EN3C4-30 Studies in Postcolonial Literature
Introductory description
EN3C4-30 Studies in Postcolonial Literature
Module aims
Writers from the Anglophone 'postcolonial' world today confront a (prospectively) global audience. This module aims to introduce students to the contemporary body of literature being produced by writers (and film-makers) from, e.g., Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia, and to situate it in terms of the historical circumstances that have engendered it and to which it constitutes a response. The module will examine the various ways in which different writers negotiate and represent social conditions -- local and global -- in their work, and the ways in which they incorporate and work with domestic and foreign literary forms and conventions. The works will be read comparatively, in relation to one another, and as contributions to particular literary and cultural traditions. Social issues under review will range very widely: for example, race, violence, religion and communalism, land, ‘development’ and the environment, sex and gendered identity, nation and state, memory, trauma and prolepsis, and cultural/linguistic imperialism.
Outline syllabus
This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.
Syllabus for Term 1:
Week One: Introduction to the Module
Week Two: Olive Senior, Gardening in the Tropics
Week Three: Erna Brodber, Myal
Week Four: Dionne Brand, Inventory
Week Five: Nalo Hopkinson, The Salt Roads
Week Six: No class. Reading Week
Week Seven: Nicole Dennis-Benn, Here Comes the Sun
Week Eight: Raquel Salas Rivera, Before Island is Volcano
Week Nine: Xavier Navarro Aquino, Velorio
Week Ten: Reclaim, Restore, Return: Futurist Tales from the Caribbean
Syllabus for Term 2: Sub-Saharan Africa
Week One: J M Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians (1980)
Week Two: Ayi Kwei Armah, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968)
Week Three: Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions (1988)
Week Four: Nadine Gordimer, The House Gun (1998)
Week Five: Film: Tsotsi (dir. Gavin Hood, 2005)
THE FILM WILL BE SCREENED ON WEDNESDAY, FEB 7 AT 7 PM IN H545.
Week Six: No class. Reading Week
Week Seven: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun (2006)
Week Eight: Mia Couto, Confession of the Lioness (2012)
Week Nine: Film (screening to be arranged): Moolaadé (dir. Ousmane Sembene, 2004)
Week Ten: Ngugi wa Thiong’o, A Grain of Wheat (1967)
Learning outcomes
By the end of the module, students should be able to:
- Familiarity with a wide range of Anglophone writing that has emerged after decolonization.
- Familiarity with basic concepts and methods of post-colonial studies.
- Acquire knowledge of key theoretical, literary, cultural and critical contexts within which to situate the set texts.
- Develop analytical and critical skills through close reading/viewing of the set texts.
- Adjust to scholarly standards and protocols of academic presentation.
Indicative reading list
Aaron Kamugisha. Ed. Caribbean Political Thought: The Colonial State to Caribbean Internationalisms. Ian Randle, 2013.
——. Ed. Caribbean Political Thought: Theories of the Postcolonial State. Ian Randle, 2013
Aaron Kamugisha and Yanique Hume. Eds. Caribbean Cultural Thought: From Plantation to Diaspora. Ian Randle, 2013.
Lovelace, Earl. Growing in the Dark: Selected Essays. Ed. Funso Aiyejina. San Juan, Trinidad and Tobago: Lexicon, 2003.
Puri, Shalini. Caribbean Postcolonial. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Watts, David. The West Indies: Patterns of Development, Culture and Environmental Change since 1492. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Ulka Anjaria, ed. A History of the Indian Novel in English (Cambridge UP, 2015)
--------------, Realism in the Twentieth-Century Indian Novel: Colonial Difference and Literary Form (Cambridge University Press, 2012)
Deepika Bahri, Native Intelligence: Aesthetics, Politics, and Postcolonial Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota P., 2003)
Mrinalini Chakravorty, In Stereotype: South Asia in the Global Literary Imaginary (Columbia University Press, 2014)
Toral Jatin Gajarawala, Untouchable Fictions: Literary Realism and the Crisis of Caste (Fordham University Press, 2012)
Ghosh, Bishnupriya, When Borne Across: Literary Cosmopolitics in the Contemporary Indian Novel (New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press, 2004)
Gopal, Priyamvada. The Indian English Novel: Nation, History, and Narration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)
Priya Joshi, In Another Country: Colonialism, Culture and the English Novel in India (Columbia University Press, 2002)
Tabish Khair, Babu Fictions: Alienation in Indian English Novels (Oxford University Press, 2001)
Satya P. Mohanty, ed. Colonialism, Modernity, Literature: A View from India (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)
Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Perishable Empire: Essays on Indian Writing in English (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000)
Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee, Postcolonial Environment: Nature, Culture and the Contemporary Indian Novel in English (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)
Rashmi Sadana, English Heart, Hindi Heartland: The Political Life of Literature in India (University of California Press, 2012)
Snehal Shinghavi, The Mahatma Misunderstood: The Politics and Forms of Literary Nationalism in India (Anthem, 2013)
Anis Shivani, "Indo-Anglian Fiction: The New Orientalism". Race and Class 47, 4 (2006)
E. Dawson Varughese, Reading New India: Post-Millennial Indian Fiction in English (Bloomsbury, 2014)
Africa
Chinua Achebe, Morning Yet on Creation day (Heinemann, 1977)
Chidi Amuta, The Theory of African Literature: Implications for Practical Criticism (Zed, 1989)
Jean-Francois Bayart, The State in Africa: Politics of the Belly (Longman, 1993)
Aquino de Braganca and Immanuel Wallerstein eds., The African Liberation Reader, 3vols (Zed, n.d.)
Basil Davidson, Let Freedom Come: Africa in Modern History (Little Brown, 1978)
Neil Lazarus, Resistance in Postcolonial African Fiction (Yale, 1990)
Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton UP, 1996)
Ali A. Mazrui ed., Africa Since 1935. General History of Africa Vol.VIII (James Currey, 1999)
Njabulo Ndebele, Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Essays on South African Literature and Culture (COSAW, 1991)
Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature
Subject specific skills
No subject specific skills defined for this module.
Transferable skills
No transferable skills defined for this module.
Study time
| Type | Required |
|---|---|
| Lectures | 18 sessions of 1 hour (6%) |
| Seminars | 18 sessions of 1 hour (6%) |
| Private study | 264 hours (88%) |
| Total | 300 hours |
Private study description
Reading & research
Costs
No further costs have been identified for this module.
You do not need to pass all assessment components to pass the module.
Assessment group A1
| Weighting | Study time | Eligible for self-certification | |
|---|---|---|---|
Assessment component |
|||
| Assessed Essay 1 | 50% | Yes (extension) | |
|
Based on Term 1 readings |
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Reassessment component is the same |
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Assessment component |
|||
| Assessed essay 2 | 50% | Yes (extension) | |
|
Based on Term 2 readings |
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Reassessment component is the same |
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Feedback on assessment
Written comments; opportunity for further oral feedback in office hours.
Courses
This module is Core optional for:
- Year 3 of UENA-Q300 Undergraduate English Literature
- Year 3 of UENA-QP36 Undergraduate English Literature and Creative Writing
- Year 4 of UENA-QP37 Undergraduate English Literature and Creative Writing with Intercalated Year
- Year 4 of UENA-Q301 Undergraduate English Literature with Intercalated Year
This module is Optional for:
- Year 3 of UENA-Q300 Undergraduate English Literature
- Year 3 of UENA-QP36 Undergraduate English Literature and Creative Writing
- Year 4 of UENA-QP37 Undergraduate English Literature and Creative Writing with Intercalated Year
- Year 4 of UENA-Q301 Undergraduate English Literature with Intercalated Year
- Year 3 of UENA-VQ32 Undergraduate English and History
- Year 4 of UENA-VQ33 Undergraduate English and History (with Intercalated year)
- Year 4 of UENA-QW35 Undergraduate English and Theatre Studies with Intercalated Year
- Year 4 of UFIA-QW25 Undergraduate Film and Literature
- Year 4 of UFIA-QW26 Undergraduate Film and Literature (with Study Abroad)
This module is Core option list C for:
- Year 4 of UCXA-QQ38 Undergraduate Classics and English (with Intercalated Year)
This module is Option list A for:
- Year 3 of UCXA-QQ37 Undergraduate Classics and English
- Year 3 of UFIA-QW25 Undergraduate Film and Literature
This module is Option list B for:
- Year 3 of UTHA-QW34 Undergraduate English and Theatre Studies
This module is Option list C for:
- Year 3 of UPHA-VQ72 Undergraduate Philosophy and Literature
- Year 4 of UPHA-VQ73 Undergraduate Philosophy and Literature with Intercalated Year