ENGL 376 - Postcolonial Literature and Theory

FDR: HL Literature Distribution
Credits: 3

Prerequisite: an English course numbered between 201 and 295 and another English course numbered between 222 and 299. This course is an introduction to some of the key concepts and debates in postcolonial theory, with an emphasis on anti-colonial literature and thought. The course poses three main questions that have shaped the field as we know it: 1. When and where is the “postcolonial”? 2. What relationship is there, if any, between the postcolonial and the anti-colonial? And 3. Does the “post-” in “postcolonial” indicate any sort of futurity, and if so, what do these futures look like? These broad concepts about temporality, revolution and futurity are grounded in the study of key theoretical texts, including the works of Frantz Fanon and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and in novels and poems, including those by Jamaica Kincaid and Suzanne Cesaire.