New literatures in English (2019/2020)

Learning outcomes

The module, taught in English, aims at providing the stu-dents with interpretive skills and in-depth knowledge re-lated to the main themes and theoretical issues that qualify colonial and postcolonial literature in English.
This will be done through a close reading of the set texts, chosen for their representative force and analyzed in their textual dynamics, in a wide diachronic perspective that, nonetheless, fully takes into account the specifics of their contexts.The broader gaol is to stimulate the students to develop their competence in critically approaching the texts and the historical, political and cultural dynamics underlying them.

At the end of the module the students will be able to:
-read and interpret postcolonial literary texts by structuring ideas and concepts with argumentative skill;
-comment on the texts in such a way as to demonstrate an in-depth knowledge of the theoretical debate sur-rounding them.

WRITING MIGRATION

The module will provide the students with the opportunity to engage in close reading, interpretation, and discussion of two postcolonial texts crucially involving the issue of migration and its thematic inflections (identity, belonging, racism, nation/border).
First part of the module taught by prof. Susanna Zinato, second part by prof. Annalisa Pes

A) TEXTS:
-Nadine Gordimer, The Pickup (2001)
- A. Levy, Small Island (2004)

B) CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY:
-T. Ashcroft, G. Griffiths, and H. Tiffin (eds.), The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures,
Routledge, 1989: Introduction, ch.2 (Replacing language: textual Strategies in Postcolonial Writing"), ch. 5 (Replacing Theory: Postcolonial Writing and Literary Theory).
- B. Lebdai, "Nadine Gordimer's The Pickup: Immigration/Emigration in Today's World", pp.105-114, in A Sea for Encounters. Essays Towards a Postcolonial Commonwealth, S. Borg Barthet (ed.), Rodopi, 2009.OR, ALTERNATIVELY:
I. Dimitriu, "Postcolonializing Gordimer:The Ethics of 'Beyond' and Significant Peripheries in the Recent Fiction", article in "English in Africa", Vol.33, No.2 (2006):159-180 (uploaded on Moodle, also downloadable from Jstor)
-C. Duboin, "Contested Identities: Migration Stories and Liminal Selves in Adrea Levy's 'Small Island', "Obsidian Literature in the African Diaspora", Vol. 12, No. 1 (2011), pp.14-33.


SUPPLEMENTARY AND OBLIGATORY CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS
-E. Boehmer, Colonial & Postcolonial Literature, Oxford UP, 1995: ch.s 1, 5
- R. King, J. Connell, P. White (eds.), Writing Across Worlds. Literature and Migration, Routledge, 1995: ch.1 ("Geography, Literature and Migration"), pp.1-19.
- M. J. Cloete, "A study of Identity in post-apartheid South African English Literature: 'The Pickup' by Nadine Gordimer", articolo in "Liberator", 26 , No.1 (April 2005):49-67 (uploaded on Moodle, also to be found on internet web in pdf)
- K. Evelyn, "Claiming a Space in the Thought-I-Knew-You-Place: Migrant Domesticity, Diaspora, and Home in Andrea Levy's Small Island", "South Athlantic Review", Vol. 78, No. 3/4 (2013), pp.129-149.

Oral exam, on the discussed topics and on the scheduled texts (A+B).
The students sitting for the exam are to take their own primary (A) texts with them.