POSTCOLONIAL NARRATIVE

CELIA WALLHEAD SALWAY

COURSE OUTLINE

This Masters course on Postcolonial Narrative offers a survey of the prose written in English by authors of the British Commonwealth mostly since the Second World War. However, we go back to the beginnings and the roots, since the subject is dealt with only cursorily on the undergraduate degree course. The set text is Elleke Boehmer‟s Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors (OUP: 1995), chosen precisely because the author acknowledges that one cannot understand postcolonialism without first having a sturdy grasp of the British Empire and colonialism in general. The book focuses upon the history, geography, politics, economy and social and literary life of the countries in question. Boehmer‟s subtitle underlines the importance in postcolonialism of travelling, particularly to and from the metropolis. Colonialism exported Modernism to the world, and in our day and age, there is, in the words of Helen Tiffin, “a good deal of formal and tropological overlap between „primary‟ texts variously categorised as „post-modern‟ or „post-colonial.‟” (1991: vii, see Bibliography for Adam and Tiffin) Postmodernism is Europe‟s export to what it regards as “margins.” By contrast, postcolonial writing moves from colonised, formerly colonised, and neo-colonised areas –from African countries, Australia and New Zealand, Canada, the Caribbean, India –towards Europe, or more recently, towards the U.S. (ibid.: ix) Thus, while the students will not be expected to have an extensive background knowledge of postcolonialism, they will have to be, or become, versant with postmodernism and also feminist theory. Once the reading of the set text is under way, the students will be invited to contribute their ideas and opinions to the class discussions and then to choose a novel by one of the authors considered postcolonial and included in the appended list (or a suitable author of their own suggestion). They should apply what they have learned and explain, first in a short oral exposition to the class and later in an essay, in what ways and for what reasons the novel they have chosen can be considered postcolonial.

TIMETABLE 2010-11

1. Monday 21 February 5–7 pm Presentation of the course: content, method, evaluation, terminology and bibliography.

2. Friday 25 February 12 noon–3 pm Elleke Boehmer, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature. Introduction & Chapter 1: Imperialism and Textuality

3. Friday 4 March 12 noon–3 pm Boehmer Chapter 2: Colonialist Concerns

4. Friday 11 March 12 noon–3 pm Boehmer Chapter 3: The Stirrings of New Nationalism

5. Friday 18 March 12 noon–3 pm Boehmer Chapter 4: Metropolitans and Mimics

6. Friday 25 March 12 noon–3 pm Boehmer Chapters 5: Independence & Chapter 6: Postcolonialism and Beyond

7. Friday 15 April 12 noon–3 pm Student presentations

LIST OF POSTCOLONIAL AUTHORS

Chinua Achebe Hanif Kureishi Monica Ali Paule Marshall Margaret Atwood Rohinton Mistry Peter Carey V.S.Naipaul J.M.Coetzee Jean Rhys Anita Desai Arundhati Roy Alan Duff Salman Rushdie Fadia Faqir Zadie Smith Richard Flanagan Ahdaf Soueif Nadine Gordimer Amy Tan Patricia Grace Ngugi Wa‟Thiongo Wilson Harris Patrick White Witi Ihimaera etc. Matthew Kneale

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

SET TEXT: Boehmer, Elleke. 1995. Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors. Oxford: Oxford University Press (Opus).

BACKGROUND READING: Adam, Ian, and Helen Tiffin (eds.) 1991. Past the Last Post: Theorizing Post- Colonialism and Post-Modernism. NY, London etc.: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. 1989. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. London & NY: Routledge. D‟Haen, Theo and Hans Bertens (eds.) 1988. Postmodern Fiction in Europe and the Americas. (Postmodern Studies I). Amsterdam: Rodopi. Hassan, Ihab. 1987. The Postmodern Turn: Essays in Postmodern Theory and Culture. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Hutcheon, Linda. 1988. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. NY & London: Routledge. Linguanti, Elsa, Francesco Casotti and Carmen Concilio (eds.) 1994. Coterminous Worlds: Magical Realism and contemporary post-colonial literature in English. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Spivak, G.C. 1987. In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. London: Methuen. Walder, Dennis. 1998. Post-colonial Literatures in English: History, Language, Theory. Oxford: Balckwell.