123227 SE Literature Seminar / BA Paper / MA British/Irish/New English (2017S)

The module develops critical and research skills in the areas of contemporary studies on post-colonial literature, feminism and urban spaces. This course explores literary representations of the city in Postcolonial Literature. Notably, the exploration of the relation between the individual and mass, and between city and citizen; the ways in which postcolonial fictional representations of the city both appropriate and modify the urban thematics of Euro-American literature and re-figure the relations of antagonism and power between global and local urban space, in addition to representations of gendered urban spaces. Structured around three inter-related sections 'Postcolonial London', 'Writing British Asian Cities' and 'Global Cities/Multi-localities', it explores how London and other British cities were transformed both demographically and imaginatively by migration particularly as a consequence of Britain's imperial legacy. The final section Global Cities/Multi-localities focuses on postcolonial literary representations of other global cities in the global south.

Week 1: Introduction to Writing Global Cities [city poems distributed in class]

Week 2: 'Postcolonial London' - Andrea Levy, "Small Island" (2004)

Week 3: 'Postcolonial London' - Kureishi's "Buddha of Suburbia"
Read novel and Sandhu chapter on Kureishi before Week 3

Week 4: 'Postcolonial London' - Kureishi's "Buddha of Suburbia"
Read Mcleod chapter 'Postcolonial London'

Weeks 5-6: 'Writing British Asian Cities' - Kureishi's short story 'My Son the Fanatic' and 'Bradford' (both on moodle)
You will need to buy/borrow the text of the screenplay and watch it before class this week.

Weeks 7-8: 'Global Cities/Multi-localities' - Jhumpa Lahiri's short stories "Interpreter of Maladies" and other extracts to be provided

Weeks 9-10: Essay Presentations/Guidance