New literatures in English (2020/2021)

Learning outcomes

The module, taught in English, aims at providing the students with interpretive skills and in-depth knowledge related 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 surrounding 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:
-NURUDDIN FARAH, "North of Dawn" (2018)
- CHRISTOS TSIOLKAS, "Barracuda" (2013)

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).
N. Farah, "Yesterday, Tomorrow. Voices from the Somali Diaspora", Cassell, 2000, pp.
-N. Midika Tembo, "Perceiving precarity and extremism in Nuruddin Farah's North of Dawn", articolo su Tydskrif Vir Letterkunde, Vol. 57, No.1 (2020) , pp. 96-105 available on internet ]
-Jessica Gildersleeve,"Christos Tsiolkas: the Utopian Vision". New York: Cambria. 2017 [CHAPTER 5 “Forgiveness”]-



SUPPLEMENTARY AND OBLIGATORY CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS

-A. Loomba, "Colonial and Postcolonial identities" (ch.2, 104-183) in ID, "Colonialism/Postcolonialism", Routledge, 1998
-V. Gerrand, "Trajectories of radicalization and resilience in Nuruddin Farah's North of Dawn", articolo su Tydskrif Vir Letterkunde, Vol. 57, No.1 (2020), pp.106-114) [reperibile su internet e caricato su moodle]
- R. King, J. Connell, P. White (eds.), Writing Across Worlds. Literature and Migration, Routledge, 1995: ch.1 ("Geography, Literature and Migration"), pp.1-19.
-V. Gerrand, "Trajectories of radicalization and resilience in Nuruddin Farah's North of Dawn", articolo su Tydskrif Vir Letterkunde, Vol. 57, No.1 (2020), pp.106-114) [available on internet]
-F. Hand, "Negotiating Boundaries in the Horn of Africa: Women in the Fiction of Nuruddin Farah", in M. Reif-Hulser (ed.), "Borderlands. Negotiating Boundaries in Post-Colonial Writing", Rodopi, 1999, pp.115-122
-Andrew McCann, "Christos Tsiolkas and the Fiction of Critique: Politics, Obscenity, Celebrity". London: Anthem Press. 2015 [CHAPTER 5 “The Politics of the Bestseller: The Slap and Barracuda”, pp. 111-132]

N.B.: students are recommended to provide themselves with the unabridged paperback version of the novels, which they will take with them at the exam session.

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.