Fall 2004

HUMS 633
World Literature

Karamcheti,Indira

09/13/2004 - 12/18/2004
Wednesday 06:00 PM - 08:30 PM

Olin Library 327B

The last half of the 20th century has seen the establishment of a literary canon of classics from many places in the Third World: India, Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. Some authors have become not only recognizable to, but indispensable for, the educated First World reader: Chinua Achebe, Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipaul, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Bharati Mukherjee are certainly some of these authors. How do these authors shape their worlds and what issues concern them? What in their works and formal methods appeals so much to the readers of the First World? In this regard, we will consider how canons come to be: what are the criteria by which certain books are selected to become classics?

We will explore such works as Achebe's THINGS FALL APART, Rushdie's MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN,Naipaul's A HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS, and Garcia Marquez's ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE, among others. These are big books, in all senses of the term, "baggy monsters," as some would call them. We will also read some of the newer, up-and-coming writers, including Jhumpa Lahiri and Nuruddin Farah. We will read and discuss these works, as well as selected articles on canons and the idea of the classic.

Students will write two short papers and design a final project in consultation with the instructor.


Indira Karamcheti B.A., M.A., Ph.D. University of California, Santa Barbara) is associate professor of English and American Studies. Her teaching and research interests include postcolonial literature and theory, the literature of the South Asian diaspora, and the writing of ethnic and racial minorities in the U.S. She has written on such authors as Salman Rushdie, Anita Desai, Simone Schwarz-Bart, and Aime Cesaire. Click here for more information about Indira Karamcheti and click here for more information about her work.

ENROLLMENT INFORMATION

Consent of Instructor Required: No

Format: Seminar

Level: GLSP Credits: 3 Enrollment Limit: 18

Texts to purchase for this course:
Nuruddin Farah, LINKS (Penguin), Paperback

Keri Hulme, THE BONE PEOPLE (Penguin), Paperback

Brick Lane, MONICA ALI (Scribner), Paperback

Najeib Mahfeuz, PALACE WALK (Doubleday), Paperback

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE (Harper), Paperback

V.S. Naipaul, A HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS (Knopf), Paperback

R.K. Narayan, THE GUIDE (Penguin), Paperback

Ben Okri, THE FAMISHED ROAD (Random House), Paperback

Salman Rushdie, MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN (Penguin), Paperback

Vikram Seth, A SUITABLE BOY (Harper), Paperback

READING MATERIALS AVAILABLE AT BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 BROAD STREET, MIDDLETOWN, 860-685-7323

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