Teaching the Literature of Revolution

Any truly radical shift in U.S. politics requires the mobilization of widespread social protest. Given the untrammeled abuses of Machtpolitik during the Bush years, with its unapologetic electoral fraud, its attack on the remnants of New Deal and Great Society liberalism, its aggressive militarism, and its smug conviction that a docile population need never factor into its major decisions, it might be argued that popular mobilization in the United States is a thing of the past. The 1999 Seattle protests and the February 2003 worldwide marches against the war in Iraq notwithstanding, the U.S. population arguably displays less that revolution is "embedded in the human spirit," in Abbie Hoffman's words, and more that the human spirit has an infinite capacity to tolerate abuse. The much vaunted "peaceful transition" of George W. Bush out of office, and the increasing likelihood that none of his former administration will be subject to even a truth and reconciliation process, further suggests a deep-seated complacency on the part of the American people. As educators and humanists, it is imperative that we direct our energies in the classroom towards a revitalization of the ideas of social power and mass agency.

With that in mind, in the spring semester of 2007, I introduced a course at Salisbury University entitled Literature of Revolution: Anticolonial Liberation in Postcolonial Fiction, in which we examined revolution both as an historical phenomenon and also as the subject of narrative. I offered the course again in the fall of 2008, with some adjustments in content and pedagogical approach. The original impetus for the course came from my observation, as an instructor of post-colonial literature, that students' comprehension of the decolonization struggles of the twentieth-century was inadequate or nonexistent. For these students, "third world" connoted not Bandung, the non-aligned movement, anti-capitalist struggle, a "third way," or the strength and determination of mass action, but rather victimization, underdevelopment, human rights abuse, and AIDS. The peoples of the decolonized nations were not powerful agents with a history of popular struggle, but hapless victims of their own inability to modernize. Reinforcing the agency and social power of the colonized, I had hoped that the course would demand that students question their own position in relation to power, and recognize the resources they might bring to bear in transforming the foundations of power.

Salisbury University students come, typically, from across the state of Maryland and from both sides of the Chesapeake Bay. A fairly small percentage of the student body is comprised of locals of the Eastern Shore, a region proud of a history of staunch social conservatism which tends to contrast with the larger tendencies of the state. In my experience, I have seen that students often come to Salisbury because they or their parents prefer the perceived comfort, shelter, and security of a small town college experience to, presumably, the cosmopolitan dangers of College Park or Baltimore County. Among the Maryland schools, Salisbury University's student population is one of the least diverse, a problem recognized by the administration, which refers to the institution, in the words of the current university president, as "diversity challenged."¹ The three sections of my Revolution class (two in 2007 and one in 2008) were overwhelmingly comprised of white, middle-class Marylanders. Salisbury University students tend to be polite and respectful to a fault. They know somehow that their instructor is to be called "doctor," and typically resist any efforts to replace that title with first-name familiarity. They tend to be active listeners and note-takers, but difficult to spark into debate. Characteristic perhaps of many undergraduates, they seem to prefer to be told what to think (and will often assent blandly to the most flagrantly preposterous assertions) rather than challenge their instructor with their own beliefs or opinions. This is as true of the politically conservative students as it is of those on the political left. In part, this passivity on the part of the students is encouraged, perhaps unwittingly, by the administration, which forbids the posting of any fliers on university kiosks without prior administrative approval. Predictably, most...