 Department of English Language and Literature |
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Return to Graduate Schedule |
ENG 472-572.002: Contemporary Literature This section of Contemporary Literature will focus on the most recently released novels, their thematic issues and their preoccupations that connect with the events in our contemporary world. We will start with Ngugi wa Thiongo’s most recent and long awaited thousand page novel the Wizard of the Crow which deals not only with events in his homeland of Kenya and his own continuing exile, but with the state of African governments in general. We can also draw on some very contemporary films about other African nations such as Hotel Rwanda and Tsotsi. This book is offset by another political novel Edwidge Danticat’s Dew Breaker . Since Ngugi’s is a long novel we will spend at least 3 weeks on reading it. Other longer novels include Zadie Smith’s On Beauty and Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown. There will be other shorter works—such as perhaps work by Junot Diaz to go with the Edwidge Danticat.—to be announced closer to the time of the course. There will be some fairly simple discussion of postcolonial and feminist theory in relation to the novels. There will be three papers in this class—2 short reaction response papers and one longer research paper the lengths of which will vary by undergraduate or graduate credit required. The course is a chance to read some of the newest works in circulation. |
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