: Academy Editions/New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992. (pp. 196-207; 250-66)
- M. Waters. Modernity: Critical Concepts. London & New York: Routledge, 1999. (vol.4, pp. 5-16)
- Th. Docherty, Postmodernism. A Reader, Harvester Wheatsheaf, Lond on, 1993, pp. 120-140, 323-363;
- R. Boyne, & A. Rattansi, Postmodernism and Society, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan Education, 1990, pp. 1-70, 97-117;
- L. Hutcheon. The Politics of Postmodernism. London & New York: Routledge, 1995. (pp. 23-9) (L. Hutcheon. Politica postmodernismului. Bucuresti: Univers, 1997.)

6th Week (9 Nov.)
CONTRASTING POSTCOMMUNISM AND POSTCOLONIALISM: generic and typological similarities vs. historical and ideological differences.
Mandatory reading (one of the following): 
- David Chioni Moore, „Is the Post- in Postcolonial the Post- in Post-Soviet? Towards a Global Postcolonial Critique”, Violeta Kelertas (ed.) Baltic Postcolonialism, Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi,  2006, 11-44.
or 
- S. Chari and K. Verdery, „Thinking between the Posts: Postcolonialism, Postsocialism, and Ethnography after the Cold War”, Comparative Studies in Society and History 51.1 (2009), 6–34.
or 
- Henry F. Carey and Rafal Raciborski, “Postcolonialism: A Valid Paradigm for the Former Sovietized States and Yugoslavia?”, East European Politics and Societies 18 (2004), 191-235.
Further reading:
- Adrian Otoiu. ‘An Exercise in Fictional Liminality: the Postcolonial, the Postcommunist, and Romania’s Threshold Generation’. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 23:1&2 (2003) (pp. 87-95) http://www.cssaame.com/issues/23/15.pdf  
- Boris Buden. ‘Ce este postcolonial in postcomunism?’.  Suplimentul de cultura nr. 144, 8 – 14 septembrie 2007 www.suplimentuldecultura.ro/numarpdf/144_Special.pdf- Lefter, I.B.  ‘Poate fi considerat postcomunismul un post-colonialism?’. Caietele Echinox, vol. 1, (‘Postcolonialism & Postcomunism’), Cluj: Dacia, 2001. (pp. 117-119) 

7th Week (16 Nov.)
      The coloniality of (post)dependent cultures: Cultural trauma as unifying concept for Western and Soviet coloniality - I
Mandatory reading (one of the following):
- Piotr Sztompka, “The Trauma of Social Change: A Case of Postcommunist Societies”, J. Alexander et al. Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, University of California Press, 2004, 149-189.
or 
- Rebecca Saunders and Kamran Aghaie, “Introduction: Mourning and Memory”, Comparative Studies of South Asia Africa and the Middle East vol. 25, no.1 (2005), 16-29;

Further reading:
- Bogdan Ștefănescu, “Filling in the Historical Blanks: A Tropology of the Void in Postcommunist and Postcolonial Reconstructions of Identity”, D, Pucherova and R. Gafrik (eds.) Postcolonial Europe? Essays on Post-Communist Literatures and Cultures, Brill/Rodopi, 2015, 107-120.

8th Week (23 Nov.)
 The coloniality of (post)dependent cultures: Cultural trauma as unifying concept for Western and Soviet coloniality - II
Mandatory reading (one of the following): 
- Robert Eaglestone, “’You Would Not Add to My Suffering If You Knew What I Have Seen”: Holocaust Testimony and Contemporary African Trauma Literature’, Studies in the Novel vol. 40, 1&2 (2008), 72-85.
or
- Kiossev, Alexander, “Notes on Self-colonising Cultures”, Art and Culture in post-Communist Europe. Eds. B. Pejic. & D. Elliott. Stockholm: Moderna Museet, 1999, 114-8. and Aili Aarelaid-Tart, Cultural Trauma and Life Stories (Estonia), Kikimora Publications, 2006, pp. 57-61.

9th Week (7 Dec.)
Main Concepts of Postcolonial Cultural Studies and their potential applicability in Postcommunist Cultural Studies
Mandatory reading:
- Entries for agency, alienation, authenticity, cartography, center/margin, comprador, creolization, counter-discourse, cultural diversity/difference, dependency theory, essentialism, Eurocentrism, exotic(ism), hybridity, liminality, negritude, Orientalism, subaltern, world systems theory in Ashcroft, B. et alia, Key Concepts in Post-colonial Studies, London & New York: Routledge, 1999 (1998).
Further reading:
- Amia Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, London: Routledge, 1998.

10th Week (14 Dec.)
       The West and the rest. Self and exotic other in the creation of European identity.
Mandatory reading (either a. or b.):
a) - Edward W. Said, “Introduction,” Orientalism, new and rev. ed., New York: Vintage Books, 1994 (1983), 1-28.
- Milica Bakic-Hayden, „Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia”,  Slavic Review, 54. 4 (1995), pp. 917-931.
or
b)- Mbembe, Achille. On the Postcolony. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2001, 1-23.
- Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe. The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997, 1-16.
Further reading:
- „Postcolonial Cultural Studies” din The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Criticism and Theory, editat de Michael Groden and Martin Kreiswirth, The Johns Hopkins UP, 1994.
- Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, „Can the Subaltern Speak?”, C. Nelson and L. Grossberg (eds), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, London: Macmillan, 1988.
- Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture, London and New York: Routledge, 1994, 66-84.

11th Week (4 Jan.)
Main Concepts of Postcommunist Cultural Studies and their potential applicability in Postcolonial Cultural Studies.
Mandatory reading (one of the following – a or b):
a) - Entries for Balkanism, postcommunism, communization/decommunization, transition, wooden language in Monica Bottez et al. Postcolonialism/Postcommunism: Dictionary of Key Cultural Terms, EUB 2011.
- Bogdan Ștefănescu, „Viză respinsă. Anevoioasele călătorii teoretice dintre lumea postcolonială şi cea postcomunistă”, Dus-întors. Rute ale teoriei literare în modernitate, ed. de Oana Fotache, Magda Răduță, Adrian Tudurachi, Humanitas, 2016.
or
b) - Monika Albrecht (ed.). “Introduction” to Postcolonialism Cross-Examined: Multidirectional Perspectives on Imperial and Colonial Pasts and the Neocolonial Present. London, New York: Routledge., 2019, pp. 1-47.
- Dumitru Tucan, “The Adaptability of Theory: Postcolonialism Vs. Postcommunism in Romanian Literary Studies”, in Dacoromania litteraria vol.II / 2015, pp. 101-116.
Further reading:
- Steven Totosy de Zepetnek, “Comparative Cultural Studies and the Study of Central European Culture”, Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek (ed.), Comparative Central European Culture. West Lafayette: Purdue UP 2002, 1-12.
- Dusan I. Bjelic & Obrad Savic (eds.), Balkan as Metaphor, MIT Press, 2002.
- Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 3-20, 161-189.

12th Week (11 Jan.)
The Other(ing of) Europe.
Mandatory reading:
- Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe. The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997, 1-16.
- Milica Bakic-Hayden, „Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia”,  Slavic Review, 54. 4 (1995), pp. 917-931.

13th Week (?)
     THE MISSING LINK: SOVIET EASTERN EUROPE AND THE THRID WORLD - The Connection between the Second and Third World in a Colonial Context.
Mandatory reading:
- Benyamin Neuberger, “The African Concept of Balkanisation”, The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3 (1976), 523-529.
- Monica Popescu, “Lewis Nkosi in Warsaw: Translating eastern European experiences for an African audience”, Journal of Postcolonial Writing Vol. 48, No. 2 (2012), 176–187.
Further reading:
- Eboe Hutchful, “Eastern Europe: Consequences for Africa”, Review of African Political Economy, No. 50, Africa in a New World Order (Mar.,1991), 51-59.
- Ádám Mayer, „Afrikanizacija: Eastern European Epistemologies and African Labour”,  Intersections. EEJSP 2.1 (2016), 54-73.
- S. Mestrovic. The Balkanization of the West: The Confluence of Postmodernism and Postcommunism. London & NY: Routledge, 1994.

14th Week (?) 
    PREPARATION AND TUTORING FOR FINAL ESSAY.

BCS COURSE PREREQUISITES

Students will not secure a pass for this course unless they have met ALL the requirements below (even for resits/reexaminations):
1. ATTENDANCE [+ COMPENSATING ESSAY WHERE NECESSARY];
2. PRESENTATION/SHORT ESSAY;
3. PORTFOLIO OF READING NOTES FOR AT LEAST 3/4 OF THE MANDATORY BIBLIOGRAPHY;
4. FINAL ESSAY.

• ATTENDANCE.
Attendance is mandatory for at least 50% of all actual meetings or you will not get a pass. Student evaluation will be based, among other criteria, on attendance percentage and in-class participation to debates.

• IN-CLASS REQUIREMENTS.
Professorial input for this course will only occasionally involve traditional lecturing; an important part of the class will be based on debates on assigned texts/topics and on moderated discussions. Consequently, each student’s performance in the weekly meetings is crucial for his/her evaluation.

    1. PRESENTATION/SHORT ESSAY.
Students may volunteer for a 15-MINUTE IN-CLASS PRESENTATION counting for their in-class performance grade. This means they will have to deliver (not read!) a critical presentation of a text/topic in 10-15 minutes, which will be basis of a subsequent class debate. All presentations must be assisted by handouts and/or media material (PowerPoint etc.).
Alternatively, students will hand in a 3-PAGE ESSAY discussing a text from the mandatory bibliography.
Volunteering for in-class presentations will earn the student 2 bonus points for the presentation/short essay grade.

    2. PARTICIPATION IN DEBATES. 
Students will also be assessed for their contribution to in-class discussions and debates.

    3. CLOSE READING/STUDY OF SEMINAR TEXTS.
All students must study closely the selected text(s) for each seminar (not just those who are assigned presentations). Quizzes may be expected as well as verification of personal reading notes for each seminar.

• RULES FOR IN-CLASS ASSIGNMENTS.
- Students SHOULD ENLIST for an assignment (presentation/essay) NO LATER THAN THE SECOND MEETING.
- Failure to DELIVER THE IN-CLASS PRESENTATION AT THE EXACT SCHEDULED TIME will be marked as 0 (nil) and the grade will be compounded with the mark for the short essay.
- Failure to HAND IN THE SHORT ESSAY BY THE ANNOUNCED DEADLINE will attract a deduction of up to 2 points from the mark for the short essay.

Students will not be awarded a grade for this course (i.e., will not pass) unless they have completed their seminar assignments (i.e., WRITTEN ESSAY/PRESENTATION, CLOSE READING OF TEXTS FOR DISCUSSION, PARTICIPATION IN DEBATES).

• CRITICAL METHODOLOGY FOR INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENTS.
-The theme/topic and scope of each presentation/short essay, and final essay will be NEGOTIATED IN ADVANCE with the course director.
-The THEME AND CRITICAL FRAMEWORK MUST BE CLEARLY STATED both in the actual delivery and in the written form of the presentation. Presentations/essays must also have a FIRM OUTLINE and come as a HEADED ARGUMENT.
-The outline of the argument together with key concepts, quotes, and illustrations should appear in a concise, yet sufficiently clear HANDOUT for teacher and fellow students.
-For presentations, short essays, and debates of the seminar bibliography, the students are expected to CRITICALLY PROCESS the text they are presenting. This involves, among other things:
   extracting the outline of the main argument in the text, 
   rearranging and selecting the ideas of the text in accordance with the student's personal prioritization, 
   suggesting points of contention and avenues for debate, 
   highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the text, and, just as importantly, 
   suggesting how the text could become relevant for the student's own cultural background and lifestyle.
- The critical framework for assignments should be derived from the methodology or the bibliography for this course.

• SENDING IN YOUR ASSIGNMENTS.
- All reading notes are to be delivered as a single file.doc (Word), .pdf (Adobe) or .zip (WinZip or 7z) archive files.

- Email your assignments to bogdan.stefanescu@lls.unibuc.ro.

- State your name and class in the subject line ("[LAST NAME], [FIRST NAME], LETTERS Assignments") and sign your email adding the name of your MA program. 
- Attach the essay and the reading notes file. These 2 files should be titled: “LETT_[LAST NAME FIRST NAME]_Critical Essay” and “LETT_[LAST NAME FIRST NAME]_Reading Notes”, respectively. E.g., LETT_Johnson Terry_Critical Essay.doc
ALSO:

- Essays will not be considered unless they are mounted on the Turnitin platform. - Create an account at http://www.turnitin.com/ro/home:  Class ID: 19827948; Class Key: POCOX2

Find more details at Turnitin Guides (link).

N.B. One standard page is 2000 characters with spaces or about 300 words (cf. Tools-Word Count menu in Microsoft Word). Only computer-processed work will be considered for evaluation. All essays and coursework must be emailed to me. Keep copies of all your work and double-check that your emails have actually reached me.

• DEADLINES

Deadline for email submissions of short essays and reading notes: first day of the last week of classes.

• COMPUTATION OF GRADE.
- Grading IN-CLASS PERFORMANCE will reflect:
1) the assignment (the presentation or short essay) = 33%;
2) participation in the seminar debates = 33%;
3) preparation (close reading and reading notes) and attendance = 33%.

- THE IN-CLASS MARK WILL COUNT AS HALF OF THE OVERALL SCORE, THE OTHER HALF IS THE FINAL ESSAY.

- The student must get a pass IN BOTH MARKS (in-class performance and the final essay). A fail in one of the marks automatically triggers a fail in the overall grade.

• FINAL ESSAY.
The final written assignment is a 6-PAGE CRITICAL ESSAY. In order for the essay to be taken into consideration it must:
a) be based on PRELIMINARY NEGOTIATION of the theme, the approach, the format and the structure of the argument,
b) have a CLEARLY STATED THEME, APPROACH AND STRUCTURE,
c) comply with the STYLE OF AN ACADEMIC CRITICAL ESSAY (references and quotations, cited works/bibliography, notes, editing etc.) This course accepts the MLA STYLE (see MLA Style from Purdue University - link).

- Please note that the theme has to deal with one of the following:
   a) a comparison between the discourses of post-dependence identity re/construction of (former) Western and Soviet colonies, or
   b) an analysis of the discourse of post-dependence identity re/construction of a (former) Western colony by employing the critical vocabulary/methodology of postcommunist cultural studies, or
   c) an analysis of the discourse of post-dependence identity re/construction of a (former) Soviet colony by employing the critical vocabulary/methodology of postcolonial cultural studies.
The approach must come from the methodology and the bibliography for this course.
Remember: this is a class in the discourse-based, comparative cultural study of postcolonialism and postcommunism. Therefore, work in the form of personal essay, editorial journalism, or historical overview is irrelevant and will not be taken into account.

- Failure to HAND IN THE FINAL ESSAY BY THE ANNOUNCED DEADLINE will attract a deduction of up to 2 points from the mark for the final essay.

- Any form of PLAGIARISM (http://www.plagiarism.org/) in this course will automatically result in a FAIL and in the suggestion to the board that the culprit be EXPELLED.

• MALFUNCTIONS/TROUBLESHOOTING. 
Should any problems arise regarding the bibliography and its availability to students or the impossibility to meet a deadline or other requirements, please NOTIFY YOUR COURSE DIRECTOR (that would be me) ASAP at stefbogdan@gmail.com or by SMS. No excuses will be accepted unless a solution has previously been attempted with the course director/BCSC management. All other malfunctions should be reported ASAP to the course director or to the BCSC management team.