SoSe 22: S-Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures: Self, Other and Nation in Novels by E. M. Forster, M. R. Anand and R. Rao
Justus Conrad Gronau
Kommentar
This seminar discusses notions of the self, the other, and the nation in three novels set in the pre-Independence phase of India. In this context, the Indian English authors Raja Rao and Mulk Raj Anand have played a pivotal role in the development of the Indian novel written in English and the literary negotiation of Gandhian nationalism. Raja Rao’s first novel Kanthapura (1938) is regarded as one of the major landmarks in Indian English fiction, as it not only tries to “convey in a language that is not one’s own the spirit that is one’s own” (Rao) but also discusses, from the perspective of a Hindu elite, how the individual and communal Gandhian struggle for Independence influences a fictional village called Kanthapura. Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable (1935), however, adopts the perspective of the intranationally suppressed other by focusing on one day in the life of a sweeper and latrine cleaner, who belongs to the (former) caste of ‘untouchables’ (‘Dalit’, in today’s terminology). E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India (1924) represents an Indo-British encounter in colonial India, in which the interwoven discourses of nationality, ‘race’, gender, as well as religion and politics create tensions based on specific auto- and heterostereotypes. While providing an overview of the historical, political and social contexts of pre-Independence India, the course integrates the discussion of key concepts, theories and assumptions of postcolonial criticism into the close reading of the novels.
Course material will be provided on Blackboard. Please obtain the following editions of the novels:
- Anand, Mulk Raj. Untouchable. London: Penguin, 2014. ISBN: 9780141393605.
- Forster, E. M. A Passage to India. Ed. Oliver Stallybrass. London: Penguin, 2005. ISBN: 9780141441160.
- Rao, Raja. Kanthapura. Penguin Random House India, 2014. ISBN: 9780143422341.
14 Termine
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