World Literatures 280 - Historical Memory and the Global Novel

Hist Mem & Global Novel

Fall
2023
01
4.00
Torleif Persson

W 2:45 PM - 4:00 PM; M 3:05 PM - 4:20 PM

Smith College
WLT-280-01-202401
Seelye 211
tpersson@smith.edu
WLT 280-01, ENG 280-01
Offered as ENG 280 and WLT 280. This course explores the relationship between history and memory in a series of post-WW2 “global” novels, texts that somehow straddle or transcend national traditions and marketplaces. This course interrogates how art might ethically engage with—or seek refuge from—historical “events” such as colonial and post-colonial violence, total/nuclear war, authoritarian military coups, global terrorism, trans-Atlantic slavery and the Holocaust. Major course themes include the relationship between the personal and the historical, the national and the global, the generational transfer of trauma, feelings of guilt and complicity, and the idea of historical memory itself.
Permission is required for interchange registration during the add/drop period only.
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