Teaching code

4S010865

Academic staff

Annalisa Pes, Susanna Zinato

Coordinator

Annalisa Pes

Credits

6

Language

English

Scientific Disciplinary Sector (SSD)

L-LIN/10 - ENGLISH LITERATURE

Period

II semestre (Lingue e letterature straniere) dal Feb 19, 2024 al May 25, 2024.

Courses Single

Authorized

Lessons timetable Moodle Seminars 0

Learning objectives

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.

Prerequisites and basic notions

No preliminary skills are required to attend the course

Program

After introducing students to postcolonial studies and the main theoretical and critical contributions in this field, the module focuses on multiculturalism in contemporary Australian society by a close reading of the novel The Slap by Australian writer Christos Tsiolkas. Starting from the analysis of the suburban context (and the cultural meaning that suburbia has had in Australia) and of the multiethnic society deriving from a long and difficult history of migration through different generations, students’ attention will be focused on the process of construction of a transnational identity by exploring aspects like racism, social prejudice and complex attempts of integration/assimilation to a white and western national model that has been priviledged for a long time in the creation of a “White Australia”.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary text:
- C. Tsiolkas, The Slap (2008)
Critical References:
- N. Dunlop, “Suburban Space and Multicultural Identities in Christos Tsiolkas’s The Slap”, Antipodes, 30, 1, June 2016, pp. 5-16
Additional references for non-attending students:
- Svend Erik Larsen, “Memory, Migration and Literature”, European Review, vol. 24, 4, pp. 509-522
MODULE 2 (S. Zinato, 12 hrs, 2 cfu)
Through a close reading of Tanzanian Abdulrazak Gurnah’s sixth novel, By the Sea, the 12-hour second module will deal with African illegal diaspora in Britain, the nation-state still nostalgic about its imperial past. The story of its protagonist Saleh Omar, forcibly displaced from Zanzibar and seeking refuge in England, will focus the students’ attention on the condition of the asylum seeker, on the strategies of exclusion and inclusion of the host society, on the relationship between memory, story-telling and individual perception of history, and, most of all, on Gurnah’s problematizing of postmodern discourses of displacement as inherently resistant and creative.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary text:
-A. GURNAH, By the Sea (2001)
Critical References:
-S. Helff, “Illegal Diasporas and African Refugees in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea”, Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 2009, Vol.44 (1), 67-80.
Additional references for non-attending students:
-N. Brazzelli, “Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea: A Paradigmatic Novel on the Contemporary Diasporic Condition”, TEXTUS, 2013 (2), pp.117-134
-F. Hand, “Untangling Stories and Healing Rifts: Abdulrazak’s By the Sea”, Research in African Literatures, 2010, Vol. 41 (2), 74-92.
MODULES 1 e 2
Reference text of postcolonial studies:
-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).
Additional references for non-attending students:
-A. Loomba, "Colonial and Postcolonial identities" (ch.2, 104-183) in ID, "Colonialism/Postcolonialism", Routledge, 1998
- R. King, J. Connell, P. White (eds.), Writing Across Worlds. Literature and Migration, Routledge, 1995: ch.1 ("Geography, Literature and Migration"), pp.1-19.
The present syllabus is valid until the exam session of Winter 2025

Bibliography

Didactic methods

The course will be taught in English.
Supplementary teaching materials (slides, images, videos, other texts, etc.) discussed or suggested in class will be made available for download from the MOODLE e-repository. These contents do not substitute but complement the readings listed in the syllabus.

Learning assessment procedures

Oral exam in English.
Students may be required to read and comment on passages taken from primary texts.
There will be no mid-term tests.
Students will have to bring their primary texts at the exam

Evaluation criteria

Student will have to demonstrate:
1) the knowledge and comprehension of texts, authors, contents and of the historical and cultural context;
2) the ability to comment/analyze the literary texts in the syllabus with the aid of class notes and in the light of the main issues dealt with in the set critical references;
3) the use of an appropriate vocabulary and the ability to personally elaborate on the themes of both modules.

Criteria for the composition of the final grade

The final grade, awarded on a 30-point scale, will result from the average of the grades obtained in the assessment of each module, on the basis of the above-listed criteria.

Exam language

Inglese/English

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