ENGL 265-03, The Postcolonial Short Story, Fall 2009

Abstract

This course examines short stories by writers from the former British colonies of India, Africa, the Caribbean, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. At its zenith, the British Empire held enormous sway over much of the globe, exerting linguistic, political, and cultural influence that continued beyond the formal dismantling of empire. In this course, we will read short stories that address the vexed legacies of colonization, grapple with the emergence of postcolonial identities, and explore the ongoing effects of colonialism on contemporary global culture. Since our focus is the short story, we will study the formal properties and conventions of this genre, with an eye to how postcolonial writers adapt this Western literary form to their own political and aesthetic purposes. To aid our analysis, we will work with concepts from postcolonial studies such as mimicry, Orientalism, hybridity, decolonization, and ambivalence. Writers will include Salman Rushdie, Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, V. S. Naipaul, Jamaica Kincaid, Margaret Atwood, James Joyce, Peter Carey, Witi Ihimaera, among others.