SoSe 19: S-Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures: Postcolonial Studies II: Voices in Indian English Literature
Justus Conrad Gronau
Comments
In this seminar, we will read and critically discuss selected examples from post-independence Indian English literature. In one of his articles published in the Economic and Political Weekly in 1998, the Indian literary critic Makarand Paranjape argues that Indian English literature and its debate "is really a contest over the nature, identity, and, ultimately, destiny of modern India". To gain insight into the variety of voices in Indian English literature and its central topics including (post)colonialism, the nation vs the metropolis, independence, and cross-cultural interaction with the west, we shall not only study an Indian English novel and a drama but also several short stories and poems. At the same time, we will both understand and critically reflect on key concepts and assumptions of postcolonial criticism (e.g. identity/alterity, centre/margin, essentialism, hybridity, mimicry, orientalism, the subaltern, the diaspora). This includes the analyses of the economic, ideological, cultural, and aesthetic aftermath of British imperial rule, the formation of (post)colonial and diasporic identities, intercultural communication and translation, as well as strategies of subverting the often naturalised constructions of Western historiography and epistemology.
Students need to acquire (and read) the following novel: Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide (2004, ISBN: 9780007141784). Further course material will be made available at the beginning of the semester.
close12 Class schedule
Regular appointments