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Instructors: Prof. Agnes Whitfield
Event type:
online: Seminar
Displayed in timetable as:
05.874.522
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 20
Registration group: ELC 522
Priority scheme: Senatsrichtlinie
Contents:
Across the Anglophone world the short story has become a significant and much-practiced literary genre. From the classic short stories of the 19th century driven by antithesis to the polyphonic perspectives and indeterminate outcomes of Modernist stories at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the short story has proven to be incredibly adaptable, opening up to yet further transformations under the influence of post-modernism and post-colonialism.
With a focus on stories from Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Canada, this course will explore how short stories written in colonial or postcolonial contexts challenge key features of the classic and Modernist short story, including exoticization and dialogue, as they develop more elaborate representations of interactions among multi-faceted voices in contexts of political, social, cultural and inter-linguistic tensions.
Recommended reading list:
The corpus will be drawn from the works of well-known authors, including Chinua Achebe (Nigeria) and Nadine Gordimer (South Africa); Anita Desai (India) and Rabindranath Tagore (Bengal); and Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro and Pauline Johnson Tekahionwake (Canada).
Through close readings of their stories, students will learn more about these inspiring authors and the specific colonial and postcolonial contexts in which they wrote. At the same time, with reference to selected theoretical sources, students will enhance their understanding of what these literary texts can teach us about the notions of distance and dialogue through their reflections on the complex dynamics of communication among authors, readers, narrators, characters, context, and different social, cultural, and literary discourses.
Additional information:
The course pedagogy is learner-centred. Students will be encouraged to reflect on their own knowledge and point of view as readers and writers, to build on and enhance this knowledge through readings and discussions of short stories, and to incorporate theoretical concepts within a holistic approach to literary meaning.
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