Learning outcomes

The course will deal with important aspects of English culture by offering a critical reading and analysis of literary and filmic texts involving strong contextual implications.

Program

SYLLABUS
Transactions of Englishness
After giving an historical-contextual introduction, by reading and elaborating on the chosen texts students will be made familiar with the literary and, more broadly, cultural definition of English identity or “Englishness” through an analysis of the rhetorical and ideological dynamics of its construction, codification, fragmentation and redefinition from the heyday of British imperialism to the period witnessing its loss of power, de-colonization and the so-called “reverse colonization”.
N.B.Non-attending students are required to follow the primary text and reference lists recommended to attending students and to complement it with the supplementary reference list given below.


BIBLIOGRAFIA/BIBLIOGRAPHY
Testi primari/Primary sources
- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India (1924), si consiglia l’edizione Penguin
- Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners (1956), si consiglia l’edizione Penguin con introduzione di Susheila Nasta
- Hanif Kureishi, “My Son the Fanatic”, in Love in a Blue Time, Faber and Faber, 1997;
My Beautiful Laundrette and The Rainbow Sign, Faber and Faber, 1986;
N.B. La visione del film di S. Frears "My Beautiful Laundrette" costituirà parte integrante del corso

Testi secondary/Secondary sources
- Kenneth C. Kaleta, "Films with Frears: My Beautiful Laundrette and Sammie and Rosie Get Laid" (pp.39-61) in Hanif Kureishi: Postcolonial Storyteller, University of Texas Press, 1998
- A. Dawson, Mongrel Nation, The University of Michigan Press, 2007 (i capitoli “Colonization in Reverse. An Introduction”, pp. 1-26; “In the Big City the Sex Life Gone Wild”. Migration, Gender and Identity in Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners”, pp. 27-48)
- D. Bradshaw (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to E.M. Forster, CUP, 2007 (cap. 12 “A Passage to India”, pp. 188-208)

Bibliografia supplettiva per studenti non frequentanti
- A. Marzola (a c. di) Englishness, Carocci, 1999 (Cap. 5 “Ricostruzioni. 1950-1970”, pp. 197-212; Cap. 6 “Il neoliberismo e le strategie del consenso. 1970-1990”, pp. 249-257; Cap. 7.4 “Multietnie e postcolonialismo”, pp. 308-316)
- S. Manferlotti, Dopo l’Impero. Romanzo ed etnia in Gran Bretagna, Liguori, 1995 (cap. 4 "Hanif Kureishi", pp. 143-159)
- M. Looker, Atlantic Passages, Peter Lang, 1996 (“Preface”, pp. ix-x; “Introduction”, pp. 1-20; “Inventing Black London: The Lonely Londoners”, pp. 59-80)
- I. Baucom, Out of Place, Princeton UP, 1999 (il cap. “The Path from War to Friendship: E.M. Forster’s Mutiny Pilgrimage”, pp. 101-134)

Examination Methods

Oral and/or written exam