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Literature and Historiography of National Trauma: Partition and South Asia

ENGL 393.401
instructor(s):

This course will examine the way in which imaginative literature and film have addressed the difficult socio-political issues leading up to, and following from, the independence and partition of British India. Pakistan and India came into being as nation-states in moments of great national trauma: historians have long argued over the process that led up to Partition, and we will study some of these debates, but for the most part we will examine novels, short stories, poetry, and some films to think about the impact of Partition and Independence on communities and individuals in South Asia. In doing so, we will recognize the continuing role played by these events and experiences in shaping the cultural, social, and political realities of contemporary South Asia. We will also learn about the crucial role played by literary and creative texts in making available to us the full dimensions of human tragedy, especially those precipitated when the imperatives of nation-formation redefine the lives of individuals or of sub-national communities.

Readings will include:

Urvashi Butalia, The Other Side of Silence, Paperback ISBN: 0822324946

Bapsi Sidhwa, Cracking India, Paperback ISBN: 0915943565

Suvir Kaul, ed. The Partitions of Memory Paperback ISBN 0253215668

Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines, Paperback ISBN: 061832996-x

Films will include Deepa Mehta's Earth and Sabiha Sumar's Khamosh Paani

fulfills requirements
Elective of the Standard Major
Sector 1: Theory and Poetics of the Standard Major
Sector 2: Difference and Diaspora of the Standard Major
Sector 6: 20th Century Literature of the Standard Major