Université Larbi Ben M'hidi Oum El Bouaghi

By clarifying concepts and mechanisms, this course aims at enhancing students' understanding of the policy-making process in the UK and in the USA. It aims also at promoting their analytical thinking so as to be able to make projections.

The course chiefly intends to  introduce M2 students of Literature and Civilization to Postcolonial literature;  a wide range of writing that is produced by the former colonized during and after colonization. This literature, first and foremost, reacts against, revises, relativizes, and deconstructs the longstanding history of Western logocentrism that seriously led to Manichean dichotomies that can be summarized in the West and the Rest/Other and all its implications. As many negative images and stereotypes revolving around the Other as a direct result of that dichotomy, postcolonial literature harshly attacks those stereotypes and deadly strives to fix them. Then, the primary goal of this course is to  provide a theoretical framework for reading and analyzing Postcolonial texts with casting light on the impact of the ex-colonizer on the ex-colonized, from the very first contact till present, in different areas such as politics, economy, history, and culture. It will also provide key concepts and figures related to the theory --to name but few: identity, hybridity, racism, hegemony, Franz Fanon, Edward Said, Chinua Achebe, Ngugi Wa Thiong'o-- to understand the nature of the relationship between the colonizer and colonized and how it is represented in different literatures with a special focus on African and Caribbean literatures. 

In the first semester,  Research methodology Seminar aims at helping M2 students of Literature and Civilization to realize their master's final project for graduation. It provides them with the main tools and tips a researcher needs to conduct their research from topic selection and definition to the edition of the whole work. It starts with the main steps to follow in writing a research proposal that should cover the following items: The What, the Why, the How, the literature review, and the outline. Overall, it teaches them dissertation skills that show them how to frame their questions and constructing their content. Moreover, this course introduces the MLA style-- 7th edition- that helps students to correctly cite the sources and materials they will rely on in their research and to respect the rules and ethics of doing a research. The seminar in research methodology accompanies the students to show them the main strategies and techniques that might help them complete their research successfully, and more importantly it teaches them to be as critical as they can.  

Description of the Course 

This course is intended for students of ‘literature and civilization’ at the Master level, third semester. It aims to raise students’ (or prospective teachers’) awareness of the importance of integrating culture in the foreign language class. More importantly, it argues for a systematic approach to teach the cultural component, attempting to answer questions as: What principles underlie culture teaching in the foreign language class? What are the cultural aims / objectives to be pursued in the foreign language class? How much culture to teach? What should be taught in the name of culture? What is the appropriate time to introduce culture? And what methods and techniques are used to teach culture? An important part of the course is also devoted to highlighting the way language and culture are interlocked, particularly in patterns of communication.