Post)Colonial societies, cultures, and literatures

The course is divided into two units.
a) (Post)Colonial Literatures in English
b) Postcolonial Societies and Cultures
(Post)Colonial Literatures in English: This course focuses on prose, poetry, and drama in the English language produced by Irish, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, Caribbean, Indian and African writers. Included amongst our topics of study will be works by familiar names like Jonathan Smith, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Catherine Mansfield, John McRae, Andrew Barton Paterson, E. M. Forster, George Orwell, Rabindranath Tagore, and Chinua Achebe. But our attention will focus also on contemporary writers who have won critical and popular attention, writers such as Seamus Heaney, A. M. Klein, Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Patrick White, Les Murray, Fleur Adcock, Keri Hulme, Anita Desai, Salman Rushdie, Jean Rhys, Louise Bennett, Derek Walcott, V. S. Naipaul, Wole Soyinka, Buchi Emecheta, Ben Okri, Doris Lessing, Nadine Gordimer, and J. M. Coetzee. We will consider these writers and their work in light of present-day cultural concerns in particular the place of the specific use of the English language and post-colonialism.
Postcolonial Societies and Cultures: Introduction; An overview of the English-speaking postcolonial world; Canada: Introduction, An overview of the regions, The political system, Linguistic situation; Ethnic groups; Australia: Introduction, An overview of the regions, The political system, Linguistic situation; Ethnic groups; New Zealand: Introduction, The political system, Linguistic situation; Ethnic groups; Ireland: Introduction, The political system, Linguistic situation; Ethnic groups; India; South Africa; the Caribbean; Postcolonial Africa; Postcolonial Asia; Malta, Gibraltar, Cyprus, the Pacific.