Syllabus
TERM 1
Week 1: Introduction to the module and its objectives
UNIT 1: The Black Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions
- Amasa Delano, Narrative of Voyages and Travels in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres; comprising Three Voyages Round the World (1817)
- Herman Melville, Benito Cereno (1855)
- C.L.R. James, selections from The Black Jacobins (1938)
- Greg Grandin, The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World (2014)
- Primary source documents (in translation) related to the slave revolt on the Tryal in 1806
UNIT 2: England in 1819
- Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘England in 1819,’ ‘Prometheus Unbound,’ and A Philosophical View of Reform; John Keats, Ode to Psyche; Lord Byron, from Don Juan (all 1819)
- Walter Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor (1819)
- “The Scene of Reading in 1819” and selections from James Chandler, England in 1819: The Politics of Literary Culture and the Case of Romantic Historicism (1998)
- Mike Leigh dir., Peterloo (2018)
TERM 2
UNIT 3: India in 1857
- William Howard Russell, My Diary in India, In the Year 1858-9 (1859, repr. 2010)
- John William Kaye, The History of the Sepoy War in India, 1857-8 (1864-76) – excerpts
- Indian fiction in English, e.g. Soshee Chunder Dutt, Shunker (1885), G.A. Henty, ‘A Pipe of Mystery’ (1898)
- Tapti Roy, The Politics of a Popular Uprising: Bundelkhand in 1857 (1994)
- Karl Marx, “On Imperialism in India” (1853-1858)
UNIT 4: The Harlem Renaissance
- Alain Locke ed., The New Negro: An Interpretation (1925)
- Fire!! A Quarterly Devoted to Younger Negro Artists (1926)
- Nella Larsen, Quicksand (1928)
- Ma Rainey, “Prove It On Me Blues” (1928) and other selections
- W.E.B. DuBois, Dark Princess: A Romance (1928)
- Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series (1941)
TERM 3
UNIT 5: Global 1968 or 9/11
- Art Spiegelman, In the Shadow of No Towers (2003)
- Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007)
- Selections from The 9/11 Commission Report
Week 23: Module Review