Space, Place, and Identity in Postcolonial Fiction (O)

3 ch (3S) (W) · Undergraduate

Examine contemporary postcolonial novels from Africa, the Caribbean, South Asia, Australia, the UK, and Canada. Through brief lectures, class discussion, presentations, and short secondary readings, learn how these fictions engage imaginiatively with ideas of space, place, identity, and related concepts such as land, nation, boundary, territory, migration, exile, home, dwelling, enviornment, and self. A recurring theme is displacement: the experience of characters who are forcibly, voluntarily, or otherwise moved from familiar surroundings and prompted to re-establish their identities and renegotiate relations with others. Readings include historical novels and ones set in the present or future, as well as a mix of realistic and more fantastical or speculative narratives. NOTE: Open to ENGL Honours Students.