er VIII: Contemporary Literature

The all-inclusive title of this course specifically entails the ‘discovery’ and ‘exploration’ of non-Eurocentric literature covering the Novel, Poetry and Drama from Africa, Latin America, Canada and a volcanic Italian counter-culture. The central problematic of the course is how this literature radically deploys the tropes of ‘discovery’ and ‘exploration,’ which undermine the violence of such tropes used in the colonialist project. During the period of study indicated above, we will go through the poetry of Margaret Atwood, Derek Walcott and Pablo Neruda, together with novels by Chinua Achebe, Marquez and Nadine Gordimer. Two plays by Ngugi and Dario Fo complete our main focus of study. Our more literary reading of their work will be supported by prescribed prose excerpts, mainly drawn from writings on colonial and post-colonial issues.

Co-curricular prose writings considered will include, among others, extensive references to contemporary classics like George Lamming’s The Pleasures of Exile, Michael Ondaatje’s Running in the Family, Neruda’s Memoirs. Theoretical issues to be discussed with reference to the work of Walter Benjamin, Foucault, Roland Barthes, Theodor Adorno, Mary L. Pratt and Edward Said will address the following topics: the novel and traditional storytelling, oral and print culture, Nature and the (post)colonial gaze, the concept of the author.