Making a Home in the Colonial City: Insights from Literature, Films, and History

Undergraduate / Graduate

The proposed course is an invitation to students to imagine the life-worlds, experiences, and spaces of the colonized populations of South Asia, particularly, from the perspective of city-dwellers. The objective of the course is three-fold: thematic, methodological, and epistemological. First, to introduce students to debates in colonial modernity using the narrative of the rise of modern cities in colonial India. Second, to equip students to handle different kinds of primary material in order to understand the interconnections between colonialism, urban space, and indigenous responses. Finally, to open up the exciting field of colonial and postcolonial studies to anyone interested in South Asia, its literature, its films, its history, and its people.