New literatures in English (2010/2011)

Learning outcomes

The course aims at making the student familiar with the main themes and theoretical issues characterizing colonial and postcolonial literatures in English. This is done through an in-depth analysis of representative texts that are studied in their textual dynamics through a wide diacronic view but with a special care for their specific contexts.

Cambiare le regole o cambiare il gioco?Intertestualità, canone e narrativa postcoloniale
Di seguito a un segmento di lezioni introduttive alla disciplina, il modulo intende guidare gli studenti lungo un percorso di studio, diacronico e comparativo, delle dinamiche intertestuali di tre romanzi, tratti dalle aree caraibica e sudafricana,- Wide Sargasso Sea, Water with Berries, Foe - particolarmente rappresentativi quanto al processo postcoloniale di interrogazione della politica testuale dell’Impero e di problematizzazione del concetto di canonicità.
SYLLABUS
Changing the Rules or Changing the Game? Intertextuality, the Canon, and Post-colonial Fiction
After introducing the discipline, this module aims at guiding the students through a diacronic and comparative study of the intertextual dynamics famously exploited by three novels drawn from the Caribbean and South-African areas – Wide Sargasso Sea, Water with Berries, Foe - that are particularly representative as to the quintessentially postcolonial interrogation of the Empire’s textual policy and more broadly, of canon formation.

BIBLIOGRAFIA
Testi primari
- J.Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)
- G. Lamming, Water with Berries (1971)
- J.M. Coetzee, Foe (1986)


Testi secondari
- F. Fanon, “The Fact of Blackness”, in L. Beck and J. Solomos (eds.), Theories of Race and Racism. A Reader, Routledge, 2000,
- M. Frickey (ed.), Critical Perspectives on Jean Rhys, Three Continent Press, 1990:
M. Thorpe, “The Other Side: Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre”, 178-185;
J. Hearne, “The Wide Sargasso Sea: A West Indian Reflection”, 186-193;
K. Ramchand, “Wide Sargasso Sea”, 194-205

- P. Hulme, “The locked heart: the creole family romance of Wide Sargasso Sea”, in F. Barker, P.Hulme, M. Iversen (eds.), Colonial Discourse/Postcolonial Theory, Manchester U.P., 1994, pp.72-88
- G. Lamming, “A Monster, a Child, a Slave” in The Pleasures of Exile, The University of Michigan Press, 1986/2004,pp.95-117

- M.A. Skura, “Discourse and the Individual: the case of Colonialism in The Tempest”, Shakespeare Quarterly, 40 (1),, Spring 1989: 42-57

- R. Nixon, “Caribbean and African Appropriations of The Tempest”, Critical Enquiry, 13, Spring 1987:557-73

- S. Nair, Caliban’s Curse. George Lamming and the Revising of History, The University of Michigan Press, 1996, pp.55-76

- P. Hulme, “Robinson Crusoe and Friday”, in Colonial Encounters, Methuen, 1986, pp.184-189, 200-208

- D. Attridge, “The Silence of the Canon”, in J.M. Coetzee and the Ethics of Reading, The University of Chicago Press, 2004, ch.3 (pp.65-90)

Manuali
Il manuale di riferimento è:
B. Ashcroft, G. Griffiths, H. Tiffin (eds.), The Empires Writes Back. Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures, Routledge, 1989, specificamente: “Introduction” (1-13); chapter 2 “Re-placing language: textual strategies in post-colonial writing” (38-59); chapter 5 pp.181-194.

Altri sussidi bibliografici di riferimento generale (facoltativi):
B. Ashcroft, G. Griffiths, H. Tiffin (eds.), Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies, Routledge, 1998
E. Benson, L.W. Connolly (eds.), The Routledge Encyclopedia of Post-colonial Literatures in English, 2005



Bibliografia suppletiva per gli studenti non frequentanti
- A. Loomba, “Situating Colonial and Postcolonial Studies”, in Colonialism/Postcolonialism, Routledge, 1998, pp.1-94
- S. Pouchet Paquet, “Foreword” (vi-xxvi), in G. Lamming, The Pleasures of Exile (vedi sopra)
- E. Savory, Jean Rhys, Cambridge U.P., 1998, chapter 6 (113-151)
- S. Van Zanten Gallagher, “Waiting for the Other: Foe” in A Story of South Africa. J.M. Coetzee’s Fiction in Context, Harvard U.P., 1991
o, in alternativa,
D. Head, “The Maze of Doubting: Foe”, in J.M. Cotzee,Cambridge U.P., 1997, pp.112-28

Informazioni relative al materiale bibliografico e al suo reperimento saranno fornite all’inizio del corso.

Assessment at the end of the course through oral examination.