ENROLL

Arnab Chakladar

Authors from the colonies and ex-colonies of England have complicated our understandings of the locations, forms and indeed the language of the contemporary English novel. This course will examine these questions and the theoretical and interpretive frames in which these writers have often been placed, and probe their place in the global marketplace (and awards stage). We will read a number of major novelists of the postcolonial era from Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean and the diaspora as well as some of the central works of postcolonial literary criticism.

Prerequisite: One English foundations course and one additional 6 credit English course

Kofi Owusu

This seminar focuses on fictional masterpieces published since 2005. We will map out the threads of multiple storylines and track the variety of voices and dialects in Verghese's Cutting for Stone, Adichie's Americanah, and James's A Brief History of Seven Killings. The heft and scope of these three long narratives will be complemented by shorter, but equally multilayered, ones including Danticat's Claire of the Sea Light, Selasi's Ghana Must Go, Mengestu's The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, and Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Prerequisite: English 295 and one 300-level English course