Postcolonial Literature
Fall 2009 ENGL 0610E S01
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Instructor: Olakunle George
Please check the Detailed Class Information for up to date information about this course.
Information on meeting times for this course can be found on Course Schedule at http://selfservice.brown.edu
Course Description
Examines fiction, drama, poetry, travel writing, and cultural theory by contemporary writers from former colonies of the British Empire. We study works by Anglophone African, Caribbean, and South Asian writers. Issues include: nationalism and globalization; cultural identity and diaspora; individual interiority and collective aspirations; literary form and the very idea of "postcolonial" literature. Authors include: J. M. Coetzee, Amitav Ghosh, V. S. Naipaul, Michael Ondaatje, Caryl Phillips, Derek Walcott, Zoë Wicomb.
Instructor's Description
From about the end of World War II, the period now known as the "decolonization era” witnessed the gaining of political independence by “Third-World” societies that were under Western-European colonial rule. In literature, this process has been accompanied by the emergence of writers from those formerly colonized societies. This course focuses on imaginative literature by selected writers from Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia. We will be interested, not only in what the writers have to say, but also how they use different literary devices to get their ideas across. In terms of aesthetic form as well as philosophical vision, what do the postcolonial texts share, and how are they different? Throughout the semester, you will be challenged to read closely and attentively.
Assignments and Grading
PAPERS AND GRADING:
Students will write three papers (4-5 pages each) due in Weeks 4, 9, and end of semester. Final grade will be based on the papers and class participation.
Readings and Required Texts
READING:
Five novels; two plays; poetry selections; short critical essays.
REQUIRED TEXTS
J. M. Coetzee, Life and Times of Michael K
Amitav Ghosh, In an Antique Land
Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy
Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient
Wole Soyinka, Death and the King’s Horseman (play)
Derek Walcott, Pantomime (play)
Zoë Wicomb, David’s Story
A course packet of poetry and essays in critical and cultural theory