Topics in Modern British Novel
Rita Barnard profile
MWF 10
In this advanced seminar we will study a series of thematically connected novels by some of the century's most important writers from England and her former colonies: India, the Carribean, South Africa, and Nigeria. There will be a certain emphasis on novels set or written in Africa, and especially South Africa, since that is what I am currently working on. Our class discussions will explore the following issues: "Englishness" and "Otherness"; civilization and barbarism; the intersections of race and gender; writing and orality; violence, torture, and voyeurism; the pastoral; the meaning of such ideas are "history," "empire," "liberation." Students should expect to read a novel a week, plus a few critica nd theoretical essays, and to come to film screenings. The grade will be based on a 5-7 page midterm paper, a 7-10 page final paper, and occasional class presentations. The reading list will include: Haggard, King Solomon's Mines; Conrad, The Heart of Darkness; Forster, A Passage to India; Waugh, Black Mischief; Lessing, The Grass is Singing; Rhys, The Wide Sargasso Sea; Greene, The Quiet American; Achebe, Things Fall Apart; Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians & Life and Times of Michael K.; Brink, Dry White Season; Gordimer, The Conservationist & Something Out There; Head, The Collector of Treasures; Rushdie, East\West. Films: Woza Albert!; Black and White in Color; Mapantsula.
updated 2006-02-24
