ENGL 6732

The Global South Novel and World Literature

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2016-2017.

The driving dialectic in post-colonial studies has been the colonizer/colonized, or the Third World vs. the West. But slowly the field is letting go of this "arrested dialectic" and in its place various triangulations are emerging: e.g. transnationalism, world literature, the global novel, and global south literary studies. Starting with a walk through the emerging theoretical concepts of world/global/transnational literature, we will primarily focus on a global south reading of African literature (itself a contested term), and perennial questions around language and translation. Specifically we will look at how writers such as Sol T Plaatje, V.S. Naipul, NoViolet Bulawayo, MG Vassanji, and Aminatta Forna challenge the post-colonial discourse and how a global south reading provides a uncomfortable conversation with transnational and world literature theories and concepts.

When Offered Spring.

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