Kiss Me, Hardy, I'm a Maritime Criminal

Just before the start of Winter Quarter 2004, I asked my colleague Claire Robertson if I could sit in on her graduate readings course, “Women, Colonialism, Sexuality.” By “graduate readings course” I mean a weekly discussion-based seminar intended to assist graduate students (those working on MA’s of PhD’s) in gaining a command of the key books, articles, and conceptual frameworks in a given field. I recently sent a email to Claire (now a professor emerita) requesting her to send a copy of the syllabus, which she still had in her files.

Here’s the part of the syllabus dealing with “Goals and Substance.” Personally, I’m going to imagine Rush Limbaugh reading it aloud:

“This reading course explores the intersections of race, ethnicity, class, religion, and sexuality in the context of colonialism, with a particular focus on women and gender. European and American colonialism was arguably the strongest political and cultural force of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. . . . It has/had many socioeconomic implications for both colonized and colonizer peoples, including women. . . . We will pay particular attention to the voices of colonized women and to their representations in colonialism.”

At this distance I don’t recall why I chose the course; probably because I was interested in learning something about post colonialism and a friend of mine, Steven Hyland (who was then a PhD student), recommended it to me. But whatever the reason, I was very glad I did.

Too often we see our colleagues mainly in faculty meetings. Too seldom do we choose to encounter them in their natural habitat, the classroom.

My first post in IPMH dealing with Claire’s course is dated January 16, 2004, which corresponds to the start of Block II of the course: “Experiences of the Colonized: Comparative and Historical Perspectives.” The first subject within that block: “Growing up under colonialism.”

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Had a very interesting day yesterday which, unfortunately, I don't yet have time to describe. The high point was when I sat in on a course in colonialism, women and sexuality taught by my colleague, Claire Robertson. The reading for the day was Jamaica Kincaid's “A Small Place” (1988), billed as a first-person perspective on growing up under colonialism (in her case, the Caribbean island of Antigua). I expect to offer my extended reflections in a day or two. For now, military historians may be interested to know that Kincaid refers to Admiral Horatio Nelson as "the maritime criminal Nelson." One way to deal with this is to roll one's eyes. A better way is to ask why Kincaid might feel, to the core of her being, that the hero of Trafalgar merits that appellation, and at the same time ask oneself from whence the urge to roll one's eyes arises.