ENGL 285

Spring 2020 All Classes

All Classes

Postcolonial Literature in English

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Credit: 3 hours.

Examination of selected postcolonial literature, theory, and film as texts that "write back" to dominant European representations of power, identity, gender and the Other. Postcolonial writers, critics and filmmakers studied may include Franz Fanon, Edward Said, Aime Cesaire, Ousmane Sembene, Chinua Achebe, Michelle Cliff, Mahesweta Devi, Buchi Emecheta, Derek Walcott and Marlene Nourbese-Philip.

Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.

This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2022 for:

Cultural Studies - Non-West

Humanities – Lit & Arts

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ENGL 285 class schedule data for spring 2020
	CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
	32110	Lecture-Discussion	M	9:30AM -10:45AM	TR	104 English Building	Basu, M	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 01/21/20-05/06/20 Degree Notes: Humanities - Lit & Arts, and Cultural Studies - Non-West course. Section Info: As Deepika Bahri writes, “Although there is considerable debate about the exact parameters of the field and even the definition of the term ‘postcolonial,’ in a very general sense, it refers to the interactions between European nations and the societies they colonized in the modern period.” These interactions were violent, sometimes grotesquely funny, always shifting, and above all, transformative for both sides – colonizer and colonized. This is why we begin our course with a text that despite having been authored by perhaps the most representative literary figure of the Western world expresses a distinctly uneasy relationship with the colonial encounter. The Tempest will function as our entry point into a host of other writings composed in the wake of mid-twentieth century liberation struggles across the globe. At this time, many writers from what used to be called ‘the third-world’ began to give expression to their cultural experiences in the language of the former colonial power. Given that it is called Postcolonial Literature in English, it is the language of the former colonial power that will be significant for our readings in this course. We will strive to understand what forms such a language takes as it attempts to carry the weight of diverse realities, as it negotiates the taut relations between class, gender, racial and religious identities, and as it shapes and reshapes itself in the midst of changing social institutions, lifestyles, and habits.