World Literatures In English (ENGL2047)
Semester 2 / 2011

Texts

y separately published work icon Remembering Babylon David Malouf , London Milsons Point : Chatto and Windus Random House , 1993 Z452447 1993 single work novel historical fiction (taught in 48 units)

'In the mid-1840s, a thirteen-year-old boy, Gemmy Fairley, is cast ashore in the far north of Australia and taken in by Aborigines. Sixteen years later, when settlers reach the area, he moves back into the world of Europeans, men and women who are staking out their small patch of home in an alien place, hopeful and yet terrified of what it might do to them.

Given shelter by the McIvors, the family of the children who originally made contact with him, Gemmy seems at first to be guaranteed a secure role in the settlement, but there are currents of fear and mistrust in the air. To everyone he meets - from George Abbot, the romantically aspiring young teacher, to Mr Frazer, the minister, whose days are spent with Gemmy recording the local flora; from Janet McIvor, just coming to adulthood and discovering new versions of the world, to the eccentric Governor of Queensland himself - Gemmy stands as a different kind of challenge, as a force which both fascinates and repels. And Gemmy himself finds his own whiteness as unsettling in this new world as the knowledge he brings with him of the savage, the Aboriginal.' - Publisher's blurb (Chatto & Windus, 1993).

Anil's Ghost Anil's Ghost!$!Ondaatje!$! !$!!$!
Where We Once Belonged!$!Figiel!$! !$!Kaya Production!$!
Prodigal!$!Walcott!$! !$!Faber and Faber!$!
Disgrace!$!JM Coetzee!$! !$!CCV!$!
Ceremony!$!Leslie Silko!$! !$!Pearson Education Limited!$!
The God of Small Things!$!Roy!$! !$!HarperCollins!$!

Description

This course is designed to provide an understanding of a range of recent world literatures in English. The particular countries, authors and genres covered will vary from year to year, depending on staff availability. We will focus on narrative fiction, but will sometimes also include drama, film and poetry. Here you will gain an understanding of literary works in both their local context and their global transformations. We will consider the key questions of postcolonial theory, assess the usefulness of key postcolonial concepts and concerns in relation to the set texts, and at the same time focus on the rich specificities of the selected literary works in order to answer for ourselves why so many of them have been so highly acclaimed internationally, and why each of them is worth studying.

Assessment

participation 10%, seminar presentation 15%, presentation report and annotated bibliography 25%, take-home exam 50%

Other Details

Current Campus: North Terrace
Levels: Undergraduate
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