This Writing Intensive sophomore-level course will focus on the formation of Postcolonial Literature. We will be reading Significant “Short Fiction” from two anthologies: 1) COLONIAL AND POSTCOLONIAL SHORT FICTION: ANTHOLOGY, edited by Robert Ross and 2) Shyam Selvadurai’s STORY-WALLAH. The short fiction will introduce you to the colonialpostcolonial encounter and to some significant African and South Asian writers. We will write two reaction-response papers of 500 words each to two different groups of short stories. Bapsi Sidhwa’s CRACKING INDIA, together with its movie version EARTH, will introduce you to the partition of India. You will write a 1000 word essay comparing the film and the novel. Arundhati Roy’s GOD OF SMALL THINGS and Monica Ali’s BRICK LANE will tell the tales of siblings growing up coming into an awareness of their nationalities, identities and belonging. A final research paper of about 2,500 words will help you draw together the themes in the course. This course is meant to be a fun and interesting introduction primarily to South Asian culture in the context of other colonized cultures.
The learning outcomes hoped for in this course include learning to write about literature, researching a literary topic and writing a cogently argued research paper about a group of literary works. It is also hoped that you can write both about the politics and the literary aspects of a story or novel.