Post-Colonial Literature – I

Paper Code: 
25ENG323(B)
Credits: 
04
Periods/week: 
04
Max. Marks: 
100
Objective: 

The Course will enable the students to identify key questions and literary forms, situate the selected texts in the larger cultural context, develop coherent knowledge of the key historical, cultural and theoretical developments in postcolonial literature

 

Course Outcomes: 

The students will:

CO85.  Demonstrate a critical understanding of colonial and postcolonial histories, especially the socio-political dynamics of race, class, gender, and ethnicity

CO86. Evaluate the legacies of colonialism, by interrogating the presence of colonial history and structures of domination

CO87. Explore diverse and relevant sources of study, to understand the politics of race and nationalism

CO88. Investigate the questions of history, modernity, identity and language in postcolonial literature

CO89. Develop skills to compare and contrast themes, expressions, and strategies of political and cultural representation of resistance with reference to socio-historical contexts

CO90.  Contribute effectively to course-specific interaction.
 

 

12.00
Unit I: 

Mulk Raj Anand

Untouchable

 

12.00
Unit II: 

Salman Rushdie

Shalimar the Clown

 

12.00
Unit III: 

Chinua Achebe

Things Fall Apart

 

12.00
Unit IV: 

Amitav Ghosh

The Hungry Tide

 

12.00
Unit V: 

Wole Soyinka

Death and the King’s Horseman

 

SUGGESTED READINGS: 

Suggested Readings

Fanon, Frantz.The Wretched of the Earth. Penguin Books, 2001.

Hutchings, Francis. The Illusion of Permanence: British Imperialism in India. Princeton University,1967.

Innes,C.L., and L.B.eds. Reinmann. Critical Perspectives on Chinua Achebe. Three Continents Press,1979.

Said, Edward W. Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient. Penguin Books, 2001.

Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. Routledge, 1989.

Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism. Routledge, 1998.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. James Currey, 1986.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, University of Illinois Press, 1988, pp. 271–313.

 

e-resources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHNF4ThCmwY (Anand)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKgDzfTBsug (Rushdie)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHF_w0gkyiI (Achebe)

British Library: Discovering Literature. The British Library. https://www.bl.uk/discovering-literature

MLA Humanities Commons – Postcolonial Studies Group. Modern Language Association. https://humanitiescommons.org/groups/postcolonial-studies

Postcolonial Studies @ Emory. Emory University. https://postcolonialstudies.emory.edu

Postcolonial Text. Open Access Journal. https://postcolonial.org

 

Journals:

Ariel: A Review of International English Literature

Commonwealth: Essays and Studies

 

Academic Year: 
2025-2026