Syllabus

Term 1: The Long Nineteenth Century

Week 1: Introduction 

Week 2: Setting the Theoretical Frame:

Required Reading:

Edward Said, "Introduction,"Orientalism, 32-58

Ngugi wa Thion'go, "The Language of African Literature" inDecolonizing the Mind, 19-49.

Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, Helen Tiffin, "Introduction,"The Empire Writes Back

Recommended Reading:

Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism

Elleke Boehmer, "The Stirrings of New Nationalism" inColonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors, 17-39.

Week 3:

Required Reading:

Mary Seacole,The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands

Required Critical Reading:

Kenneth McNeill, "Roots/Routes of Empire: Mary Seacole and Scottish-Caribbean Identity" inVictorian Studies(2024)

Recommended Reading:

Angelia Poon "Comic Acts of (Be)Longing: Performing Englishness inWonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands"inVictorian Literature and Culture(2007)

Week 4: The Emergence of Anglophone Writing in India and Southeast Asia: Speculative Fiction

Begum Rokeya Hossein, "Sultana's Dream"

Kylas Chunder Dutt, "A Journal of 48 Hours of the Year 1945" inWasafiri21 or Mary Ellis Gibson'sScience Fiction in Colonial India, 1835-1905.

Anon., "The Travels of Chong Ching Chang" from theStraits Chinese Magazine(1898) athttps://www.pulauujong.org/straits-chinese-stories/the-travels-of-chang-ching-chong/

Required Critical Reading:

Mary Ellis Gibson, Introduction toScience Fiction in Colonial India, 1835-1905

Recommended Reading:

Rudyard Kipling, "The Mark of the Beast"

Jean Fernandez, "Recognizing the Leper: Hindu Myth, British Medicine, and the Crisis of Realism in Rudyard Kipling's "The Mark of the Beast"

Week 5: The Early Anglophone Novel in India:

Required Reading:

Bankimchandra Cattopadhyaya [or Chatterjee],Rajmohan's Wife 

Required Critical Reading:

Amitav Ghosh, fromThe Great Derangement(pages 16-24)

Recommended Critical Reading:

Sukanya Banarjee, "Troubling Conjugal Loyalties: The First Indian Novel in English and the Transimperial Framework of Sensation."

Week 6: Reading Week 

Week 7: Woman's Writing and India:

Cornelia Sorabji, "Stray Thoughts of an Indian Girl"

Cornelia Sorabji, "Behind the Purdah"

Pandita Ramabai, "The Cry of Indian Women'"

Required Critical Reading:

Tara Puri, "Kamala Satthianadan and the Indian Ladies' Magazine"

Week 8: The First African Novel in English?:

Joseph Jeffrey Walters,Guyana Pau

Required Critical Reading:

Gareth Griffiths and Joseph Singler, "Introduction" to Broadview Press edition ofGuyanya Pau

Recommended Reading:

Marita, or the Folly of Love, ed. Stephanie Newell

Week 9: Revolution and Revelation:

SUN Yat-sen,Kidnapped in London

Required Critical Reading:

Shan Li, "Sun Yat-sen’s English Writing and Revolutionary Image after His Kidnapping and Imprisonment in London"

Week 10: Traveller's Tales:

Ham Mukasa, Chapter V ofUganda’s Katikiro in England

SOSEKI Natsume, "Letter from London" inThe Tower of London and Other Stories

T. N. Mukharji, Chapter 2: "First Impressions" inA Visit to Europe

Term 2: The Twentieth Century

Week 1: Re-imagining History I:

Required Reading:

Sol Plaatje,Mudhi

Required Critical Reading:

Graham Huggan, "African Literature and the Anthropological Exotic"

Recommended Critical Reading:

Michael Green, "Generic Instability and the National Project: History, Nation, and Form in Sol T. Plaatje'sMhudi."

Becky Clarke, "The African Writers Series-Celebrating Forty Years of Publishing Distinction."

Week 2: Re-imagining History II:

Required Reading:

Paul Scott,Staying On[Second-hand copies widely available.]

Required Critical Reading:

Bill Schwarz, "Introduction: End of Empire and the English Novel."

Week 3: Re-imagining History III:

R.K. Narayan,Malgudi Days

Required Critical Reading:

Cynthia Vanden Driesen, "R.K. Narayan's Neglected Novel:Waiting for the Mahatma"

Recommended Critical Reading:

Satish C. Aikant, "Colonial Ambivalence in R. K. Narayan'sWaiting for the Mahatma"

Week 4: Anglophone Drama: South Africa:

Required Reading:

Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona, Sizwe Bansi Is Dead

Full production athttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93a2xx5e-Gw

Required Critical Reading:

Gibson Alessandro Cima, "ResurrectingSizwe Bansi Is Dead1972-2008"

Recommended Critical Reading:

Caroline Davis, "Publishing Anti-Apartheid Literature: Athol Fugard's Statement Plays"

Week 5: Anglophone Drama: Singapore:

Required Reading:
Stella Kon, Emily of Emerald Hill

Full production available to view athttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuAmba_1tH4

Required Critical Reading:

KK Seet, "Once Again With Feeling’:Emily Of Emerald Hillas Floating Signifier"

Recommended Critical Reading:

Kenneth Tan, "Cross-Dress for Success: Performing Ivan Heng and Chowee Leow's 'An Occasional Orchid' and Stella Kon's 'Emily of Emerald Hill' on the Singapore Stage"

Week 6: Reading Week

Week 7: Looking Backward from Diaspora II:

Required Reading:

Harold Sonny Ladoo, No Pain Like This Body

Required Critical Reading:

Peter Such, "The Short Life and Sudden Death of Harry Ladoo"

Week 8: Looking Backward from Diaspora II:

Bessie Head,A Question of Power

Required Critical Reading:

Caroline Davies, "A Question of Power: Bessie Head and her Publishers"

Week 9: Looking Backward from Diaspora III:

Ama ata Aido:Our Sister Killjoy

Required Critical Reading:

Chioma Opara, "Narrative Technique and the Politics of Gender: Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy and No Sweetness Here"

Week 10: Looking Backward from Diaspora IV:

Buchi Emecheta, In the Ditch

Required Critical Reading:

Stuart Hall, "Subjects in History: Making Diasporic Identities"