English 391 - SEM:MODERN SOUTH ASIAN WRITERS

We study key texts in the diverse tradition of 20th- and 21st-century South Asian literature in English, from the early poet Sarojini Naidu to internationally acclaimed contemporary global and diasporic writers from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal. Topics include: the postcolonial fashioning of identities; Independence and Partition; women's interventions in nationalist discourses; the crafting of new English idioms; choices of genre and form; the challenges of historiography, trauma, memory; diaspora and the (re)making of "home;" life post-9/11 Islamophobia. Writers include: Anand, Narayan, Manto, Rushdie, Attia Hosain, Arundhati Roy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kiran Desai, Naqvi, Adiga, Upadhyay. Supplementary readings on postcolonial theory and criticism. By permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 12.

Instructor permission. Not open to first-years, sophomores