World Literature in English
Term 1
MWF, 1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
“Strange how unimportant eyebrows can be, so long as there are two of them,” says the omniscient narrator about Gemmy in Remembering Babylon, perhaps arguing for how obvious or natural conformity of behavior and visual similarity are to belonging, and inciting an examination of the mechanisms, criteria and actions by which we do belong or feel at home. Through our investigation of four core texts (Zakes Mda’s Ways of Dying, Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost, Andrea Levy’s Small Island, and David Malouf’s Remembering Babylon) – set in the post-colonial/post-empire countries of South Africa, Sri Lanka, Jamaica and Britain, and Australia, respectively – we’ll discuss the role of outsiders (or ‘the other’) in modes of belonging and versions of home, and more importantly, come to some understandings of how the ideas of Empire – difference, the unknown, race, among others – inform and construct place-specific belonging. We’ll watch the Masterpiece Theater production of Small Island too (yay!). You’ll be evaluated chiefly by a midterm, a final paper, and a final exam, but also through a couple of smaller one-page assignments.
