ENG 225-01 - Introduction to Postcolonial Literatures (Fall)

4 credits

In this course we will study literary and theoretical responses to canonical English literature by authors from formerly colonized countries. By establishing a critical relation to traditional English literature, such responses inaugurate a new literary sensibility. Our discussions will include a consideration of terms such as ‘postcolonial,’ ‘home,’ and ‘english.’ Fiction written in English describes not only a literary and cultural tradition, but also a political response to the colonial past and the possibilities of a postcolonial future. We will explore how postcolonial fiction becomes an alternative history that questions colonial narratives. The final section of the course will focus on writers from the Asian, African, and Caribbean diaspora, who give voice to the multiple locations of “home.” Readings for the course include critical essays by postcolonial theorists such as Fernandez Retamar, and Ella Shohat, Shakespeare’s The Tempest; Aime Cesaire’s A Tempest; Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe; Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea; Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy; Salman Rushdie’s East, West; The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh; and Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day. We will also explore concepts such as ‘exile’ and ‘location’ in the poetry of Derek Walcott.

Prerequisite: ENG 120 or ENG 121 for majors; for non-majors,ENG 120 or ENG 121 or any course in the study of literature in another language department.
Instructor: Kapila

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