28618 Global Anglophone Literature

This class introduces students to the emerging field of Global Anglophone literature, which analyses texts produced both at the center and the peripheries of Britain’s imperial projects, including Canada, Kenya, Jamaica, Trinidad, Nigeria, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, South Asia, and Great Britain itself. Beginning with some foundational material on the history and cultures of the British Empire, we will read a wide selection of 20th and 21st century texts from the greater Anglophone world, asking how these fictional works illuminate the forces that have and continue to shape the globalized yet unequal world we inhabit today. Special attention will be paid to global histories of race, indigeneity, gender, economy, development, liberalism, technology, and war. Primary works may include writings by Arundahti Roy, Amitav Ghosh, Joseph Conrad, George Orwell, Salman Rushdie J.M. Coetzee, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Doris Lessing, Rider Haggard, Michael Ondaatje, Eden Robinson, Nadine Gordimer, Rawi Hage, Chimimanda Adichie, Peter Carey, Ian McEwan, V.S. Naipaul, Patrick White, Jack Davis, Mulk Raj Anand, Indra Sinha, and Aravind Adiga. (B, G)

Hadji Bakara
2016-2017 Spring