ENGLISH 113

Global South: New World Texts

Please note: this is archived course information from 2021 for ENGLISH 113.

Description

Global South: New World Texts introduces cross-disciplinary study of transnational texts in English from the Global South, with a focus on prose and poetry from the Caribbean and the South Pacific. In both regions, the local history of writing is extensive and includes notable texts that reflect diverse cultural origins, but also a sharp sense of the new. These literatures are shaped in part by a shifting engagement with colonial histories and the implications of new languages, religions and political structures, as well as warfare and slavery.

This course centres on work from writers within the Global South, and on texts that are written in English, but speak of local forms of culture that incorporate European inheritances and archipelagic experience. Most of the authors studied are contemporary. Aotearoa writers range from indigenous trailblazers (Witi Ihimaera) to Māori writers of poetry, short fiction and creative nonfiction. Alongside these writers we will read Samoan novelist Sia Figiel, and the celebrated diasporic Caribbean writers Jamaica Kincaid (Antigua/US) and David Chariandy (Trinidad/Canada).

The course explores local varieties of the cosmopolitan, tensions between and within cultures, and changing currents in interpreting ‘global culture’ through literature in English. Students will be introduced to a body of theory that interrogates postcolonial, decolonial and migratory experiences; develop skills in critical reading and writing; and gain greater understanding of regional and global issues, histories and artistic production.

*This course will be adapted in 2021 due to staff changes. Please consult Canvas for updates.

Availability 2021

Semester 2

Lecturer(s)

Lecturer(s) Dr Claudia Marquis
Dr Selina Tusitala Marsh
Dr Paula Morris
Coordinator(s) Dr Tru Paraha

Reading/Texts

Nil

Assessment

Coursework +exam

Points

ENGLISH 113: 15 points