Reading the Indian Ocean

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

National literatures (American, English, French, Indian) are becoming increasingly less coherent in a world of forced and voluntary migration, travel and global trade—our experiences are less and less confined to the boundaries of nations. But none of this is new—for centuries the Indian Ocean has seen slave transports, movements of migrant workers, trade between East Africa and West Asia, mostly driven by European and Muslim empires. In many ways, the regional economy and culture of the Indian Ocean was a precursor to latter-day globalization. In this class we will read a series of novels that emerge from and represent Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Egypt, Indonesia, India, and the waters that lie between them. Our focus will be on connections between the novels of the cosmopolitan world of the Indian Ocean and the legacies of global empires.